英国《金融时报》
中国 > 经济 > 特稿 2006年4月25日 星期二
前驻北京首席记者 金奇(James Kynge)
我到那儿时，只剩下一块疤了，一块赭色的土疤，有二十五个足球场那么大。十多台挖土机，笨
拙地刨着泥土，仿佛心不在焉地寻找丢失的东西。德国最大的钢铁厂之一，自二战前一直矗立此
地。如今，这里只剩下几堆扭曲的废铁。我朝路边一位身着工装的男子走去，他正将一截巨大的
金属管道吊上卡车。等他把管道放好后，我跟他打招呼。他说，从挖管、搬运到吊装，这种管子
已运走了十四根，眼下只剩下三根，够他再干一周。然后，活儿就都干完了。我问管子往哪运。
他伸直腰，好像要沿着一条长长的弧线，把什么东西抛向远方；然后说道：“中国。
钢厂的设备早就运走了。安装在60米高厂房内的顶吹氧转炉，加工卷板长度超过一公里的热轧钢
机，一部烧结机，一座鼓风炉，还有许多其它部件，所有设备都用木条箱包装，塞进集装箱，装
船启运，然后在长江口附近被拆箱。在长江的平坦冲积平原上，又严格按照在德国的样子，一个
螺丝也不差地把设备重新组装。运走的设备总重达25万吨，外加40吨详尽解释重新组装过程的文
件。整项工程十分繁复，穿工装的男子直摇头：“设备弄过去后，但愿能用。”
德国蒂森克虏伯(ThyssenKrupp)在多特蒙德的钢厂，一度雇佣约一万名员工。在赫尔德(Horde)
和威斯特法伦区( Westfalenhutte)，数代人都靠钢厂谋生。高耸的烟囱市内各处都能看到，烟
囱周围密布着厂房。近200年来，工厂一直在炼钢。德国在1870年、1914年和1939年擂响战鼓时
，正是鲁尔河谷这一隅先为普鲁士、后为德意志帝国供应了野战炮、坦克、炮弹和战舰装甲钢板
。此地的人们以实物为豪，证据在厂内处处可见。工厂的一条通道边，立着一座矮墩墩的19世纪
铁制鼓风炉，人们把它当作纪念碑，文字说明：鼓风炉运自英格兰。附近，有块纪念当地一位工
程师的牌匾。
2004年6月，一个温暖明媚的下午，赫尔德区看上去安宁、平静，显然已不再是鲁尔地区跳动的
心脏了。阿尔佛来德.拉宾(Alfred Trappen)街上，一家冰淇淋店外，几个人坐在阳光下，用长
长的调羹挖食着圣代冰淇淋。街道不远处，有一家齐曼纺织品( Zeeman Textiel)折扣店，店门
外，妇女们在网格篮里翻找，仔细打量着0.99欧元一件的T恤衫。折扣店附近，三家日光浴室、
一家纹身馆一字排开。纹身馆的广告说，能把“爱”、“富”、“康”三个汉字纹在顾客身上。
不过，日光浴室和纹身馆都关门了。
钢铁厂没了，生活发生了什么变化呢？我来就是要了解此事。不过，我不会讲德语，倒成了个障
碍。想拜访当地官员，他们又不愿谈。与街上的人搭讪，这些人觉得我的问题意思不大。我去了
路德教会，按传单上的名字一一给五位牧师打电话，约他们喝杯咖啡聊聊。马丁•蓬塞(Martin
Pense)神父很忙，克劳斯•沃尔特曼(Klaus Wortmann)神父出城了，伯尔恩•怀斯巴赫-拉迈
(Bern Weissbach-Lamay)神父没接电话，安格拉•迪克(Angela Dicke)嬷嬷很乐意帮忙，不过
今天放假，很抱歉。轻声细语的斯温•弗罗里希(Sven Frohlich)神父倒愿意电话上聊几分钟。
