marvyn-reads - Tumblr blog

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

編者按：5月25日，號稱歐盟「史上最嚴」的數據保護法GDPR正式生效，成為中國科技企業出海必須通過的「窄橋」。多年來，在相關法律語焉不詳、隱私保護觀念淡薄的大環境下，中國互聯網科技企業坐享龐大數據生成的發展動力，卻鮮少在保護用戶個人數據上付出努力。一部境外法規的落成，會給野心勃勃、走出國門的中國企業帶來什麼改變？又會對日後的立法、科技發展產生哪些影響？科技媒體極客公園採訪到數家科技公司，嘗試在報道中回答上述問題。

本文得到極客公園授權轉載，原標題為《面對史上最嚴數據保護法案，「重災區」在何處？中國科技企業又該如何應對？》，略有刪節。

上週，布魯塞爾的歐洲議會室裏瀰漫著草木皆兵的緊張氛圍，扎克伯格開始接受新一輪的盤問——這次是歐盟機構。三天後，歐盟的《通用數據保護條例》（General Data Protection Regulation，以下簡稱GDPR）正式上路，扎克伯克的「微笑戰術」將不再管用。

這部歐盟「史上最嚴」數據保護法案在 5 月 25 日正式生效，因其適用範圍最廣、定責條例最嚴、處罰金額最昂貴的「三最」引起各方的高度關注。「GDPR 為未來十年的全球數據保護定下了基礎，它幾乎對科技公司用個人數據來賺錢的所有環節進行了規定和限制。」《連線》雜誌對其評價。

GDPR 對個人資產的定義進行了非常廣泛地覆蓋，「除個人電話號碼、地址、健康資料、電子信箱等之外，像是指紋、人臉識別、視網膜掃描、線上辨識碼以及線上定位資料，如 Cookie、IP 位置、行動裝置 ID 等，全都納入個資範疇。」安侯法律事務所執行顧問翁士傑分析道。

就影響範圍而言，GDPR 不僅適用在歐盟設立子公司或分公司的企業，也適用所有處理歐盟居民個人資料的歐盟境外企業。這意味着，企業規模無論大小，橫跨服務、科技、製造、金融產業，都無可避免會受到影響。

奧地利運動人士Max Schrems以違法運作為由，分別對谷歌（Google）的安卓系統、臉書（Facebook）及其旗下的 Instagram（IG）和 WhatsApp 的子公司提起訴訟。若歐洲的監管機構定性成違法，谷歌的母公司 Alphabet 最高將面臨 37 億歐元罰款。攝：Chesnot/Getty Images

靴子落地：閃轉騰挪還是直面應對？

從 2016 年至今，歐盟已經預留了足足兩年的時間給相關企業進行過渡和調整。但如今，當真金白銀的罰款數額公布後，很多公司還是一片手忙腳亂。

根據數據分析公司 SAS 的調研，全球僅有不到一半的企業（49%）表示他們能按期達到 GDPR 的合規要求。不少小公司由於缺乏資源和指導，仍然處於觀望狀態。為避免違規風險，一些企業甚至選擇在歐洲暫停訪問。直接營銷協會（DMA）研究也發現，只有 15％的營銷人員相信他們的業務符合 GDPR。

果不其然，法案生效的第一天，Facebook 和谷歌便遭到了起訴。

奧地利運動人士施倫斯（Max Schrems）以違法運作為由，分別對谷歌（Google）的安卓系統、臉書（Facebook）及其旗下的 Instagram（IG）和 WhatsApp 的子公司提起訴訟，一共四起。

在訴狀中，施倫斯表示，這些服務要求使用者只能接受強制的隱私權條款，否則必須完全放棄使用，違反了 GDPR 讓民眾可自由選擇是否允許企業使用他們的個人資料。

訴訟要求法國、比利時、德國和奧地利的監管機構對這幾家公司進行罰款。根據 GDPR 的規定，違反該法律的公司將面臨最高 2000 萬歐元或全球年度營業額 4% 的罰款（兩者取其高）。

按此規則計算，若歐洲的監管機構定性成違法，谷歌的母公司 Alphabet 將面臨最高 37 億歐元罰款，Facebook 及其兩家子公司 WhatsApp 和 Instagram 分別面臨最高 13 億歐元罰款，��金額逼近反壟斷法的處罰力度。

此前，業界估計歐盟一年內收到的罰金可能達到 60 億美金（51 億歐元）。現在看來，這個數字很可能被低估了。

隱私維權人士憤憤不平提起訴訟，數據保護監管機構也正準備揮起執法大棒。

歐盟最高隱私監管負責人本週警告稱，可能會很快有企業遭到處罰。新上任的的歐洲信息保護委員會 (European Data Protection Board) 負責人 Andrea Jelinek 表示：可以肯定的是，這根本不用等到幾個月之後。

人心惶惶的不只有國際巨頭，中國廠商的動作和回應也變得積極起來。

今年 4 月份，QQ 國際版就已經在歐洲暫停運作。公告顯示，歐洲地區將在升級到下一個版本之後才能恢復使用，但並未就具體上線時間做出說明。

「早在 2014 年，小米就成立了隱私委員會，和官方認證機構展開隱私保護相關業務。到 2016 年，MIUI 操作系統和小米網的國內版和國際版都得到了 TRUSTe 隱私認證。」小米首席架構師、人工智能與雲平台副總裁崔寶秋博士在接受第一財經採訪時表示。

儘管如此，小米旗下生態鏈企業的小米智能燈（YeeLight）還是因為無法及時符合 GDPR 法規而被迫關閉服務。當智慧燈泡一秒退化成普通燈泡，有人懷疑是因為該電燈會記錄使用者的開關燈記錄。

Yeelight CEO 姜兆寧則在回覆中否認了此行為，並表示關閉數據服務是基於 GDPR 對於非歐盟地區公司的 API 測試規定所致，只是暫時下線。

小米旗下生態鏈企業的小米智能燈（YeeLight）因為無法及時符合 GDPR 法規而被迫關閉服務。令人關注物聯網企業在數據蒐集的合規性上，其中可能涉及到智能家居、智能機器人、無人機、智能穿戴等一眾中國創業公司。攝：Imagine China

這讓問題開始聚焦於物聯網企業在數據蒐集的合規性上，其中可能涉及到智能家居、智能機器人、無人機、智能穿戴等一眾中國創業公司。

「大疆在歐洲市場的一切運行正常。我們和數據打交道，但我們並不會涉及到數據隱私或者「個人數據」，」大疆公關總監謝闐地向極客公園表示，「數據處理都在本地進行。」

而事實上，去年大疆曾受到美國陸軍（US Army）關於「網絡安全漏洞」的指控，還一度要求各部門停用大疆無人機。隨後，由美國國家海洋和大氣管理局 (NOAA) 出具的數據安全報告，確認大疆無人機在飛行途中沒有收集任何數據，才得以讓指控平息。

在這個案例中，大疆主要通過第三方的數據機構來調查證明企業的數據安全問題。

目前，為配合低空飛行監管，所屬美國和中國地區的無人機用戶已經強制實行實名認證。面向歐洲市場，大疆方面表示，實名制的執行將根據每個國家甚至國家中不同省份地區的要求確定，大疆以配合為主。

對於用戶的飛行軌跡等數據，大疆方面回應，除非是用戶主動提交做飛行分析，否則不會觸碰該類數據。憑藉多年的海外市場實戰經驗，大疆在面向比國內更為嚴苛的市場環境時顯得更加自如。

在極客公園與優必選、出門問問等相對更為年輕的創業公司就如何應對 GDPR 進行交流時，他們的應對策略和態度更為積極和主動——主要採取多管齊下的方式，包括從設計流程，業務運營以及關鍵硬件等三個方面入手。

首先，為了應對 GDPR 更為嚴苛的新規，公司在運營層面都迅速成立了專題項目組，包括由專門高管擔任 DPO（數據保護官員），同時加強相關人員的教育，提高數據保護意識。

在 GDPR 的細則中已經提到，相關公司必須設立 DPO 崗位。如果組織是公共機構，正在進行需要定期或系統監控的加工業務，或者有大規模的加工活動時，這點更加重要。

在產品設計流程層面，出門問問 CEO 李志飛向極客公園表示，公司已經從數據加密、脱敏及分類分級管理上開展了相應措施。在產品設計上需要進行特定優化，以保證用戶可以實現 GDPR 要求的用戶權利，比如刪除、更正用戶信息、撤回同意等。

談到 GDPR 落地後對於公司在歐洲市場的影響，優必選 CEO 周劍對極客公園表示，「在合作伙伴的篩選過程中將更加嚴格，要求合作伙伴在涉及到相關條例時也必須合規。」

合作伙伴的調整必將在一定程度上影響原有的市場推進效率，周劍認為，這是實施全球化戰略必須要經歷的。

「GDPR 對公司在歐洲市場的運營一定會有影響，」李志飛介紹道，比如原來的 opt-out 需要變成 opt-in 模式；對用戶權利的保護上更加全面了，比如說需要提供通道給用戶刪除其信息以實現 GDPR 的被遺忘權。

根據業內不具名的人士分析，在涉及到物聯網、互聯網這種本身存在數據生意的領域，使用一些通用協議的廠商需要等待更新。而使用私有協議，或者說自主技術的公司則不會有太多影響。即便有確實需要調整的，調整自己的協議也是很快的。

對於準備積極投身全球市場的互聯網企業而言，國內過於野蠻生長的市場環境和「中國式」的快節奏發展實際上掩蓋了很多問題和漏洞。

「像是以前國內軟件廠商推行的全民開機時間 PK，在歐洲是不可想像的，因為那完全涉及到個人隱私。國內很多博噱頭的運營方式在歐盟新規下就未必合適了。」

可以說，GDPR 對數據隱私的部分保護條款甚至有違背我們的「常理」，而這又是出海企業不得不面對的問題，否則只能放棄歐盟市場，所以才更值得企業的領導層面以及產品業務的設計者重視和學習。

對於用戶的飛行軌跡等數據，大疆方面回應，除非是用戶主動提交做飛行分析，否則不會觸碰該類數據。憑藉多年的海外市場實戰經驗，大疆在面向比國內更為嚴苛的市場環境時顯得更加自如。攝：Imagine China

「重災區」

更新後的 GDPR 法案長達 91 個條文，共 204 頁，我們很難在此一一贅述。參考專業人士分析，前中國移動業務支撐系統部經理、通信行業老兵寧宇在其個人主頁上的分析，GDPR 影響最為重要的約束包括兩個方面：

其一，根據 GDPR 的要求，處理個人數據必須要有合法理由和方式，而對於"合法"的定義非常嚴苛。

除了拓寬「個人數據」的範圍、並將高度保護個人隱私的「數據可攜權」和「被遺忘權」明確寫入法條之外，GDPR 還強調了數據保護要由「屬地」向「屬人」轉變。

這意味着，條例的適用範圍不再局限於歐盟境內，任何企業只要向歐盟市場提供商品服務，收集或處理個人數據，都受到管轄。無疑，這對從事數據收集和處理的企業及其產業鏈，都提出了極高的要求。

