华润董事长宋林被免职显示反腐行动扩大

The Communist Party ousted the senior officer of one of China's largest state-owned enterprises, suggesting its anticorruption campaign--which has already rattled upper echelons of the national leadership--is spilling into new sectors.

中国共产党免去了中国最大国有企业之一的一位高管职位，表明其反腐行动正蔓延到新的领域。这场反腐行动已经撼动了国家领导层的高层。

Last week, the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection accused China Resources Chairman Song Lin of unspecified 'suspected serious violations of discipline and law,' phrasing Chinese authorities typically use in reference to corruption. The party on Saturday said it removed him from the conglomerate.

上周，中共中央纪律检查委员会（简称：中纪委）宣布华润集团(China Resources)董事长宋林“涉嫌严重违纪违法”，中国当局通常用这种说法指代腐败行为。中共上周六说，宋林已被免职。

The firing followed allegations by a reporter for a newspaper owned by the government news agency Xinhua that Mr. Song abused his power in corporate dealings, for instance by personally benefiting from a coal mine acquisition.

相关阅读专栏：习近平的反腐难题在此之前，中国官方通讯社新华社下属报纸的一名记者举报宋林在公司交易中滥用权力，例如从一个煤矿收购交易中谋取私利。

Before his dismissal, Mr. Song last week defended his reputation in a statement that dismissed the reporter's allegations as 'pure fabrication and malicious slander.' Mr. Song's whereabouts were unknown but he is believed to be in the hands of party investigators, who routinely detain suspects without formal charges and deny them access to lawyers.

在被免职前，宋林上周发表声明为自己的声誉辩护，说那位记者的指控纯属捏造和恶意诽谤。宋林下落不明，但据信他被党内调查人员控制，党内调查人员经常在没有正式提起指控的情况下扣留嫌疑人，且不让他们会见律师。

China Resources, a Hong Kong-based trading conglomerate with $64.5 billion in turnover last year, according to the company, is one of 113 business groups directly owned by China's central government.

据华润集团信息显示，该公司是总部位于香港的一家贸易集团，去年营业额为645亿美元。华润集团是中国中央政府直属的113家企业集团之一。

The shake-up illustrates how China's massive state-owned enterprises represent a crossroads of commerce and politics, according to some analysts. They doubt professional misdeeds by Mr. Song fully explain his removal by the party, which has full discretion to appoint heads of its major companies.

一些分析人士认为，这次人事地震显示出中国庞大的国有企业成了商业和政治的交集。分析人士怀疑，宋林的渎职行为并不能完全解释他为何被中共免职，中国主要国企的负责人由中共全权任命。

'This is not only about anticorruption, but also involves power struggle, ' said Zhao Xiao, an economics professor at Beijing University of Science and Technology who formerly ran a research arm of the government agency that manages China Resources and the other 112 business groups, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

Bloomberg News华润集团董事长宋林因涉嫌违纪违法被免去职务。北京科技大学经济学教授赵晓称，这不仅关乎反腐，还涉及到权力斗争。赵晓曾是国务院国有资产监督管理委员会（简称：国资委）下属一个研究机构的负责人。国资委负责管理华润集团和其他112家企业集团。

Mr. Song's removal likely represents a new chapter in the president's corruption campaign, some analysts say, expecting other current or retired senior politicians will be affected by the shake-up.

一些分析人士表示，宋林被免职可能代表习近平的反腐行动进入了新的一章，预计其他现任或退休高层官员将会受到此次洗牌的影响。

'When one falls, it signals the whole faction is affected,' said Xi Li, an expert on China's state-owned enterprises at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

香港科技大学(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)中国国有企业问题专家李系称，一名官员落马意味着整个派系将受到影响。

Until recently, party investigators appeared to focus on China's petroleum industry by detaining on suspicion of corruption oil company executives and tycoons connected to the business. In several cases, those people enjoyed ties to former oil man Zhou Yongkang, who retired from the Politburo Standing Committee during the 2012 party leadership. Mr. Zhou hasn't been named in those investigations, and he couldn't be reached to comment.

直到最近，中共调查人员似乎一直专注于中国的石油行业，拘捕了多名涉嫌腐败的石油企业高管和与石油行业有关的企业巨头。在一些案件中，被拘者与前石油业高层周永康有关。2012年，周永康卸任中共中央政治局常委。这些调查并未提到周永康的名字，记者无法联系到他置评。

'The change in leadership at [China Resources] shows that the anticorruption campaign is spreading to the SOEs,' said Mr. Zhao. 'Any high-level personnel change has a complicated political background.'

赵晓表示，华润集团领导层的调整显示出反腐行动正在扩大到国有企业。他还说，任何高层人事变动都有着复杂的政治背景。

In the past, surgical removals sparked by Chinese party politics have done little damage to the workings of large business groups. Though exceptionally powerful, business figures like Mr. Song tend to be easily replaced, analysts said.

过去，中国党派政治引发的清洗对大型企业集团的运作损害微乎其微。分析人士表示，尽管像宋林这样的企业高层影响力很大，但通常很容易被替换。

'There's a system in place, not just one person,' said the SOE specialist, Mr. Li. The party's appointee draws his position from patronage, Mr. Li said, and the task is to engage with state leaders and safeguard government assets, not maximize business profits.

李系表示，国企运行有一套机制，并不只是由一个人掌控。李系说，国企负责人由中共任免，其任务是贯彻国家领导人的指示，维护国有资产，而不是使企业利润最大化。

China Resources appointed an interim chairman who said this is 'a very serious time.' Share prices of several listed units fell in Hong Kong on Tuesday, including China Resources Enterprise Ltd., ended down about 4%, as trading resumed after a holiday and following the announcement of the party's investigation into Mr. Song on Thursday.