弗罗里希神父说，钢厂消亡是竞争力丧失所致，厄运来得慢，却不可避免。90年代初，生产效率
高的韩国钢铁厂就开始在全球削价抢生意，赫尔德区的钢铁工人却强烈要求实行每周35小时工作
制。接着，东西德统一，迫使政府提高税收，拖了整体经济活动的后腿，给赫尔德区造成了沉重
打击。到90年代中期，赫尔德钢铁厂最终何去何从，成了辩论话题。一开始，管理层做出惯有的
反应：讨论与某家竞争对手合并，实现经营增效，成本缩减，提高竞争力。到2000年时，全球钢
铁价格陷入低谷，一切有关拯救的言谈都烟消云散，似乎无能为力了。
弗罗里希神父说，数千钢铁工人失去工作，路德教会的教团也迁走了，社区并不贫穷，却陷入了
一种麻木状态。教会采取措施，竭力吸引年轻人参加各种社区活动（这一点从教会的通讯中就可
以看出)，年轻人似乎感觉不到宗教的吸引力。“我们迷失了自我，”弗罗里希神父说。“这可
是人身上最重要的东西，却被拿走的。找回这种东西可能需要10年以上。”
蒂森克虏伯钢厂表示，无论有没有找到买主，赫尔德工厂都得关门。其他人则表示怀疑。中国人
的突然收购来得太快，工厂停工仅一个月就签署了收购协议，赫尔德区一些人怀疑有幕后交易。
真相如何且不论，令当地人目瞪口呆的，与其说是中方的收购，不如说是随后发生的种种事情。
好像不知从那来的，厂里突然出现近1000名中国工人。在废弃的厂房内，他们搭起临时宿舍，就
在那儿凑和着睡。整个夏天，工人们一周工作7天，每天12小时。后来，一些德国工人和管理人
员颇有微词，中国工人才被迫尊重当地法律，每周休息一天。
单是中国工人的勤奋，就足以让鲁尔的硬汉反省。可事情还不止于此。当地人开始注意到，中国
的拆卸队登上40、50、60米高处的无防护走道，攀爬扶梯和脚手架时，完全不用安全带。这一“
景观”在当地媒体引起了轰动。有人称之为“终极中国外卖”，德国广播公司德国之声
(Deutsche Welle)记者在场的那天，看到一根细绳从98米高的赫尔德火炬(Horde Fackel)烟囱
顶上垂下，一个中国工人吊在绳子上。记者在新闻稿中问道：“中国杂技演员到城里来了吗？”
到2002年底，中国人不到一年就完成了拆卸工作，比答应蒂森克虏伯钢厂的进度提前了一年，而
比这家德国钢厂的最初估计提前整整两年。就在中国工人离开前夕，柏林中国驻德国大使馆一位
外交官前来对工人发表讲话。“中国人在德国以洗盘子和开餐馆出名。”外交官说。“我们的企
业想在这里开展业务时，有时仅仅是为了约见对方一面，就得低声下气。但你们通过自己的工作
，为中国人争了光。”
几周后，中国工人离开了。临走前，还邀请当地德国官员和工地经理赴宴。宴会菜肴有四种不
同风味，分别代表拆卸队厨师各自的家乡。用了一年的宿舍和厨房，依然十分干净整洁，只是留
下了一双黑色劳保鞋。人们发现，这双鞋是凤凰(Phoenix)牌，中国制造。曾在钢厂工作的德国
人说，真是怪了，中国人刚买走的工厂就叫“凤凰”，是为了纪念多特蒙德从1944年轰炸后的废
墟中崛起。不过，留下这双鞋究竟是因不小心忘了，还是有意的双关，没有人知道。
“凤凰”钢厂搬走18个月后，我站在阿尔佛来德.特拉宾街赞姆布罗华(Zum Brauhaus)旅馆的休