其二，GDPR 中明確定義了數據主體的權利，在為個人有效行使權利提供法律保障的同時，也對企業處理和使用數據提出了苛刻的要求。

這意味着，那些拿客戶數據打標籤做畫像的創業，將被要求公開其基本算法邏輯和運算結果。

除此之外，目前熱門的大數據分析公司，因個人資料保護範圍更廣，想運用 AI 工具做資料分析的運作空間，也將大大縮水。

為此，來自劍橋和倫敦大學學院的創業團隊 MediaGamm 則給出一條不錯的思路模型。這是一家在線用戶行為預測公司，基於特定的算法對廣告技術公司的競價算法進行優化，幫助廣告主深度挖掘媒體數據，進而優化廣告投放方案。

MediaGamm CEO Rael Cline 在接受採訪時表示，「我們必須做出改變以確保能遵守 GDPR，其中包括限制我們持有授權數據的時間，以及確保在客戶要求刪除特定記錄時能夠應答。」

Rael Cline 還提到了應用 Look-a-like 相似人群擴展的方式來提升用戶精度，與此同時，降低對於用戶基數的要求。這和當下提倡的小規模數據模型很相似。

例如，在線廣告行業中，隨着同意（企業新隱私條款）的用戶數量的減少，可以應用人工智能來對這些已同意的用戶的行為進行建模，然後根據共享屬性找到相似的用戶。

在雲服務層面，雲計算倡導多層次連接和互用組合的理念與 GDPR 的「有跡可循」要求存在着不可調和的矛盾。GDPR 對數據的控制者和數據的處理者都提出了同樣的要求，共同承擔起數據安全保護的責任，但這同時涉及到雲服務的提供商和雲計算的客戶兩個環節的權益。

在雲服務的基礎設施服務、平台、應用三個層級間，數據的流通和空間的共享等複雜多線程問題究竟該取得哪些人的同意還很難說清楚。

一名英特爾的顧問就憂心地指出，歐盟的 GDPR 主要用來限制個人資料使用，卻沒有建立一套規則協助重度使用資料的公司運作。

就當下而言，最為重要的還是為用戶爭取到最基本的刪除權、知情權等。

阿里雲表示，其產品規劃中遵從默認隱私設計（Privacy by Design）規範，已提供帳號刪除功能，全球客戶可以自助操作完成。所有新發表的雲產品上線之前，也都通過安全與隱私設計的雙重評估。

微軟透露，已經為 GDPR 項目投入 1600 多名工程師，他們將為全球客戶提供正在為歐洲建設的符合 GDPR 的工具，微軟的客戶可以查看、刪除和移動他們的個人數據。

在雲服務層面，雲計算倡導多層次連接和互用組合的理念與 GDPR 的「有跡可循」要求存在着不可調和的矛盾。在雲服務的基礎設施服務、平台、應用三個層級間，數據的流通和空間的共享等複雜多線程問題究竟該取得哪些人的同意還很難說清楚。攝：Sean Gallup/Getty Images

數據「嚴法」的下一站：不止於歐盟

歐盟通過單行法（GDPR）來覆蓋各行各業的個人信息處理行為，在數據驅動的時代下，除了保護個人數據，更為重要的是彰顯了保護基本人權的理念。

事實上，歐盟之後再立數據嚴法的潛在地區已經可以想像。「這部法案不僅對於北美，對於亞洲、海灣阿拉伯地區的數據保護都有參考意義。」業內人士向極客公園分析道。

在扎克伯克現身美國國會接受數據泄露醜聞事件質詢時，民主黨領袖 Frank Pallone 就曾建議，「我們需要全面的隱私和數據安全立法」，作為在社交網絡上出現外國干擾時，「保護我們的民主」的步驟，國會議員們也反覆提及 GDPR。

有分析人士認為，歐盟過去訂立的環保標準最終成為全球標準，如今邁入物聯網時代，大數據分析傳輸已經無可避免，面對這項號稱史上最嚴格的資料保護令，企業要有心理準備，GDPR 非常有可能成為資料保護的全球通用標準。

出門問問李志飛及其法務則提到，在通用性數據保護方案的普及問題上，還需要注意到國家層面的數據戰略方向。

他們表示，歐洲與美國對於數據/隱私保護與科技發展的思維是不一樣的，以人工智能為例，全球都處於發展人工智能的浪潮中，歐洲採取人工智能法律和倫理規則先行，已經試圖用正確的價值觀來約束技術開發與應用。

而美國在人工智能有法律提案時，更多涉及如何促進技術創新應用，進行事後監管加自律，以最佳實踐來回應各種挑戰，最後立法。GDPR 對個人隱私的保護力度之全面，應當是有標桿作用的，但各國是否會完全按照歐盟的做法來參照，還要取決於國家對數據保護的戰略性方向。

但是數據的流通性必然涉及國家間的數據跨境流動，這一定會對北美甚至全球都帶來一定的影響，也會為其他國家改善監管思路與數據立法起到一定的參考意義。

「單挑」黑盒子

GDPR 數據法案落地，也激起了學術界的熱烈討論。GDPR 一項關於強調「透明處理原則」的條例，近乎將深度學習算法推上了被告席的位置。

今年初，華盛頓大學計算機科學與工程學教授 Pedro Domingos 就曾在 Twitter 上說道，GDPR 要求算法有可解釋性，這讓深度學習成了違法��為！

在 GDPR 的條例中明確表示，針對「個人化自動決策」賦予用戶請求解釋、拒絕適用的權利，換句話說，就是將近年來學術討論逐漸熱絡的「可信任／解釋的人工智能」直接納入法律，試圖引起全面性的重視。

但實際上，機器學習，尤其深度學習，有如在黑盒子內進行的過程，就像人類的神經網路，究竟如何決定數據的關聯性與權重以形成決策，向來是個難解的謎團。

為此，企業至少需要有能力在足以保護用戶權益的範圍內，簡要說明怎樣的數據會導致怎樣的決策、數據的變動如何影響決策的變動，並賦予用戶可以拒絕適用、表達意見、介入判斷的權利。

舉例來說，如果線上個人保險業務完全透過算法、自動決定用戶的保費金額，企業必須能夠說明如何計算保費高低？是由哪些因素所決定？例如，是受到用戶年齡、健康狀況、駕駛習慣、肇事紀錄等因素影響。而如果用戶認為權益受損，則可以表示異議。

但同時也有分析人士指出，這可能加重算法中作弊的可能。

另一方面，最小限度利用個人數據原則的提出，為企業在數據層面的評判和算法能力提出了更高要求。「即使在大數據條件下，小部分人刪掉數據之後，用小數據也要能夠學會大智慧。」微軟首席語音科學家、IEEE/ACM 雙科院士黃學東向極客公園表示。

而邊緣處理方案則避免了數據交叉使用的可能。如今，蘋果、華為等手機巨頭廠商紛紛推出自研芯片，正在試圖將此前在「雲端」處理的操作轉移到設備端的本地完成。

華為歐洲西部分公司首席營銷官 Andrew Garrihy 接受採訪時表示，移動 AI 讓我們能夠在設備中執行大量 AI 計算和智能。這意味着非常敏感的個人數據將不再需要去雲端。專用芯片可能成為一種幫助消費者控制自己的數據結束位置的工具。

在物聯網和人工智能時代，「數據就是新石油」的認知被越來越多人接受，但與此同時，我們無法對於數據濫用和違規的問題熟視無睹，為規整步伐而降低速度的做法將成為政府的折中選擇。

為邁過這段過渡期，獻上明日法律事務所主持律師王琍瑩的錦囊一副——「兼顧天平的兩端，在策略方向上，必須掌握數據作為商業競爭的致勝關鍵，而在執行層面，仍應落實個人資料歸個人控制的原則，不能偏廢。」

原文鏈接：https://theinitium.com/article/20190530-mainland-gdpr/

端傳媒：https://theinitium.com/misc/about/

via 端傳媒 Initium Media

#IFTTT #Feedly

0 notes

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

图片来源：视觉中国

周二中午并不是一般意义上的购物高峰期，尤其是在四月中��的印度，气候开始转向闷热的时候。

但在印度南部城市班加罗尔1 MG Lido Mall一楼的小米之家，消费者的热情似乎并没有受到影响。面积70平方米的店面里，陆陆续续进来了10余名顾客。

这些人大多没有犹豫，而是直接走到柜台，向店员说出想要的机型，然后付款完成交易。两三分钟内，一部小米手机就这样被卖出。

在界面新闻记者于店中观察的一小时里，上述情况成了常态。每当店员正准备和界面新闻交谈时，都被前来咨询的顾客叫走。

“我们最近太忙了，来店里购买小米产品的顾客越来越多。”一位店员略带歉意地在柜台后说。鱼贯而入的顾客让店内的5名员工多少有些应接不暇。

根据界面新闻记者统计，这家店一小时内共售出了18台小米手机，也就是说平均每3分钟就能卖出一台。即便放在小米的大本营中国，这样的销售速度也足够可观。

而这，只是小米这个中国智能手机品牌在印度飞速发展的一个缩影。

在2017年，OPPO、vivo凭借着强大地推能力在当地迅速移植，成功地在上半年的印度手机市场中杀出一片天；但是从下半年开始，小米便后来居上，实现了对其他品牌的反超。

来自市场调研机构Counterpoint的最新数据显示，在今年第一季度，小米在印度的市场份额达到了31.1%，位居第一，超过了三星近5%。4月24日晚，雷军骄傲地在自己的微博上转发了这个成绩。

这是小米在印度的一个里程碑。

从2014年进入印度市场以来，小米一直维持着不温不火的发展节奏。但随着印度智能手机市场在近年的爆发，巨大的人口红利带来的广阔市场也给包括小米在内的中国厂商点燃了机会。

到了2017年下半年，印度智能手机市场最终发生巨变。原有的“三星+四家本土厂商（Mircomax、Intex、Lava、Karbonn）”的格局，变成了“小米、OPPO、vivo、联想围剿三星”。

小米在5月3日递交的招股书中披露，其实早在2017年第四季度，小米就已经成为印度出货量排名第一的手机公司，市场份额为26.8%。距离小米正式进入印度市场三年半时间。

伴随印度市场的成功，去年小米的海外收入暴涨，海外市场的总体收入从2016年的91亿元涨到了2017年的321亿元，占总收入比重也达到了28%。

面对上市之后成长性在哪的质疑，印度或许是小米的答案所在。雷军也在公开信中说，全球化是小米的星辰大海。

但是，随着市场集中度不断提高，印度手机市场不同品牌间陆续上演着短兵相接，竞争也开始全面升级。国内品牌在当地的投入也在不断增加，新的变化正在到来。

小米热席卷市场

“我们还不是班加罗尔卖得最好的一家店。” 1 MG Lido Mall小米之家的店主忙里偷闲地告诉界面新闻记者，市里卖货最多的小米之家座落在Phoenix Marketplace购物中心。

