跨国公司与中国民族资本企业的互动：以两次世界大战之间在华冷冻蛋品工业的发展爲例

Multinational Companies and Indigenous Enterprises in China: The Case of the Refrigerated Egg Packing Industry during the Inter-War Period, 1919-1941

过去一般认爲二十世纪初，西方大型企业挟新兴科技、充裕资金，及中国政府所给予的优惠关税等多项优势来华设立子公司，因此中国民族资本企业鲜有有能力与之竞争者。但近来越来越多的研究成果显示，我们对民族资本企业的活力与灵活性有低估之虞。高家龙(Sherman Cochran)早期有关烟草工业的研究结果，即显示简照南的南洋兄弟烟草公司一度与英美烟公司互较长短；他最近对申新纺织企业与大中华火柴公司的个案研究，更进一步显示荣宗敬与刘鸿生在企业扩张过程中，灵活运用西式的管理科层与中国的传统社会网络。陈计尧对刘鸿生企业的整体研究也指出，刘氏在利用复式簿记与公司法方面的主动与活力。 申新纺织与大中华火柴的主要市场均在中国，其对手固然包含英商、日商及瑞典企业，但主要合纵连横的对象实爲华商。本文提供一个以欧洲爲销售市场、欧美跨国公司爲主要对手的案例，进一步指出：民族资本企业的活力不仅在於一度与外籍企业分庭抗礼，还表现在充分利用本身的地利、人和等优势，迫使外籍企业接纳其爲集团中的一员，进而在该工业中取得举足轻重的地位。从华商茂昌公司与英商和记洋行的竞争，乃至垄断性组织「中国冰蛋业同业公会」及「韦尔信托公司」的成立，可以看出民族资本企业如何利用江浙一带充裕的资金，加上西方的技术、人才及经营方法，突破外籍企业的围堵，再不断地藉合纵连横，成功地引导中国冷藏食品工业的发展与走向。 本文藉分析两次世界大战之间中国的冷冻蛋品工业，不仅显示民族资本企业在竞争过程中所展现的主动、积极与高度灵活性，与欧美大型企业相较，有过之而无不及，同时进一步阐明欧美跨国公司与民族资本企业之间定义的模糊性。在本案例，两者不仅不是泾渭分明，而且在产品的收购、制造、运输及销售的方法上几无二致，在兼并或联合垄断方面更充满弹性。高家龙在分析在华企业经营方式时，曾用「动态性的互动」一词形容西式管理科层与中国传统社会网络之间的关系，如果借用高家龙的用词，本案例中的跨国公司与民族资本企业之间那种充满变数、你退我进的竞合关系，无疑也是一种「动态性的互动」。

In the past it was commonly thought that Chinese indigenous businesses in the first half of the twentieth century, without the advantages of new technologies, ample capital and special tax treatment enjoyed by foreign enterprises, could hardly compete with Western intruders. Recent studies, however, have highlighted that we under-estimated the vitality of Chinese businesses. For example, Sherman Cochran's 1980 work on the cigarette industry has clearly showed that Jian Zhaonan's Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company rivaled the British and American Tobacco Company. His most recent case studies from 2000 on two more Chinese businesses, the Shenxin Cotton Mills and the China Match Company, further reveal their adaptability to Western management styles by combining ”Western” managerial hierarchies with ”Chinese” social networks. Kai Yiu Chan's study of the match industry in China also shows that the China Match Company, in expanding its business, was quick to take advantage of double-entry bookkeeping and the then newly promulgated company law. The Shenxin Cotton Mills and the China Match Company distributed their products mainly in China, and their competitors, though including some British, Japanese and Swedish companies, were largely Chinese firms. This paper is a case study of a refrigerated egg packing industry dominated by one single Chinese business, the China Egg Produce Company (CEPC). Its products were sold exclusively to Europe in competition with some six to eight British and American enterprises, among them the International Export Company (IEC), the China subsidiary of a British multinational company. By focusing on the refrigerated egg packing industry in China during the inter-war period, this paper argues that Chinese merchants were quick to grasp Western technology, management and the factory system. This, plus their knowledge of the people and the land, put them in a better position than we have recognized so far. This paper shows that CEPC not only rivaled IEC, but persuaded refrigerating companies, foreign and Chinese, to form the Refrigerated Egg Packers' Association of China in Shanghai in 1930 and the Weal Trust Co. Ltd. in London in 1934. Through these price-fixing organizations, the refrigeration companies managed to monopolize the export of frozen egg products from China to Europe until the outbreak of the Pacific War, and China therefore contributed 90 percent of ”eggs not in shells” imported into the UK in the 1930s. The CEPC case not only shows the surprising vitality and adaptability of some Chinese businesses, but suggests that we reconsider the definition of indigenous enterprise (minzu ziben qiye). Though purely owned by Chinese merchants in China, CEPC operated exactly like its Western rivals in every aspect of its operations, including egg purchasing, processing, transporting and selling. On the other hand, multinationals also showed self-restraint and flexibility in their competition with Chinese business, operating on the principle, ”if you can’t beat them, join them.” Cochran describes the interaction between the managerial hierarchies and social networks in the management of Western, Japanese and Chinese enterprises in China, as ”dynamic.” If we can borrow Cochran's term, the fierce competition and the subsequent close cooperation between CEPC and IEC discussed in this case study could be termed undeniably another kind of ”dynamic interaction.”