息室酒吧里，女老板把我介绍给一位名叫约翰的人。约翰在英国北部工业城镇博尔顿(Bolton)出
生长大，二战结束几年后，随英国陆军驻扎德国。退役后，娶了一位德国姑娘，搬到了妻子的家
乡多特蒙德。约翰在钢厂工作了20多年，现在工厂没了，但他对工厂的迁离抱着达观的态度。中
国经济在蓬勃发展，德国经济却已到达平台期。他说，中国人要是能让赫尔德工厂创造利润，买
下钢厂或许是件好事。
不可否认的是，当地人深深感受到“凤凰”的失落。 Alfred Trappen街南端的小公园里，就可
以看到这种心理失衡。公园里有一块纪念碑，纪念战争中被毁的犹太教会堂。纪念碑四周，成群
的失业钢铁工人坐在枝繁叶茂的山毛榉下，他们的塑料袋里装着一罐罐啤酒。约翰把拇指贴在嘴
唇上，发出喝酒的声音。他说，没有重工业的未来，需要慢慢适应。什么可接替重工业的位置，
没人能说清楚。当地政府迄今想到的唯一计划，就是把钢厂所在的地方开发成湖，面积比汉堡的
内阿尔斯特湖( Binnenalster)还大。湖上，将建四个小岛和一条连岛沙洲。湖边，会有游艇码
头的系泊处、一排排高级餐馆和近200公顷的公园。迄今，人们对游艇码头计划反应平平。
约翰说话时，一个高大强壮的40多岁钢厂工人搭上了话。“我倒要问问你，”他用低沉的声音问
道。“你觉得我们像有游艇的人吗？”
复苏的“中央之国”引力，抵达世界最遥远的角落。哪里太阳下山，哪里就有小偷为满足中国的
饥渴开工。在美国芝加哥，一个月内就有150多个井盖失踪。苏格兰“下水道井盖大抢劫”期间
，几天内100多个井盖就没了。在加拿大蒙特利尔、英国格洛斯特和马来西亚吉隆坡，有的行人
一不留神，就跌进窨井。"
“凤凰”飞去，赫尔德区成了全球首批感受中国崛起惊人力量之地。此前，这个崛起的亚洲大国
确实引发许多微震，但鲜有达到地震级别。2001年，“凤凰”的买家谈判交易时，中国尚未加入
世界贸易组织(WTO)。中国经济确实是推动亚洲的火车头，不过尚未具备世界级的实力。在北京
任《金融时报》记者期间，我的工作主要是报道中国国内事务，在研究和报道世界如何影响中国
问题上，所花时间大大超过研究报道中国如何影响世界的问题。外资大量流入中国，在北京中南
海统治中国的当代官僚之间的最新计谋，以及可否或应否相信中国官方统计数据，这些问题似乎
是当时的新闻报道的重点。
然后，突然之间，或者说相当突然地，中国成了日常国际新闻。这一转变何时出现，很难加以确
定，或许是2003年底，也可能是2004年初。我说不准。不管怎么说，所有变化不可能同一个瞬间
发生。像中国这样的庞然大物，不可能在顷刻间发生巨变。不过，至少在我的想象中，可能还是
有个转折点。那是2004年2月中旬之后的几周里，世界各地的窨井盖开始从马路和人行道上消失
，刚开始消失速度还较慢，后来越来越快。中国的需求将废金属价格推到了历史新高。各地盗贼
，几乎所见略同。夜幕降临时，盗贼们就撬起铁制窨井盖，卖给当地商人。商人把窨井盖切割后
，装船运往中国。第一批窨井盖被撬事件发生在台湾，下一批则在临近国家，如蒙古和吉尔吉斯
斯坦。很快，复苏的“中央之国”引力，抵达世界最遥远的角落。哪里太阳下山，哪里就有小偷