这个商业综合体距离班加罗尔市区有10公里左右的路程，周边几乎都是低矮的破旧平房，乍看之下这里的小米之家似乎和四周的环境有些格格不入。

但就是这样的一家店，每次在新品首销的时候，都会引发数以千计的用户在店外排起长龙等候。很多时候，购物中心还没开门，人潮便已经在大门外开始聚集。

在界面新闻记者到达这家店铺的当天早上，店外就已经有超过100名顾客在排队。店长卡尔蒂很自豪地向记者展示了他所拍的一张排队长龙照片。

“他们之中很多人从6点就开始来排队了，我来到店里的时候，有很多人都围着我，说一定要把手机卖给他们。”

上午11点，聚集的人潮早已散去，不到30平米的店面内，到处都放着指示牌，上面写着“No Stock for Note5 Pro（红米Note 5 Pro已售罄）”。

图片来源：视觉中国

这是小米今年2月在印度市场特别发布的一款手机，所对应的是国内的红米Note 5。配置上，这款手机搭载的是高通骁龙636，前置2000万像素前置自拍镜头，4GB+64GB版本的售价为13999卢比（约合人民币1339元）；6GB+64GB版本的售价则为16999卢比（约合人民币1626元）。

卡尔蒂已经不记得这是第几天存货售罄了。自发布以来，每次店内备好红米Note 5 Pro，都会被闻讯而至的顾客一扫而空，基本没有一台手机能够在店里留下超过一天。

“有时候可能我的店里前一晚备了100台手机，第二天就会有好几百个人在店外找我们购买，我很多时候都需要让那些激动的顾客们冷静，请他们下次再来光顾。”

用户的认可直接带起了小米之家的热度。卡尔蒂说，现在一个月，自己的这家店里能够卖出大约5000台小米手机。在一年前，这是他根本无法想像的数字，“这可能是我们那时候几个月的销量。”

小米之家的热销只是小米在印度突然崛起的一面，在印度普通的数码卖场里，情况也在发生巨变。

Gaffar Market是印度首都新德里市区内的一个综合市场，其中有一片区域被划为了手机零售店聚集中心。这些零售店基本都是个体户，卖什么产品卖什么价格，基本全靠店主本人定。

图片来源：视觉中国

OPPO和vivo的广告招牌在这里随处可见。这跟OV两家品牌去年在印度采取的地推策略有关。据腾讯科技此前报道，在印度当地，OPPO、vivo从国内调来不少员工，对印度进行“扫街式”推广，抢占了不少广告位置。

一家零售店的负责人告诉界面新闻记者，和OPPO、vivo不同的是，小米的工作人员基本没有来这边找他们商谈放招牌的事情，所以自己也不会刻意换上小米的招牌。

不过，在这些零售店内，具体的产品陈列却又呈现出另一幅不一样的光景。

在一家招牌上打着vivo的零售店里，一位印度顾客正在购买一台蓝色的红米5A。这是红米系列手机中的一款相对低端的机型，官方售价为5999卢比起（约合人民币573元）。从进店到结账，他毫不犹豫的买下了这台手机。

在买下这台手机之后，顾客先请店主为他贴上了屏幕保护膜，之后又小心翼翼地将自己的手机卡从旧手机中取出，放进这台红米5A中。界面新闻记者发现，他所使用的旧手机是一台金立手机，而且还是一款可拆卸电池的手机。

“我当时买这台旧手机花了8000卢比，而这台红米5A只要5999卢比，还是一台最新款的智能手机。”他得意地向界面新闻记者挥舞了一下手中全新的红米。

在店内，店主依然将主打的OPPO、vivo系产品放在了柜台最明显的位置，但是，红米5A和红米Note 5系列也占据了不少地盘。

店主告诉界面新闻记者，红米的这些产品推出后，直接改变了自己店铺的布局；不少顾客上门之后，都会直接询问店里有没有红米手机，于是他不断增加红米的比例。现在，这家小店里的红米手机摆放数量已经可以和OPPO、vivo分庭抗礼。

“没有其他原因，就是卖得好。”店主很直接地说出了原因。他说，目前自己店里一个月大概能卖150-200台红米手机，而OPPO、vivo的手机加起来一个月卖出的数量也和这个差不多。

“每个人来都会问我们店里有没有小米或者红米手机，我就干脆把店里的红米手机都放上柜台，来吸引更多的顾客。”

另外，让这位店主选择重视起小米产品的，还在于他所获得的利润。趁着店里没有顾客，他向界面新闻记者算了一笔账：“每卖出一台vivo手机，目前获得的利润在3%左右；而小米手机的每台利润则在8%左右。”

因此，尽管诸如三星、OPPO、vivo这样的手机品牌会给这些零售店主一笔资金，来换取店内最好的销售位置，但利润终归不会骗人。很多店家也因而主动加入到这一波小米��潮之中。

“性价比”和口碑带来的增长

小米早在2014年就进入了印度市场，不过真正的腾飞，还是发生在2016年。带来突破的，是当地运营商的一项新政策，以及小米自身推出的一款新产品。

IDC的数据显示，在2016年，印度的智能手机保有量不足2亿；另外，国内尚有超过50%的用户还在使用功能机。

然而印度电信运营商Jio的一个决定改变了行业走向。2016年9月，Jio正式宣布以免费的方式向印度用户提供4G服务。不到半年时间，Jio的这一举措便为其赢得了超过一亿的4G用户。截至目前，Jio已经成为印度国内运营商的佼佼者之一。

在Jio的带动下，原有的许多运营商也开始降低自家的4G资费。界面新闻记者了解到，现在很多印度用户每天都能够有2-3GB的4G上网流量，而他们只需为这样的月套餐支付约合人民币30元的资费。便宜的高速网络使得印度很多地方甚至都不提供WiFi。

这样激进的价格策略，在使得4G网络普及的同时，也让智能手机同步获利。伴随着移动网络的加速，2016年也被看作是中国手机厂商在印度的丰收之年。OPPO、vivo、金立在内的多家品牌都迎来了爆发。

小米也不例外。同样在2016年，他们在印度推出了红米Note 3。这被不少小米印度员工看作是小米在印度市场的腾飞之作。

“在那之前，小米在印度和国内发布新品的时间有不少间隔；但是红米Note 3的印度发布时间和国内仅差了一个月，而且印度版红米Note 3还搭载了高通处理器，好过国内版用的联发科。加上9999卢比（约合人民币956元）的起售价，基本算是横扫了这片市场。”一位小米印度员工向界面新闻记者介绍称。

事实上，红米Note 3也成为了2016年印度市场最火爆的一款机型。同年9月，市场调研机构Strategy Analytics统计显示，红米Note 3挤进了印度市场最畅销的机型前三名。

在国内，性价比就是小米手机最初崛起的招牌。在印度，小米复制了这一策略。

根据印度报业集团（Press Trust of India）报道，2017年印度人均年收入为111782卢比（约合人民币10693元），平均每月9315卢比（约合人民币891元）。对于绝大多数的印度用户来说，一台20000卢比（约合人民币1913元）的手机已经算得上是奢侈品，而5999卢比（约合人民币573元）起步的红米系列手机，自然就在价格上占据了先机。

Jio的一位销售员工Rajeev所用的就是最新的红米Note 5 Pro。在他看来，这款手机受到热捧的原因很简单：“这是目前相似配置之中售价最低的手机。”

Rajeev提到，印度用户最常用的一个手机功能就是拍照，OPPO、vivo的手机因为在拍照上有一定的技术积累，所以在用户群中也有一定的口碑，但是OPPO、vivo高端机型的价格不是每个人都能够接受的。

目前，OPPO推出的高端机型F7起售价为21990卢比（约合人民币2103元），前置2500万像素镜头；vivo推出的高端机型V9起售价则为22990卢比（约合人民币2198元），前置2400万像素镜头。Rajeev认为，这个价格目前并不是所有印度用户都消费得起，相比起来，10000卢比（约合人民币956元）价位段的红米Note 5 Pro前置摄像头为2000万像素，有着不错的拍照效果，价格也很有竞争力。

“以前因为OPPO和vivo的拍照功能够好，很多用户也会选择他们的手机，但现在，红米的手机综合来看性价比是最高的。” Rajeev说。

除此之外，小米也把自己在国内所熟练运用的市场推广策略“搬”到了印度。相比于其他品牌擅长采用的广告轰炸，小米更希望通过在用户之间营造口碑效应，来实现从下至上的品牌传播结果。

“小米最主要的营销渠道就是线上，包括社交网络和线上社区。”小米副总裁、印度市场负责人马努·贾因（Manu Jain，下称“马努”）告诉界面新闻记者，尽管小米也有邀请明星来代言，但“米粉”们还是小米最好的品牌代言人。

在YouTube上流传的一段TED演讲中，他直截了当地指出，对于互联网企业而言，传统的广告营销已经过时，以自己的产品来在用户中制造口碑，才是最有效的营销模式。

一个现成的例子是，vivo为了冠名印度的IPL板球联赛，花了超过20亿人民币买下了五年的赞助，然而这个联赛每年的举办周期就3个月，宣传时段相当有限。在内部，有vivo的员工都认为这笔赞助花销太多，都够开一家工厂了；但是没有办法，开了冠名赞助的头就得继续下去。

和国内类似的是，小米在印度构筑了一个庞大的米粉群。马努介绍称，目前小米在印度的线上社区中共有超过400万名米粉，小米还在印度设置了超过20个米粉线下俱乐部。

这些集群最重要的作用在于，小米员工可以从中了解到用户的具体需求，从而尽可能去满足。在印度，由于文化的多样性，这种信息沟通渠道的存在显得更为重要。

一位小米印度员工举例称，输入法就是一个很明显的例子。“在印度一共有20多种语言，可能一个普通人就会两三种，他们对于不同语言的使用习惯也不同，可能上网用一种语言，平常聊天用另一种语言，看新闻又用另一种语言，我们都要根据不同的使用习惯来进行安排。”

现在，员工们也会时不时举办线下活动，邀请印度当地米粉们前来参与。上述员工说，印度米粉的热情和国内的米粉不分上下。

“无论是发布会，还是一些线下的沙龙，只要有通知，活动基本都会满员。有一次，我们在新德里举办发布会，有一位米粉甚至从印度南方坐了十多个小时的火车来参加。”

“印度用户喜欢对事情一传十，十传百。小米的营销也是抓住了这个特点，在用户中建立了口碑。”一位印度互联网创业者对界面新闻记者评价到。

OPPO、vivo蓄力反击

一直以来，小米都以“互联网公司”来自我定位。无论是在国内发展还是在印度开拓市场，他们都把互联网渠道作为首选的落脚点。

“小米目前是印度线上市场中排名第一的智能手机品牌。”马努告诉界面新闻记者，“我们在印度市场中70%的销售都来自于线上。”