华润集团任命了一位临时董事长，他表示，集团正面临非常严峻的时刻。周二香港股市在长假后恢复交易，受上周四宋林遭调查消息影响，华润系股票下跌，其中华润创业(China Resources Enterprise Ltd. )收盘下挫约4%。

In China's system, SOEs can be a proving ground, with executives sometimes moving on to political positions. Two of the seven members of the current Politburo Standing Committee rose through SOEs.

在中国的机制下，国有企业往往成为一个试验场，国企高管有时能够步入政坛担任高级职务。目前七名政治局常委中就有两位来自国企。

Wang Qishan, whose responsibilities include the party's anticorruption wing that is investigating Mr. Song, hails from the banking industry. The other, Zhang Gaoli, worked in the oil industry.

目前主管反腐败工作的王岐山就是提拔自银行业高管岗位。另一位常委张高丽曾在石油行业工作。

Mr. Song, by contrast, spent his career at China Resources, a conglomerate that predates the party's control of China. Formed in 1938 and previously known as Hong Kong's Liow & Co. it was initially credited with raising money for weapons for Chinese to fight Japanese forces. Today, China Resources has 420,000 employees and holdings in everything from property, power, retail, pharmaceuticals and beer.

相比之下，宋林一直就职于华润集团，这是一家在共产党取得政权之前就已成立的企业集团。华润集团成立于1938年，前身是香港联和行(Liow & Co)，当初为抗日根据地筹集资金购买军需物资。今天，华润集团已拥有员工42万人，业务范围遍及房地产、电力、零售、医药和啤酒等各个领域。

Mr. Song, known as Charley, joined China Resources after earning a mechanical engineering degree in college in 1985. He climbed through posts in the asset management, petrochemical, power and retail divisions of the vast China-focused company.

英文名叫Charley的宋林1985年从大学毕业获得机械工程学学位后加盟华润集团。他在这个以国内业务为主的庞大企业中不断升迁，工作过的部门包括资产管理、石化、电力和零售等。

An early mentor was the current head of Chinese state-owned grain trader Cofco Corp., Ning Gaoning, a celebrated executive. In press interviews, Mr. Song embraced market economics--'heads have to roll for poor business decisions'--and he won appointment to corporate boards and honorary positions, including one advising Hong Kong's anticorruption agency. Mr. Song took the leadership of China Resources around five years ago.

宋林当年的老领导是现任中国国有粮食贸易公司中粮集团(COFCO Corporation)董事长、知名企业管理人士宁高宁。宋林信奉市场经济学──“若商业决策失当，负责人必须承担责任，接受解聘”，他还获聘其他一些企业的董事及荣誉职位，包括担任香港反腐机构的道德委员会负责人。宋林大概从5年前开始担任华润集团董事长一职。

The top positions at other big SOEs changed during China's once-in-a-decade leadership succession in late 2012. New faces appeared at the helm of arms maker China Poly Group, builder China Railway Construction Corp., energy producer China General Nuclear Power Group and metals maker Sinosteel Corp.

2012年底中国政府换届期间，许多央企的领导也纷纷换人。军工企业中国保利集团公司(China Poly Group co.)、建筑公司中国铁建股份有限公司(China Railway Construction Co., 简称：中国铁建)、能源企业中国广核集团(China General Nuclear Power Group)和冶金企业中钢集团公司(Sinosteel Corp.)的领导班子均出现了新面孔。

In all, the party replaced its top officer at 15% the biggest 113 SOEs between 2012 and 2013, affecting 17 groups in all, according to calculations by The Wall Street Journal.

根据《华尔街日报》的统计，2012年至2013年间，中国113家央企中有15%更换了一把手，共涉及17家集团公司。

Still, U.S. companies may have changed chief executives more often. In the same two years, 90 companies, or 17% of the constituents of the S&P 500 index of the biggest U.S. business, changed CEOs, according to a tally by management consultant Spencer Stuart.

不过，美国企业更换首席执行长的频率可能更高。管理咨询公司史宾沙(Spencer Stuart (BIV) Ltd.)的统计数据显示，同样是在2012年至2013年间，标准普尔500指数成份股公司中有90家更换了CEO，比例为17%。

'The senior leadership of SOEs is arranged by the party,' says Louis Kuijs, China chief economist at RBS Markets in Hong Kongand a former World Bank specialist in Beijing. He says party control may help China coordinate its industrial policy, but appears unusual from a western perspective.

RBS Markets中国首席经济学家、前世界银行(World Bank)驻北京专家高路易(Louis Kuijs)称，中国央企高管是由中共一手安排的，这可能有助于政府协调行业政策，但从西方观点来看，这种做法并不正常。

Among the recent personnel changes in China, the party assigned the head of a railway equipment maker to the helm of a solar panel business, and a metal-maker's chief to a tourism business, though he was demoted 16 months later. In past changes, the party has swapped top managers between airlines and telephone companies; three years ago, Beijing shuffled senior executives among the country's three biggest oil companies, in one case replacing a man appointed party chief of a province.

在中国国企近期的高层人事调整中，一家铁路设备制造企业的负责人被调任一家光伏企业的负责人；一家冶金企业的领导人被调任一家旅游公司的领导人，不过16个月后此人被降职。在过去的人事调整中，航空公司和电信公司的领导人曾经出现过对调；三年前，中国三大石油巨头的高管被大挪移，部分职位互换，其中一人还被调任某省担任省委副书记。

James T. Areddy / Laurie Burkitt

James T. Areddy / Laurie Burkitt