为满足中国的饥渴开工。在美国芝加哥，一个月内就有150多个井盖失踪。苏格兰“下水道井盖
大抢劫”期间，几天内100多个井盖就没了。在加拿大蒙特利尔、英国格洛斯特和马来西亚吉隆
坡，有的行人一不留神，就跌进窨井。
大国以不寻常的方式通报自己的到来，这已不是第一次了。比如，蒙古13世纪入侵欧洲时，英国
就先有察觉：北海港口哈维奇(Harwich)鱼价急剧上涨。人们后来知道，原因是波罗的海各船队
的水手突然应征入伍，同来自东方的骑兵作战。因此，船队无法出海捕鱼，哈维奇港鳕鱼和鲱鱼
供应减少，价格上涨。
我坐在办公室，望着北京长安街，想象着中国变戏法似的变出一支经济大军，然后派遣它们冲向
世界。购买私家车的速度如此快，长安街的交通一周比一周堵塞。我刚上任时，长安街远端是苏
联时代的公寓；任期结束时，那里则变成了拥有玻璃和铬合金外墙、大理石大堂的高耸楼群。一
度无处不在的自行车，正在逐渐消失。底楼窗外的人行道上，到处都是低声兜售盗版DVD的小贩
。就连从中国改革开放第一波大潮中遗留下来的友谊商店也变了。上世纪80年代初，这个国有商
店的店员总是故意对顾客表现出一种冷淡，而在此后的二十多年间，店员逐渐老练起来，最终形
成了一种漠然态度，衣服也变得七皱八折的了。1982年我在北京读书时，了无生气的法式蛋糕店
占据着商店一角，出售着首都寥寥无几的羊角包，而到21世纪初，蛋糕店则让位于出售蓝莓松饼
和提拉米苏的星巴克(Starbucks)。
我窗口看到的变化，在整个中国要放大一百万倍。这些变化合在一块，就成了中国转型的种种迹
象。自1978年改革开放以来，中国的经济转型让4亿多人脱离了每天支出一美元的贫困线。同期
，中国的年平均经济增长率达9.4%，是全球大型经济体中最高的。1978年时，私人电话几乎还闻
所未闻，而到2005年，约3.5亿人拥有移动电话，1亿多人上网。其变化之大并非罕见，这一幕曾
在人类奋斗的许多篇章中反复出现。
不过，就像窨井盖一事表明的那样，当今重塑中国的种种事件与以往不同，不只是在外国引起反
响，而是在以多种不同方式，实实在在地改变着世界运作的方式。据说，约200年前，拿破仑曾
警告世人，应“让中国沉睡，因为一旦她醒来，将震撼整个世界”。拿破仑是在什么场合发出这
一警告的，没有记载可查，引用的话本身可能并不准确，甚至有可能是伪造的。如果这位法国领
袖确实说过此话，那么他远远超前了自己的时代。倒不是因为中国在过去两个世纪里沉睡，远远
不是这个原因。有一点肯定属实：中国的复兴正改变着世界人口最多的国家，也标志着中华民族
长期落后衰弱时代的终结。中国释放出的能量就展现在我办公室窗外，就展现在这个大国其它不
计其数的地方，并开始震撼世界。中国国内趋势和事件，以什么样的方式投射到外部世界并产生
影响的呢？我想探个究竟，想从外部振动一路追溯至内部燃烧，以找出其中因果关系。这样，我
就从多特蒙德回到中国，去探索让赫尔德钢厂搬迁的能量之泉。
赫尔德钢厂海上之旅的终点，是长江边的一个大风侵蚀的小港，远在5600英里以外，位于长江下
游的冲积平原。这里河面宽阔，水势较缓，水深几乎足以让最大的海轮靠泊。在离河岸几百米的
内陆，工厂重新组装。我曾在照片上见过钢厂在德国的样子，因此一眼就认出了它。如今，钢厂