但在2017年下半年，小米却是从线下展开了对于其他手机品牌的反击。零售店主们的态度，以及小米之家外边不断涌现的顾客都在证明着这一点。

根据IDC的统计显示，在2017年第四季度，小米的线下份额达到了11.2%，成为了市场第二；其在线下渠道销售超过200万部。

曾几何时，线下市场是OPPO、vivo们最擅长的领域。他们通过将国内的销售体系搬到印度，在2017年上半年成为了印度线下市场中最受瞩目的中国手机品牌。

只不过，爆发的势头从2017年下半年，尤其是第四季度开始陷入停滞。

根据印度媒体《经济时报》的报道，OPPO和vivo自2017年下半年开始缩减对线下渠道商的利润分成，缩减额度达到了40%；受此影响，两家品牌的销量在第四季度下跌近一半，vivo第四季度的份额为6.5%，OPPO则为4.9%。

两家品牌均以铺展线下渠道为重点能力。份额的下降，意味着不少市场空间被让了出来，小米则成了最直接的受益者。

这引发了两家手机大厂的重视。

“我们想到了小米会抢占空出来的线下市场份额，但是没想到他们的动作这么快，两个季度就做到了这么客观的成绩，超出了我们的预期。”在班加罗尔商业区的一家OPPO高端体验店里，一位OPPO的市场部人员告诉界面新闻记者。

他承认，OPPO在2017年上半年投入了不少资源，用于线下广告的投放战争，但这些品牌广告的效果并不完全符合预期。

在印度，尽管OPPO也像国内一样，通过在星罗棋布地散落在马路两侧的密集广告轰炸试图吸引用户的关注，但更多的时候，这些广告面向的是普罗大众。“年轻人的选择”这一形象，在印度并不是那么明显。

另外，OPPO于2017年在当地的品牌建设也并不是一帆风顺。先是在3月，印度城市诺伊达的办公室中，一位中国籍员工将一名印度籍员工桌子上的印度国旗扔进了垃圾桶，引发了印度用户的一阵抗议潮。到了5月，印度政府开展了拆除路边广告牌的行动，OPPO、vivo的广告牌都受到了波及，不少投入因而打了水漂。

因此，OPPO从下半年开始，不得不采取相对谨慎的市场策略和更加精细化的运营方式，在保证利润的同时。思前想后，OPPO将2018年的重点放到了中高端市场中。上述OPPO员工也把��个决定称为OPPO在2018年的一次“战略转移”。

这个新方向是经过了一番权衡的。在中低端市场，尽管OPPO和vivo这样的品牌有着一定的基础，但当他们开始收缩的时候，性价比更高的红米系列手机便开始顺势而上。

一个直观的比较是，OPPO的A系列手机（中低端机型）起售价在9000卢比（约合人民币860元）左右，和起售价5999卢比的红米系列手机相比，在性价比上并不占优。

另外，前期的巨大投入，也使得OPPO和vivo需要在印度逐渐把重心放到高端机型上，来加速盈利进程。这是商业逻辑的客观需求。

4月9日，在班加罗尔的最繁华的商业街区中，OPPO第一家高端线下体验店正式开张。店内的装修采用了和上海OPPO超级旗舰店类似的风格，整体以简洁的白色为主，几台最新发布的OPPO F7展示在店铺中央，围绕着一个精致的泰姬陵雕塑。

图片来源：视觉中国

除此之外，店内还摆放了不少板球相关的元素，比如头盔、队服等等。在印度，板球的国球地位不可动摇，不少品牌也围绕着这项运动大做文章。开幕当天，OPPO就请来了几位印度板球国家队的队员前来担任“明星店长”，这也为刚开张的体验店吸引了不少客流。

“我们的策略就是坚持聆听年轻人的声音，以年轻人喜爱的方式与他们沟通。”OPPO印度品牌总监杨超告诉界面新闻记者。

除了板球之外，印度人的另一个国民爱好则是宝莱坞的电影。为此，OPPO还邀请了宝莱坞著名导演Mohit为品牌拍摄了一部微电影，并在线上创下了OPPO自身的视频收看记录。而vivo也邀请到了印度著名影星阿米尔·汗作为最新的品牌形象代言人。

为了抓住年轻用户的使用习惯，OPPO还在印度用户最喜爱的拍照功能上下足了功夫。OPPO F7的前置2500万镜头，甚至在像素上要强于国内最新旗舰R15的2000万前置摄像头。vivo前置的摄像头，像素也达到了2400万。这两部手机目前都代表了印度市场上最高的自拍水准。

“当地年轻人对于自拍和社交有需求，所以从进入印度市场开始，OPPO就推出了‘自拍专家’系列。”杨超说。

在体验店开业后的几分钟内，一台F7就被卖出。在购买之前，那名顾客打开样机的前置摄像头，拉着店员连续拍下了好几张自拍，还加上了贴纸功能，确认效果满意之后，他爽快地付钱完成了交易。

当然，除了向中高端进发之外，OPPO也不打算拱手让出中低端市场，毕竟这才是印度手机份额最大的市场所在。

在这个方向上，OPPO采取的思路是用小米最擅长的性价比来进行反击。界面新闻记者了解到，在2018年，OPPO正计划将更好的配置下沉到中低端机型之中，希望为用户提供更具性价比的手机产品。

另外，一向植根线下的他们也开始思考进军线上的可能。在F7上市后，OPPO在线上开展了一次闪购活动，结果10000台存货在一天之内就宣告售罄。目前，他们还在和印度的电商平台洽谈，希望在全维度和小米展开竞争。5月1日，OPPO还宣布正式在印度发布针对线上的手机子品牌Realme。

“今年会是我们全面开战的一年。”上述OPPO市场部员工半开玩笑地对界面新闻记者表示。

高端市场还有欠缺

尽管小米是现在印度市场最火爆的智能手机品牌之一，但走进每一家当地的小米之家，用户所关注的，基本都是红米系列的手机。

当然，店里也有小米旗下目前最高端的MIX系列。不过很多时候，每家小米之家所展示的MIX数量往往只有一两台，所放置的也是在柜台的角落。这与他们的品牌定位并不相符。

这仅仅是尴尬的一部分。

在1 MG Lido Mall的小米之家中，商业地产中介Vinay打算购买一台小米手机。他原先使用的是一台iPhone 6，一番比较之后，他还是选择了放在店内最核心柜位的，也是广受好评的红米Note 5 Pro。

然而，当界面新闻记者向其介绍角落里的MIX 2时，他疑惑地摇了摇头。

“我之前从来没听说过小米MIX系列。”他走到柜台前，拿起MIX 2的样机看了一圈，又看了看超过30000卢比（约合人民币2869元）的标价之后，还是将其放下，转头到收银台为自己的红米Note 5 Pro结帐。

这是高歌猛进的小米目前在印度手机市场的主要缺陷之一。尽管推出了高价位的机型，但在高端市场，小米的存在感几乎为零。他们“性价比”的标签，也难以和高端市场的调性切合。

印度是一个贫富差距明显的国家。即便整体GDP并不低，但是在印度社会中，财富的分配依旧悬殊。有一半以上的手机用户还在使用功能机，但也有不少年轻的用户会为苹果手机上的最新科技痴迷。

目前，印度高端智能手机市场的主要玩家有三个：苹果、三星和同样来自中国的一加。这三个厂商已经共同占据了印度高端手机市场超过90%的市场份额。在诸多品牌为了中低端市场打得头破血流的时候，这些品牌却能够在一个相对平和的环境中稳健发展。

2018年初，一加手机CEO刘作虎对外公布，一加在2017年全球的营收总额超过14亿美元，已经接近100亿人民币。这其中，印度市场带来的贡献起到了重要作用。

一加从2014年开始进入印度市场。最初的时候，亚马逊印度区负责人Amit Agarwal专程来到香港与刘作虎见面，敲定了将一加引入印度的细节。一加也和亚马逊达成了独家合作关系。

和小米在印度得以爆发的原因类似，一加在印度发展的几年，也享受到了印度互联网产业发展所带来的红利。

“在我们刚刚进入印度的时候，印度手机市场主要靠线下驱动。但互联网的发展改变了手机市场的渠道体系，特别是电商平台的发展，使得越来越多的用户可以上网购买手机。”一加印度总经理Vikas Agarwa（下称Vikas）对界面新闻记者表示。

他回忆起四年前，印度手机市场中可能只有15%的份额属于线上，但现在，这个比重已经上升到了35%。

根据一加方面提供的统计结果，在目前的高端手机市场中，线上的份额更是达到了44%左右。一加算是高端价位段之中，唯一一个以线上渠道为主的手机品牌。

重视线上，意味着一加不需要像其他品牌一样，在当地的基础建设上投入重金。他们因而得以在产品上投入更高的配置，来吸引用户。Vikas说，早在一加5上，一加就引入了8GB+128GB的存储配置，这在印度市场是第一家。

另外，更低的成本意味着一加可以在价格上获得更大的优势，一位分析人士表示，一加正好填充了30000卢比以上到苹果和三星高端手机价格区间的产品空位。“我们的用户都是科技爱好者，他们想要最好的产品，那么我们就提供最好的产品。”他认为，这是一加得以在印度站稳脚跟的基础。

不过，和小米有所不同的是，一加的用户群体相对集中。Vikas介绍称，目前一加在印度的用户画像中，年龄段基本分布在18-35岁之间，当中75%的学历都是本科生以上，并且大多在金融、地产等行业工作。这意味着他们对于产品有着更高的要求。

因此，除了产品本身，一加也在用户关系的维护上下足了功夫。他们同样有自己的核心用户，并会在WhatsApp群组、论坛、社交网络等渠道听取他们对于产品的意见，而且还在全印度开设了11家售后中心，来提供售后服务。

“我们用户消费水平并不低，但是他们需要愿意花钱的理由。”他说。

而在2018年，想要在印度市场做得更多的一加，打算继续走向线下。从用户的反馈中他们了解到，电商实际上并没有普及到一般的印度城市之中，为了满足这些用户的需求，他们需要在线下做得更多。

最主要的策略是，一加准备在印度的大城市开设更多的线下体验店。2017年，他们已经在班加罗尔总部楼下开设了第一家体验店。今年，他们打算加快体验店的扩张步伐。

图片来源：视觉中国

“我们打算在5个大城市，包括孟买、新德里、钦奈等开设线下体验店，这些店铺全部由一加自建自营。同时我们还会和一些授权经销商合作开设线下店。”Vikas表示，这样做的原因在于，能够让用户更加直观地体验到一加产品。

另外，一加还打算将用户沟通的过程同样放到线下，并且进一步下沉。比如说，他们准备在今年扩大线下聚会的城市范围，来和二三线城市的用户直接交流。

目前看来，一加作为中国品牌在印度高端市场独苗的这个地位，在短时间内似乎还难以撼动。当然，这也意味着小米未来在印度还有更多可以努力的空间。

深化产业链

4月9日，尽管新德里天降暴雨，但在机场附近的一家豪华酒店中，还是有接近150名供应商来到现场。

他们来参加的是小米召开的全球供应商大会。去年的供应商大会，小米办在了雷军的老家湖北，但��年，他们选择将会场放到印度。这是小米第一次在印度召开这样的大会。

到场的供应商涵盖了屏幕、镜头、组装等领域。他们之中的很多人还是第一次来到印度，但大家对于小米在当地的成绩异常认可。茶歇期间，一名来自中国的供应商告诉界面新闻记者：“我们都比较看好小米在印度接下来的表现，不然也不会组团过来。”

在印度，小米经历了一个从轻资产起步，逐渐加重投入的过程。2015年进入印度不久的小米找到富士康印度工厂，由后者承担代工业务。作为互联网企业，轻资产是一个天然属性。

不过，印度业务的不断增长，让小米开始审视在当地加强产业链投入的可能。与此同时，印度现任总理莫迪所提出的“印度制造”战略，也为小米这样的国外企业在当地推动生产制造了客观必要性。

在2015年完成C轮融资时，小米引入了印度工业巨头塔塔集团名誉主席拉坦·塔塔作为其投资人；而作为印度国内最富有的人之一，拉坦·塔塔本人在政商方面的深厚人脉也能帮助小米在印度更顺利地推行业务。

界面新闻记者了解到，此前，印度政府对于中国企业在当地建厂一直有各种限制，相比于中国厂商，印度政府更希望诸如Micromax这样的本土厂商能够得到发展。2014年底，小米手机还因专利纠纷在印度被短暂禁售。

但在各方推动下，雷军得以在2017年访问印度的时候与印度总理莫迪进行了30分钟的会谈，这为小米在印度的深入投资提供了便利。

截至目前，小米在印度共有6座工厂，其中5家与富士康合作建立，另一家则是与海派公司合作建立，员工整体数量大约在3-4万人左右，其中还包含了1000名左右的中国员工。

投入初见成效，小米在当地的生产效率显著提升。目前，超过70%的小米产品已经实现了印度生产印度销售。按照一位小米员工的说法，“一年之前，我们的产线平均一秒生产一台手机，现在一秒可以生产两台。”

马努对界面新闻记者表示，现阶段的目标是，小米要在2018年第三季度将整套供应体系移植到印度，并实现100%的印度自产自销；为此，他们将会在当地合作建造3家工厂，同时成立一家专注PCBA（印刷电路板组装）的SMT工厂。

雷军也对印度市场寄予了厚望。除了在2017年三次造访印度之外，他还把印度市场2018年的营收目标翻了一翻，直指20亿美元。

为了实现这个目标，在总部一声令下后，更多的小米员工收拾好了行囊，随着供应商大会的召开被派驻到印度当地常驻。

李良辰是小米旗下生态链企业紫米的一名员工。现在，印度也成为了小米生态链的重要市场，像充电宝、手环这样的配件，在当地卖得不错。因此，他也需要来到印度，投入到浩浩荡荡的印度制造大潮之中。

一名小米员工在活动现场告诉界面新闻记者，小米选择与印度的工厂合作，采用轻资产的运营方式，一间工厂配有一名小米中方的负责人，他只需要和工厂的当地老板对接，将物料、生产过程、交货日期等信息给到对方即可。

在工厂中，李良辰的角色类似于监工。他需要将具体的产品需求告诉给工厂主，再监督产品的顺利制作完成，最后他还要负责将这些产品送到印度各地的经销商。

整个过程中最艰难的是，一般的印度工厂时常处于搬迁的状态。李良辰从一年前开始常驻工厂，每当工厂搬迁的时候，他也要随之一起走动。有时候，一个月内甚至需要连续换几次地方。

另一位已经常驻印度的小米员工陈启回忆称，在当地进行生产，最大的问题在于印度工人的效率不高。

“很多时候，他们在早上接近10点才会悠闲地开始投入工作；下午到了3点又要开始准备下午茶，一天的工作时间和国内基本是没法相比的。”他说，当地的工作效率能有国内的80%已经很好了。

即便如此，被印度政府不断推高的关税促使着来自中国的手机厂商们加快在当地实现生产落地的步伐。4月初，路透社报道称，印度政府正考虑对智能手机关键零部件征收10%关税，希望借此推进“印度制造”的发展。

除了小米之外，本身就在线下积累深厚的OPPO、vivo已经在深入推进当地布局产业链的步伐。2017年12月，OPPO宣布已经获得了印度政府对其在诺伊达建造手机工厂的环境评估合规资质，这笔投资将花费OPPO大约22.6亿元的资金。vivo的工厂则是早在2015年就已经开始布局。

就连同为互联网手机品牌的一加，也开始寻求在印度实现生产。一加印度总经理Vikas提到，除了少数限量版本之外，基本上印度市场所有的一加产品都已经实现了制造本地化。

印度会成为中国之后的下一个主战场

和国内一样，印度的手机市场也在经历着一个集中化的过程。而由于印度正处在4G快速普及期，这个过程来得要更激烈。

“在过去几年，印度的手机市场出现了很大变化，之前领先的一些品牌，现在在市场上都没落了。”一加印度总经理Vikas回忆，在一加刚进入印度市场的时候，市面上还有超过100个手机品牌；四年过去了，还活跃的品牌只剩下了20个左右。

更明显的一个变化是，在五年前，印度的手机市场还是三星以及Micromax、Lava等本土品牌的天下，但现在，中国厂商已经基本占据了半壁江山。IDC的统计报告显示，2017年中国厂商的份额已经从2016年的34%上升到53%。

厂商之间的格局也已经越发明显。当下，小米已经凭借着超高的性价比牢牢掌控着中低端市场；OPPO和vivo在中高端市场站稳了脚跟；一加则是在高端市场，从苹果和三星的夹击中脱颖而出。

因此，到了2018年，更多的竞争会围绕着中国厂商来展开。在适应了当地的市场节奏之后，他们大多希望在保住现有“势力范围”的基础上，伺机寻找吞下其他市场的机会。2017年下半年小米的崛起，只是这场战争的一段前奏。

“小米通过激进的性价比策略，已经在印度市场树立了强烈的品牌号召力，目前来看，几乎没有品牌能够在这一点上与之匹敌。”市场调研机构Counterpoint的分析师Tarun Pathak告诉界面新闻记者。

但更多的品牌已经开始希望借鉴这个模式，比如OPPO和vivo。随着小米在印度当地的投入不断增加，他们所享受的成本红利也会逐渐消减，这给了其他品牌迎头赶上的机会。

也有其他品牌并不看好一味鼓吹性价比的模式。在荣耀10的发布会上，当被问到对于印度市场的看法时，荣耀总裁赵明坦言，荣耀不会在当地采用性价比模式来发展。

“之前在印度市场，几乎没有厂家赚到钱，我们也一直在思考到底用什么样的模式去运营。只要价格够低，销量绝对有保证，但是这没有办法建立起品牌。”赵明评价称。

在印度，荣耀和华为在早前几年的沉寂之后，似乎希望沿用在全球市场的做法，也就是通过中高端产品来打响名堂。就在不久前，华为P20 Pro以及入门级的P20 Lite已经进入了印度的电商平台Smartprix之中。

荣耀V10和荣耀9 Lite版本也已经成为了当地电商渠道上的主要畅销机型之一。市场机构第一手机界的报告显示，在2018年3月，荣耀已经成为了印度线上市智能手机品牌销量前6名。

此外，还有一些国内手机品牌希望把印度作为他们业务的下一个落脚点。从2016年下半年起，在非洲成为“手机之王”的传音开始进入印度，并于印度Spice Mobility合作推出了手机品牌Spice，针对的是印度的年轻用户群体。而在国内遭遇滑铁卢的金立，也将于4月底在印度发布新品。一位金立海外销售透露，往后印度将会成为金立手机的主战场。

市场上的主流玩家数量在减少，并不意味着厂商们可以高枕无忧。在4G的普及下，印度市场的换机潮将会进一步到来。Strategy Analytics的掌门人Neil Mawston就曾经表示，中国、印度和美国这世界上最大的三个智能手机市场，将成为今天和未来推动增长的主力国家。

印度手机市场的下一阶段，竞争和机会依然并存，就看来自中国的手机厂商们如何把握了。（应采访对象要求，文中李良辰、陈启为化名。）

【本文转自界面新闻，作者：饶文怡、李竞择，编辑：刘方远】

更多精彩内容，关注钛媒体微信号（ID：taimeiti），或者下载钛媒体App

via 钛媒体：引领未来商业与生活新知

#IFTTT #Feedly

0 notes

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

Supported by

China Prepares a Hard-Line Stance on Trump’s Trade Demands

Image

A container port in China’s eastern province of Shandong. The Trump administration wants Beijing to curb its $300 billion plan to bankroll China’s push into advanced technologies.CreditReuters

By Keith Bradsher

April 30, 2018

BEIJING — China will refuse to discuss President Trump’s two toughest trade demands when American negotiators arrive in Beijing this week, people involved in Chinese policymaking say, potentially forcing Washington to escalate the dispute or back down.

The Chinese government is publicly calling for flexibility on both sides. But senior Beijing officials do not plan to discuss the Trump administration’s two biggest demands: a mandatory $100 billion cut in America’s $375 billion annual trade deficit with China and curbs on Beijing’s $300 billion plan to bankroll the country’s industrial upgrade into advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, electric cars and commercial aircraft.

The reason: Beijing feels its economy has become big enough and resilient enough to stand up to the United States.

[On other trade fronts, even American allies aren’t sure what the Trump administration plans. Read more about their concerns.]

A half-dozen senior Chinese officials and two dozen influential advisers laid out the Chinese government’s position in detail during a three-day seminar that ended here late Monday morning. A handful of foreign writers were invited from around the world to make sure China’s stance would be known overseas. All of the officials and most of the advisers at the seminar insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

It is not clear what will happen when the two sides sit down this week or whether either will find a reason to waver. Still, the Chinese and American positions are so far apart that China’s leaders are skeptical a deal will be possible at the end of this week. They are already raising the possibility that Chinese officials may fly to Washington a month from now for further talks.

“I don’t expect a comprehensive deal whatsoever,” said Ruan Zongze, the executive vice president of the China Institute of International Studies, which is the policy research arm of China’s Foreign Ministry. “I think there is a lot of game playing here.”

The Chinese government is frustrated with Mr. Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on $150 billion in Chinese goods and dismayed by suggestions in the West that China has a weak bargaining position. Chinese officials believe the country’s one-party political system and President Xi Jinping’s enduring grip on power — particularly after the repeal of presidential term limits in March — mean that China can outlast the United States and Mr. Trump in any trade quarrel.

The Chinese government believes Mr. Trump’s background as a businessman means that at some point he will agree to a deal. Seminar participants also reaffirmed previous Chinese trade policy offers to further open the country’s financial and automotive sectors. They also suggested that China would be willing to tighten its intellectual property rules so as to foster innovation within China as well as protect foreign technologies from counterfeiting and other illegal copying.

But China is insisting that the parameters of any deal be limited, and that the tariff threat be removed before a final deal can be struck.

Chinese officials have reached out to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has reacted positively to China’s overtures in the auto and financial sectors. Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive who will be on the Trump administration’s team in Beijing later this week, has sought to calm investors in global financial markets, some of whom have been alarmed by the consequences of a trade war for stock prices and economies.

But the Chinese stance is that two long-term demands raised by trade policy specialists in the Trump administration are unacceptable and should be excluded from the talks later this week.