四周满是白沙，灰白色天空有金属感，可能造成错觉，使钢厂看上去要干净些。
收购赫尔德钢厂的企业叫沙钢(Shagang)，因其兴旺之处独特的自然环境而命名。1975年刚起步
时，沙钢只是一个不起眼的村办作坊。当时中国的钢产总量与多特蒙德一地的产量差不多。在此
后的岁月里，业务开始腾飞。小作坊不断扩张，先是占了整个村子，接着又占了邻近的小镇。现
在，当地人似乎都靠沙钢和厂主谋生。厂主叫沈文荣，以前是个农民，只受过基本教育，却把后
院的炼钢炉变成世界上效率最高的钢铁生产商之一。
沙钢招待所不远处，有一个钢镇招待所，我就在那里落脚。前台小姐告诉我，大家都感谢沈文荣
。她说，没有沈文荣，就没有这里的一切。中国工业化的种种不和谐，这里四处可见。河边的芦
苇荡里，正在兴建一座五星级酒店，外墙的壁画上，几位仙女霓裳飘动。当地人说，这家酒店的
名字叫重工酒店(Heavy Industry Hotel)。不远处，是“甜水”餐厅，旁边的河道里，堆满腐
烂垃圾，散发着刺鼻的臭味。小镇的另一端，修好了宽阔的新大道，就是缺少窨井盖，开车要不
断急转弯，后果严重。一座体育馆前，立着一尊铁牛，是华尔街纽约证券交易所(NYSE)门前那座
铁牛原样大小的复制品。花岗岩底座，则刻着沈文荣写的诗：毋须扬鞭自奋蹄，一奔已是千万里
。借问奔牛欲何往，过海越洋再称奇。
这座名叫锦丰的小镇，有一种临时营地的氛围。大多数居民是民工，有三万人。他们离开自己的
村庄，涌来找工作，报酬大约是每小时40美分。天刚亮，民工们就排成长队，默默地走向钢铁厂
、棉厂和玻璃厂。工厂承载着他们的未来，使他们不再被束缚在上千年的农田之中。日头西落时
，民工们从厂内涌出，返回宿舍。这支黄昏时刻的沉闷大军，给当地经济烙上了他们的印记：上
班道路两旁，商店一家接一家，出售安全帽、金属头靴子和绳子。此外，还有一家折扣服装店，
吸引那些衣锦还乡前要打扮一番的人。一双时髦的方头皮鞋卖4美元，印图案的T恤衫卖10美分。
走远一点，我进了一家酒铺。店内，白酒酒瓶上的一些名字富有诗意，十分诱人。“一滴香”
(90美分）、“凉河运”(75美分)、“东渡酒”(95美分)、“汤沟”(60美分)、“百年好合”
(1.10美元)。最后看到的一种叫“家常酒”，价格20美分。我拿起一瓶，商店老板却对我说：“
别喝那个。你受不了的。那是给民工喝的。”
午后，钢城招待所附近，一辆白色卡车在马路上缓缓开着，车顶的喇叭放着叮当声和录好的广告
语：“锦丰影剧院，有精彩歌舞表演，下午5点开始，千万不要错过。”卡车副驾驶座位上，一
年轻女子脸上抹着胭脂，双手叉在几乎赤裸的胸前，向路人“抛着媚眼”。路的另一侧，一辆载
着铁矿石的卡车摇晃着停下来，车上的司机和乘客伸长脖子，好看得更清楚些。
到锦丰镇前，我花了好几个星期，想搞一份到沙钢见沈文荣的邀请函，每次都被一个姓吴的挡驾
了。打电话给他说想作一次采访，他建议我发一个传真。我照做了。他告诉我需要修改。我改了
。噢，还要一份提问的问题。他补充道。我也写了。文件终于符合要求，他又采取另一种方式拖
延。他说，现在事情很忙，明年来采访或许更好。再说，锦丰没有什么好旅馆，交通也不方便。
最后，我决定去了再说。钢厂大铁门戒备森严，三个门卫身穿制服，头戴大盖帽，神情严肃地站