One of these demands is a request by White House officials for a $100 billion reduction in the annual trade deficit with China. The other demand, for limits on China’s industrial policy, is from the United States trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, who is also part of the American negotiating team scheduled to come to Beijing later this week.

The U.S.-China Trade Conflict: How We Got to This Point

American companies want a level playing field with their Chinese counterparts. China wants to build its industries into sophisticated global competitors. This week, both countries demonstrated a willingness to escalate trade tensions to defend their positions.

April 5, 2018

China’s position is that the bilateral trade imbalance arises from differences in savings rates. Households in China save roughly two-fifths of their incomes. Americans, on average, save almost nothing. So money from China tends to flow to the United States, buying factories, technology companies, real estate and more, and Americans in turn spend much of that money to buy goods from China. Many economists in the United States, including some at the Treasury, share that view.

By contrast, many trade lawyers, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and Mr. Trump contend that the trade deficit stems to a large extent from unfair trade practices, including cheap loans by state-controlled banks to exporters.

China is ready to discuss shrinking the $375 billion annual trade deficit. But it wants to do so by buying more high-tech American goods, which Washington has long blocked because of concerns that they may have military value, and by buying more fossil fuels and other goods from the United States.

China is not ready to discuss a mandatory $100 billion reduction in the annual deficit, as the administration has suggested.

A senior Chinese government official said that Beijing is unwilling to negotiate with the United States on any curbs on China’s industrial policy, which includes large-scale government assistance to favored industries in advanced-technology manufacturing. China perceives the American demands for curbs on industrial policy as an attempt to stop China’s economic development and technological progress, the senior Chinese official said.

Germany and other countries also have industrial policies, and the United States has not objected to them, he added. American and European officials have argued that those policies elsewhere are much narrower and less ambitious.

Other participants in the seminar said that the United States had misunderstood China’s industrial policy, known as Made in China 2025. They expressed hope that it might be possible to resolve bilateral differences by explaining the program better and making very small tweaks to it — a stance that still may not appease the Trump administration.

The Chinese government is not simply throwing money, land and other resources to favored industries like robotics, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and aircraft manufacturing, they said. China is engaged instead, they contended, in a carefully thought-out program that measures potential profits for each dollar of investment. So China’s program bears some resemblance, they said, to private sector investment programs in the West.

One subject was repeatedly and conspicuously avoided by all officials throughout the seminar, even when advisers occasionally speculated about it: whether China might someday try to link trade disputes to national security issues.

China has been deeply involved in international pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, an issue of high importance to the Trump administration. Beijing also wants to some day assert control of Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing regards as a renegade territory.

Tsinghua University’s new Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking organized the seminar, which was held at Tsinghua and two other venues in western Beijing. President Xi graduated from Tsinghua, which is in Beijing and is China’s top university, and he has filled much of the senior ranks of his government with Tsinghua professors and graduates.

In some respects, the hard stance struck by Chinese officials reflects a hardening of public attitudes in China.

In mid-April, the United States banned American companies from selling their wares to a Chinese telecom equipment maker, ZTE. The move is seen as potentially crippling to the Chinese company, which needs American chips and software to power the smartphones and equipment it sells around the world.

Washington officials cited ZTE’s repeated violations of sanctions against Iran and North Korea, but many in China saw it as a reminder by the United States that sizable sectors of the Chinese economy still rely on American-made goods. Much of the Made in China 2025 policy is aimed at reducing that dependence.

The ZTE case “has changed a lot of Chinese people’s opinion,” said Mr. Ruan, of the China Institute of International Studies. “In the past, people saw us as interdependent,”

Follow Keith Bradsher on Twitter: @KeithBradsher.

Chris Buckley contributed reporting.

Related Coverage

Is Trump Serious About Trade War? China’s Leaders Hunt for Answers

April 12, 2018

Image

If There’s a U.S.-China Trade War, China May Have Some ‘Unconventional Weapons’

April 5, 2018

Image

Why China Is Confident It Can Beat Trump in a Trade War

April 5, 2018

Image

Looming China Trade Action Divides Industry and Roils Markets

April 2, 2018

Image

via The New York Times

#IFTTT #Feedly

0 notes

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

Arsene Wenger signed a number of stars for Arsenal throughout his reign, but also missed out on several high-profile names.

A near 22-year stay at Arsenal for Arsene Wenger means there have been a lot of hit signings... and a fair few flops.

But throughout Wenger's long reign at the club, one of the prevailing trends has been the Frenchman's insistence that he tried to sign various big names, amid criticism over the club's perceived lack of ambition in the transfer market.

With the 68-year-old now set to depart Arsenal at the end of the season, we have put together an XI of players Wenger has said Arsenal missed out on in the past.

This lot would certainly give the current starting line-up a run for their money, with Arsenal facing another campaign in which they have fallen short of Champions League qualification.

GOALKEEPER: JOE HART

He lost his place under Pep Guardiola, but Joe Hart was a mainstay of the Manchester City team that won two Premier League titles and established themselves as a force in English football. He also effectively cemented his place as England's number one, although his place at the World Cup could now be in doubt after an error-strewn season on loan at West Ham. According to Wenger, he could have joined Arsenal before he forced his way into the City first team. "I remember when Hart played at Birmingham [in 2009-10]," he said. "I asked about him and they told me he is at Man City. I thought he would be the keeper there."

DEFENDER: CHRIS SMALLING

Wenger hasn't always got it right in defensive reinforcements but he saw something he liked in Chris Smalling during his Fulham days. Eventually, Arsenal were outmuscled by Manchester United, who signed the centre-back for a reported £7million. "I am sorry because we were very close to getting him," said Wenger. "We were on the case very early. I wish the player well. At the end of the day it is important he has a good career." He's not everyone's favourite but Smalling has certainly managed that. He has won two Premier League titles, an FA Cup, the Europa League and an EFL Cup with United – and was named the players' player of the year for 2015-16. Smalling has also scored twice in his last three United appearances.

DEFENDER: RAPHAEL VARANE

This one appeared to bother Wenger. Raphael Varane has developed into one of the world's finest young defenders since joining Real Madrid in 2011 and has won two LaLiga titles and three Champions Leagues with the Spanish club. According to Wenger, it could have been very different. He told Eurosport: "He was at Lens and we might well have caught him there. Yet at the same time, when you are in charge of a club like Arsenal, you have to wonder why this player is not playing for us." Ouch. Getting Per Mertesacker from Werder Bremen instead wasn't bad business, but the whole thing still rankles with Wenger.

DEFENDER: GERARD PIQUE

Gerard Pique was more of a pipe dream than a certifiable option who snubbed the Gunners' advances. The Spain international was one of a trio of Barcelona youngsters Wenger had his eye on back in 2003. "It worked only for Cesc Fabregas," said Wenger in 2014 after revealing the three La Masia graduates he was after. In the end, Pique moved to Manchester United and claimed Premier League and Champions League winners' medals before returning to Barcelona, where he has become one of the most decorated centre-backs in the modern game. Who was the third Barca boy, we hear you ask? You'll find out later…

MIDFIELDER: N'GOLO KANTE

One of the latest additions to this formidable line-up, N'Golo Kante has been the driving force behind Premier League title charges from Leicester City and Chelsea in the last two seasons. He has also established his place firmly in the France team. The all-round qualities of the combative, creative and utterly relentless 27-year-old led to inevitable questions about why Wenger never spotted the former Caen man's potential and made an offer. Well, it's quite simple: he did. Twice. Apparently. "Have I looked to sign Kante? Yes. When he was in France and when he was at Leicester," Wenger said. "I cannot explain everything [about why he preferred Chelsea] but it is quite obvious when you look at where he has gone. Was it the money? I do not want to talk about that. Transfers are transfers – you cannot explain absolutely everything."

FORWARD: CRISTIANO RONALDO

Multiple leagues, Champions Leagues, domestic cups, Euro 2016 and five Ballons d'Or are just some of the trophies Cristiano Ronaldo has lifted. In fact, his personal museum in Madeira holds more accolades than Wenger brought to Arsenal in 20 years. Things would have been very, very different had it not been for compatriot Carlos Queiroz's influence at Manchester United in 2003. At least, according to Wenger. "He was very close to coming here," he told ITV. "He has a number nine shirt with Ronaldo on the back from Arsenal Football Club. What happened was that Carlos Queiroz went to Manchester United and they snapped him away from us because he knew him from Sporting."

FORWARD: RONALDINHO

It has often been a bone of contention for Manchester United fans that they failed to get a deal for Ronaldinho over the line before he accepted Barcelona's offer. The Brazilian left Paris Saint-Germain for Camp Nou in 2003 and became the leading star at a club that was striving to return to the glory days of Johan Cruyff's Dream Team in the 1990s. A true modern great who also won three major tournaments with Brazil, Ronaldinho was one that got away for the Premier League's elite – and, yes, that includes Arsenal again. "We could have got Ronaldinho before he went to PSG," Wenger told Sky Sports. "I met his brother, who is his agent, a long, long time before he went to PSG – when he was 20 – but we just could not get him to England because of the rules here. Basically, what the rule does is force you to wait to buy the player but, by then, you cannot afford him anymore."

FORWARD: LIONEL MESSI

Still wondering who that third Barcelona player was? Oh, just the man considered by many to be the greatest footballer of all time. Eight LaLiga titles – soon to be nine – four Champions Leagues, five Ballons d'Or, scoring records for Barca and Spain's top flight – it's all just the tip of the iceberg for the undisputed star of one of the greatest club sides the game has ever seen. Still, if Wenger had his way, Messi would have learned much of his craft at London Colney rather than Catalonia. "I think, in the end, he was not so keen to move, because it was at a period where Fabregas came, and Fabregas and Messi played together in the same team," said Wenger. "We wanted to take Fabregas, Messi and Pique. It worked only for Fabregas. It was down to the fact that, in the end, Messi was comfortable at Barcelona."

FORWARD: GARETH BALE

A slight variation to the theme this time – according to Wenger, at least. The Arsenal manager says they looked at the Wales star while he was a fresh-faced youngster at Southampton, while they were assessing emerging talents including Theo Walcott. Ultimately, Wenger decided against an offer. Bale went on to join Tottenham, where he was transformed from unwitting full-back to a man who eats full-backs for breakfast, before heading to Real Madrid, where he has won three Champions Leagues. "I must confess it was a huge mistake as he can play in midfield," Wenger conceded in 2006. "He struggled at the start at Tottenham, then they moved him to midfield and he has done exceptionally well."

STRIKER: DIDIER DROGBA

A hero in the eyes of Chelsea fans and a real scourge of the Arsenal defence, Didier Drogba was one of the continent's finest centre-forwards for half a decade. He won 12 major trophies, including four league titles and the Champions League, across two spells at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea forked out a reported £24million for Drogba in 2004, but Arsenal could have signed him for a fraction of that price two years earlier. Please explain, Mr Wenger… "We watched Drogba very carefully when he was at Le Mans and his value was just £100,000. But we felt at the time he might not be completely ready… Looking back now, of course it was a mistake." Yup.

STRIKER: KYLIAN MBAPPE

The final starting spot goes to the most recent entry. Kylian Mbappe took Europe by storm last season, scoring 26 goals and assisting 14 as Monaco roared to a Ligue 1 title triumph and a place in the Champions League semi-finals. Paris Saint-Germain will complete a permanent move for the teenager at the end of the season for €180million after a successful one-year loan. Wenger, however, could have snapped him up for something significantly less than that had a visit to the forward's house last year gone to plan. "The player would tell you that I was at his home last year to try to get him here because he was at the end of [his] contract, but Monaco managed to keep him and the decision was very, very tight," said Wenger. "But I could understand it as well because he was educated there and at the end decided to stay there."

SUBSTITUTES:

If that starting line-up isn't formidable enough, just look at the options on the bench for our If-only-eh-Arsene XI.

Dimitri Payet ("He played at Saint-Etienne and we watched him many times"), Angel Di Maria ("We identified Di Maria when he was 17… he could not get a work permit here"), Eden Hazard ("I had his agent at my home but again the barrier was financial and Chelsea made an effort that I couldn't make"), Kingsley Coman ("Yes we really tried to sign Kingsley Coman in the summer of 2014. The transfer was almost completed, but he preferred Juventus"), Romelu Lukaku ("Yes, we knew him in Belgium but at the time he opted to go to Chelsea"), Yaya Toure ("It's not because we did not want to sign him that he went to Ukraine) and Paul Pogba ("We tried to get him to come here. But he very quickly signed for Juventus").

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

We couldn't let these names slip through the net entirely.

Gianluigi Buffon (He claimed to have met with Wenger in 1998, while he was still at Parma. He went to Juventus in the end), Vincent Kompany (This one came from the player's agent, rather than Wenger himself. Apparently, the centre-back had been scouted by Arsenal before joining Manchester City in 2008), Roberto Carlos (The Brazil great actually said he wanted to go to Arsenal, but apparently never got a phone call. "When my contract finishes [the Premier League] is definitely my priority and at Arsenal there are fellow Brazilians," he said towards the end of his Real Madrid deal), Luis Suarez (Wenger launched a definite bid to sign the striker from Liverpool in 2014. However, his £40,000,001 offer – which he hoped would trigger Suarez's release clause – only served to infuriate Anfield officials, who allowed him to leave for Barcelona instead), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Another who went for a trial at Arsenal, the story goes that the striker – then only 16 – rejected the chance to sign for the Gunners after being asked to prove himself. "Zlatan doesn't do auditions" was his famous assessment)

0 notes

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

LIU LEI has been waiting to buy a car for more than seven years. Sadly, Mr Liu, an engineer from Beijing, has had no luck in the capital’s licence-plate lottery. Introduced in 2011, this system for allocating number plates aims to tackle the city’s problems of rage-inducing congestion and asphyxiating pollution. Under the scheme, the city imposes annual quotas on the issuing of new licence plates. Buying a car requires proof that one is in hand. Obtaining a plate involves entering a bimonthly draw. The odds of winning fell from 6% in February 2011 to an all-time low of 0.2% this February (see chart). In the latest one 2.8m people contended for 6,460 plates.

Get our daily newsletter

Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.

In Shanghai, the financial capital, there are also strict quotas. Unlike their counterparts in Beijing, however, city officials put the plates up for auction online. At the most recent monthly sale, around 217,000 bidders battled for 9,855 licence plates. The average winning bid was 88,176 yuan ($14,022), more than it costs to buy many domestically made cars. Last year Shanghai raised 12bn yuan in licence-plate sales, about 2% of its total revenue.

Yet it is a hybrid model used in the southern city of Guangzhou that has become the favoured approach among policymakers in China’s biggest cities. Under this system, some plates are distributed by lottery and the rest sold at auction. Since Guangzhou adopted this approach in 2012, three other large cities—Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Tianjin—have adopted it.

None of the three methods is ideal. Start with Beijing’s. Some people place a much higher value on owning a car than others. The lottery system takes no account of that. This fuels a black market. Websites abound with illegal offers by lottery winners to rent out their plates. The average yearly fee for one is about 12,000 yuan.

Beijing’s system also breeds corruption. Song Jianguo, then head of the city’s traffic-management bureau, was jailed for life in 2015 for demanding backhanders in exchange for rigging the lottery. A bribe of at least 200,000 yuan was reportedly needed to guarantee victory. Mr Song pocketed a tidy 24m yuan before getting caught. Even today, 70% of Beijingers believe the lottery involves dodgy goings-on.

Shanghai’s auctions help avoid the creation of a black market. Yet they are unfair on the less well-off. Average winning bids have risen by a third in less than three years. Residents moan that owning a car has become the preserve of the super-rich. The city says it reinvests proceeds from its auctions in public transport. But in class-conscious Shanghai, owning a car is as much a status symbol as a means of transport. Obtaining a plate from elsewhere does not help much. Shanghai, like some other big cities, bans cars with non-local plates from using inner-city roads for much of the business day.

Guangzhou thinks it has hit upon the right compromise. By combining the lottery and auction systems it aims to make everyone happy. Those with deeper pockets can bid at auction, and poorer folk still have a shot at winning the lottery. But a recent study by Jinhua Zhao and Shenhao Wang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that the benefit of such a system is less than meets the eye.

The coexistence of an auction reduces the number of lottery participants, but only slightly. Lottery entrants in Guangzhou still have a tiny chance of success; the winning odds were just 0.8% in the most recent lottery draw in March. Meanwhile, auction prices are not necessarily lower in cities with mixed systems. In December the average winning bid for a licence plate in Shenzhen, for example, set a national record of 95,100 yuan.

There is still hope for people like Mr Liu, however. To fight pollution, officials in nearly all big cities are allocating separate quotas of licence plates for buyers of electric or hybrid cars. Such vehicles are also heavily subsidised. In fact, Mr Liu’s wife has just applied for an electric-vehicle plate. These are offered on a first-come first-served basis. The odds are much better. Only four people are vying for each one.

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "One country, three systems"

via The Economist: China

#IFTTT #Feedly

0 notes

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

Together is where photographers belong!

0 notes

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

By David Dollar, Zhi Wang

Two-thirds of world trade now occurs through global value chains that cross at least one border during the production process, and often many borders. As a result, the typical “Chinese product” that the United States imports has a lot of value-added from countries other than China. It often has value-added from U.S. firms with operations in China, as well as from parts suppliers in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Hence, in any trade war between the United States and China, there will be collateral damage on third countries.

The United States has published its list of products from China that would be hit with 25 percent tariffs in response to the investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act, which authorizes the president to respond (including via retaliation) to a foreign government action that violates an international trade agreement and that burdens or restricts U.S. commerce. There will now be a 60-day comment period before any tariffs go into effect.

The 301 investigation examined China’s unfair trading practices and, in particular, issues of intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer for U.S. companies operating in China. In choosing which imports to punish, Washington faces a dilemma. On the face of it, it would make sense to target high-tech industries that benefit from technology transfer. However, these tend to be the industries in which Chinese value-added has the lowest share. In the case of computers and electronic equipment, for example, less than half the value added in Chinese exports comes from China. The rest is value-added imported from other countries, including the United States. It should also be noted that these industry classifications are quite broad. Within computers and electronic equipment, there is a vast array of different products. Some of the products exported from China have very little domestic value-added, less than 10 percent.

Furthermore, in computers and electronics, more than half of China’s exports come from multinational firms operating in China. This is a separate issue from domestic versus foreign value-added. The operations of multinationals in China will count as Chinese domestic value-added. But the firms earn substantial profits from these operations, and that is a benefit for U.S. and other foreign owners. China’s industrial policies are often aimed at building up China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs). But these firms hardly export at all. In 1995, SOEs accounted for almost half of China’s exports; by 2015 that figure had dropped to low single digits.

There are some sectors in which China’s exports consist primarily of domestic value-added. These tend to be old industrial sectors. In textiles, for example, 75 percent of value added is really “made in China.” If Washington wants to limit collateral damage on its own firms and third countries, then it makes sense to go after an old sector like textiles.

U.S. firms are also involved in production chains. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. imports from China are intermediate products used by American firms to make themselves more competitive. Putting tariffs on intermediate products is shooting oneself in the foot. The list of targeted products posted by the United States includes some intermediates, such as aircraft propellers.

Many of the targeted products are consumer goods such as televisions and dishwashers. When a large country such as the United States imposes tariffs, the pain is shared between consumers who pay higher prices and producing firms abroad who have to absorb lower profit margins.

What all this means is that tariffs are a very poor instrument for punishing China for any unfair trading practices. Some of the cost will be borne by American consumers; some by American firms that either produce in China or use intermediate products from China; some by firms in countries (mostly U.S. allies) that supply China; and some by Chinese firms (mostly private ones).

If the United States proceeds with the 301 tariffs, China can be expected to retaliate based on its past behavior. In fact, it quickly published its own list, including penalizing U.S. soybean and aircraft exports. The same analysis can be applied to Chinese retaliatory tariffs. Chinese consumers will pay more for soybeans and products like pork that rely on soybeans. Chinese airlines will be less productive if they cannot buy American aircraft. It happens that these U.S. exports have mostly domestic content, so that most of the pain felt by producers will be within the United States, not in third countries.

Overall, tariffs are the wrong instrument to address the U.S.-China trade issues. Tariffs will cause a lot of unnecessary pain for consumers and third countries, not to mention American firms caught in the crossfire.

via Brookings Topics - China

#IFTTT #Feedly

0 notes

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

0 notes

marvyn-reads · 7 years ago

Link

I first met Xiaogang Peng in the summer of 1992 at Jilin University in Changchun, in the remote north-east of China, where he was a postgraduate student in the department of chemistry. He told me that his dream was to get a place at a top American lab. Now, Xiaogang was evidently smart and hard-working – but so, as far as I could see, were most Chinese science students. I wished him well, but couldn’t help thinking he’d set himself a massive challenge.

Fast forward four years to when, as an editor at Nature, I publish a paper on nanotechnology from world-leading chemists at the University of California at Berkeley. Among them was Xiaogang. That 1996 paper now appears in a 10-volume compendium of the all-time best of Nature papers being published in translation in China.

I watched Xiaogang go on to forge a solid career in the US, as in 2005 he became a tenured professor at the University of Arkansas. But when I recently had reason to get in touch with Xiaogang again, I discovered that he had moved back to China and is now at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou – one of the country’s foremost academic institutions.

For Xiaogang, it seems that America was no longer the only land of opportunity. These days, Chinese scientists stand at least as good a chance of making a global impact on science from within China itself.

The economic rise of China has been accompanied by a waxing of its scientific prowess. In January, the United States National Science Foundation reported that the number of scientific publications from China in 2016 outnumbered those from the US for the first time: 426,000 versus 409,000. Sceptics might say that it’s about quality, not quantity. But the patronising old idea that China, like the rest of east Asia, can imitate but not innovate is certainly false now. In several scientific fields, China is starting to set the pace for others to follow. On my tour of Chinese labs in 1992, only those I saw at the flagship Peking University looked comparable to what you might find at a good university in the west. Today the resources available to China’s top scientists are enviable to many of their western counterparts. Whereas once the best Chinese scientists would pack their bags for greener pastures abroad, today it’s common for Chinese postdoctoral researchers to get experience in a leading lab in the west and then head home where the Chinese government will help them set up a lab that will eclipse their western competitors.

There is always a certain fraction of talented, innovative people. China has the advantage of having lots of people

Many have been lured back by the Thousand Talents Plan, in which scientists aged under 55 (whether Chinese citizens or not) are given full-time positions at prestigious universities and institutes, with larger than normal salaries and resources. “Deng Xiaoping sent many Chinese students and scholars out of China to developed countries 30 to 40 years ago, and now it is time for them to come back,” says George Fu Gao of the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing – who himself gained a PhD at Oxford before studying at Harvard.

“The startup packages for researchers in good universities in China can be significantly higher than Hong Kong universities can offer,” says Che Ting Chan, a physicist at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in what was previously China’s affluent and westernised neighbour. “They provide more lab space and can help settle the spouse.” That, he notes ruefully, “makes recruiting young faculty staff increasingly challenging here.” Other well-off east Asian countries, such as Singapore and South Korea, are feeling the competition too.

The Chinese authorities are pursuing scientific dominance with systematic resolve. The annual expenditure on research and development in China increased from 1995 to 2013 by a factor of more than 30, and reached $234bn in 2016. The number of international publications coming out of China has remained in step with this rise. “Money is plentiful to certain Chinese researchers, possibly more so than to their competitors, especially if it means gaining an edge,” says stem-cell biologist Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute in London.

The ultimate aim is to develop a homegrown, innovative research environment, says Mu-Ming Poo of the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. “The government is beginning to recognise that big investment and recruitment of talent from abroad are not sufficient. We need to build infrastructure and mechanisms that facilitate innovation within China.” That’s not easy, and won’t happen fast. “Officially, government leaders say that taking risks is allowed, but the system of evaluating scientists and projects, and the philosophy and methods of instruction in university curricula, aren’t compatible with this policy.”

China’s moon mission to boldly go a step further

China’s strength also comes down to sheer numbers, though. “There is always a certain fraction of talented people who are innovative,” says Chan. “China has the advantage of having a lot of people.”

One of the more controversial ways Chinese institutions encourage their researchers to publish high-profile papers is to offer cash incentives. One study found that on average a paper in Nature or Science could earn the author a bonus of almost $44,000 in 2016. The highest prize on offer was as much as $165,000 for a single paper, up to 20 times a typical university professor’s annual salary.

According to quantum physicist Jian-Wei Pan of the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, as a relative latecomer to the global scientific stage, China needs such incentives as a way of maintaining enthusiasm. Chan adds that “the rewarding system is transparent, and the expectation of the senior administration is clearly spelled out. Most of my friends in China don’t see this as a problem – many feel that any formula, even if it’s simple and naive, is better than no formula.”

But could it not tempt researchers to cheat – fabricate or cherrypick results so that they can claim a dramatic discovery? The 2016 study of cash incentives also reported a rise in plagiarism, ghostwritten papers and other dishonest attempts to get published. Poo says that, whatever the case, the practice of cash incentives is not widespread. “Only a few low-level research institutions are doing this, not the Chinese Academy of Sciences or top universities,” he says. He thinks that problems with scientific misconduct and fraud in China have more to do with poor quality control or lack of punitive measures.

However, the pattern seems clear, and is worth heeding by other nations: despite China’s reputation for authoritarian and hierarchical rule, in science the approach seems to be to ensure that top researchers are well supported with funding and resources, and then to leave them to get on with it.

Pair bonding: cloned baby macaques Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua at the Chinese Academy of Sciences last month. Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Images

Cloning, embryology and virology

The recent news that a laboratory in Shanghai has succeeded in cloning macaque monkeys made world headlines not just because of the impressive scientific feat but because of the implications for humans. While mammals from sheep (Dolly in 1997) to pigs, dogs and cows have been cloned before, primates have been a problem. Mu-Ming Poo and his colleagues cracked the problem by treating the monkey eggs into which the genetic material of the cloned individual had been placed with a cocktail of molecules that awaken the genes needed to promote development into an embryo. The Chinese team has so far only produced healthy baby monkeys by cloning cells taken from other monkey foetuses, not from adult monkeys. But Poo tells me: “I think cloning using adult cells will be accomplished soon, probably within one year.”

Such experiments on our close evolutionary relatives raise ethical concerns, all the more so because there were many failures: only two live births out of 79 attempts. Nonetheless, the work makes human reproductive cloning look more feasible in principle. And despite the ethical issues surrounding such research (many countries ban it, including the UK), the magnitude and cost of the work already undertaken reinforces a sense that if China sets its sights on a particular scientific or technological target, nothing will get in its way.

It’s with good reason Poo asserts that China has become a world leader in stem-cell science and regenerative medicine. Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou created similar surprise and alarm when in 2015 they announced the first use of high-precision gene-editing in a human embryo – not for reproductive medicine but to examine the viability of the technique to edit a disease-causing gene variant, using IVF embryos that could not develop further. That work was refused publication in the leading journals Nature and Science on ethical grounds, although related work has now been licensed and conducted in the UK. “Genome biology has been well supported in China for some time, with huge investment in genome sequencing projects,” says Lovell-Badge.

There’s perhaps a temptation to ascribe some of China’s dominance here to a looser regulatory environment, but Lovell-Badge says that may not be the case. “Work on pigs and macaques is much easier and cheaper to do in China than in Europe and the US – it’s not necessarily anything to do with animal research ethics,” he says. “The best scientists want their work to be accepted in the west, so many have been trained by western scientists and their facilities designed with guidance from the west. But it is wrong to say that there are no restrictions. There may not be strict laws or even regulations, but there are strict guidelines – and if these are not followed, the consequences can be severe to the scientists involved.”

China is taking great strides in other areas of biological science too. The waves of deadly bird flu that have afflicted the country annually since it was first detected in 2013 supply a very urgent need for research in virology. Chinese researchers had already learnt a lot about viral epidemics, says George Gao, after the outbreak of the particularly virulent form of influenza that caused SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2002-3, originating in Guangzhou.

Gao’s work has focused on understanding how ‘zoonotic’ viruses like bird flu, which cross from animals to humans, are transmitted across species. He has also looked at the structures and molecular mechanisms of the SARS, Ebola, Zika and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) viruses, all of which potentially pose global threats. The government has invested heavily in this field, he says, but he has no illusions that China still has some catching up to do. “In my opinion we are yet far behind US science in general. And we need a better system to encourage businesses to develop basic research.”

The quantum internet

In January, Chinese researchers announced that they had sent data securely encrypted using the rules of quantum mechanics via satellite to Vienna in Austria – a demonstration of the potential of a “quantum internet” that Dutch quantum physicist Ronald Hanson of the Technical University of Delft describes to me as “a milestone towards future quantum networks”.

Quantum information technologies harness the counterintuitive principles of quantum physics to do things with information that are impossible with the 1s and 0s of binary code in today’s devices. Quantum computers can, for some tasks, operate faster and with more computational resources than ordinary computers, while a quantum telecommunications network – the quantum internet – could employ data-encryption methods that are rendered tamper-proof by the fundamental quantum laws of nature. The principles of so-called quantum cryptography were worked out in the 1980s, but applying them to information encoded in light signals for long-distance transmission is an immense technical challenge.

China’s approach here again exemplifies its can-do mentality. The government has begun to install a fibre-optic network for quantum telecommunication stretching from Shanghai to Beijing. But for longer-distance transmission optical fibres are no good because the light signal eventually gets too dim as it passes along the fibre. Instead signals must be through the air, using lasers to connect orbiting satellites with ground stations. In 2016 China initiated an international project called Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (Quess) and launched a satellite designed for quantum data handling, called Micius after the romanised name of the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi.

The satellite work is being led by Jian-Wei Pan, who studied for his PhD in Vienna under Anton Zeilinger, one of the foremost scientists in the field of quantum information science. With that pedigree, Pan could have had his pick of jobs in the field, but in 2001 he chose to return to China. In 2009 he oversaw the task of constructing a “quantum communication hotline” for the military parade on the 60th anniversary of the Chinese communist state, and in 2012 he won the prestigious biennial International Quantum Communication award.

Pan’s success in getting this technology up and running feels almost inexorable. Last year his team in Hefei drew more hyperventilating headlines by demonstrating the first “teleportation” of quantum objects (photons or “particles” of light) from the ground-based observatory at Ngari in Tibet to Micius, up to 1,400km away. The feat is not quite as science-fictional as it sounds – quantum teleportation, unlike the Star Trek version, does not involve any transmission of matter – but it could be an important trick for quantum telecommunications. The team also reported transmission of the “key” used for quantum encryption of signals between ground stations in China and Micius.

The latest advance was to get such keys all the way from Beijing to Vienna. This meant sending a laser signal with the quantum information from the Xinglong observatory near Beijing to Micius as it passed over China, and then having Micius communicate another such message with a station in Graz as it traversed the night sky over Austria. The link-up between Xinglong and Beijing, and between Graz and Vienna, was made along local fibre-optic networks. In this way, a video conference held between the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (of which Zeilinger is president) in Vienna was conducted with the robust security of quantum encryption – a striking harbinger of what a quantum internet might provide.

Pan says that the key to the remarkable success of Quess so far is coordination and collaboration within the immense pool of talent that China possesses. “When researchers [in different disciplines] undertake joint research, they can truly innovate,”, he says.

Acquiring skills abroad is still important for Chinese researchers, says Pan, and will be for some time. But increasingly it’s working the other way around too. “In my laboratory there are quite a few foreign students from developed countries, and some of them are even learning Chinese”, he says.

The Long March 2F carrier rocket, carrying China’s Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft, takes off from a launch pad in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, China, October 2016. Photograph: How Hwee Young/EPA

Space

In China no goal seems too big – not even the sky is the limit. In June the Chinese space agency plans to launch a lunar space mission to deliver a satellite that will guide a rocket in 2019 to the far (“dark”) side of the moon, bearing a robotic lander vehicle. The satellite link is essential for relaying data from the rover back to Earth. It’s all part of a campaign aiming at a manned moon mission in the 2030s. China is already regarded as a serious contender with the US, Europe and Russia for predominance in space, although so far it has shown enthusiasm for collaborating with Europe. It has launched two prototype unmanned space stations in its Tiangong programme, a prelude to Tiangong-3, which, if launched in the early 2020s, will support a crew of three – potentially including astronauts from other UN member nations. China has even discussed building a moon base with the European Space Agency.

Despite this apparently collaborative spirit, China’s space ambitions evoke the pioneering maritime voyages of Zheng He in the 15th century, which some historians today regard as a way of asserting the “soft power” and heavenly rule of the Ming emperor. Nothing like Zheng He’s “treasure ships” had ever been seen on the oceans before: they dwarfed the vessels in which Europeans like Vasco da Gama explored the world. Many are now wondering whether, in science and technology, those times are returning.

via China | The Guardian

#IFTTT #Feedly

0 notes