在门卫室里。我跟门卫说，要找沈文荣的办公室。门卫笑了，指着一大片长长的低矮厂房说，就
在里面。然后，就让我直接进去了。厂房是开放式的共享平面布局，一踏进厂房大门，就发现自
己站在中间。我没见过沈文荣的照片，但听说他人很魁梧，有一双务农的大手。我认清方向后，
转了几个弯，看到员工们坐在一排排小格间里，盯着电脑屏幕。忽然我注意到，身后几英尺的地
方，透过一道玻璃隔墙，一个身材魁梧的人坐在办公桌边，仔细看文件。几个职员手里拿着文件
，在一旁排成一队。每人到他跟前，这个大个子就抓过文件，仔细研究一会，用低沉的喉音发指
示。这一定是沈文荣。我走过去，排上了队。可快要排到最前面时，一个人走过来问我在干吗。
他就是那位姓吴的。他无奈地微笑着说，很高兴见到我；又接着说，不清楚沈文荣今天会不会上
班。无论如何，最好跟他到另一间办公室填表格，提出正式申请。此时此刻，我等了几个月的人
几乎就在咫尺之遥，我是不会被打发走的。
沈文荣抬起头，发现上午业务队伍中有个不请自来的外国人，似乎并不感到意外，也没有表现得
很高兴。他只是从老花眼镜上方，盯着我看了一会儿，然后不耐烦地挥了挥手，叫我坐在旁边的
矮木凳上。沈文荣的办公桌比学校的课桌大不了多少，与中国企业老总犒劳自己的硬木“大班台
”大不相同。沈文荣的玻璃桌面上，堆着两叠文件，中间立着个有机玻璃笔筒，里面插了几支廉
价圆珠笔。桌上，没有妻子和孩子的照片，没有商业成就纪念品，也没有电脑。沈文荣似乎更喜
欢当机立断，以实实在在的形式经商。排在我前面的生产线经理和其他管理人员，手里都攥着手
写或打印的A4纸。
我告知来意时，沈文荣打断了我的话，要我在后面房间等他。半小时后，沈文荣再度露面。我们
在会议桌旁坐下，他要我开门见山，省去繁文缛节。我问，为什么要买蒂森克虏伯的钢铁厂呢？
“我要的马，既要跑得快，又要少吃草。”他说，“几年后，全球钢价肯定下跌。那时，许多从
海外购进昂贵新设备的对手要么破产，要么债务太多，动弹不得。那时你会明白这是笔好买卖。”
沙钢买下这家德国钢厂的价格是2400万美元，相当于一堆废铁的价钱。从多特蒙德算起，陆运海
运费是1200万美元，重建费用(加上购买土地的费用)另需12亿美元。全部加起来，大约是一座新
厂成本的60%。通过改造，年产量会比德国人要提高300万吨，这一点沈文荣有信心。到钢厂全面
投产，沙钢目前的产能将提高逾一倍，从而跻身世界钢铁企业前20强。
假如沙钢当初决定买一座新厂，不仅代价会大得多，而且制造设备要花大约3年，总装要1至2年。
相比之下，“凤凰”确实是匹跑得快、维护要求低的好马。沈文荣说，与蒂森克虏伯钢厂谈判期
间，他是占优势的。虽然2001年全球钢价处于低谷，但他知道，今后两三年里，中国的需求会飚
升，而对德国人来说，能找到个买主就很高兴了。他们不可能预见到，2003年和2004年中国的需
求会不同寻常地飞涨，把全球钢价推到很高的水平，“凤凰”在多特蒙德生产，也能产生可观利
润。
总的来说，德国人很合作，沈文荣表示。对德国人的技术知识与诚信可靠，他和负责搬迁赫尔德
厂的总工程师倪根来均颇为敬佩。倪根来说，显而易见，德国人热爱自己的工厂。他回忆道，一
个大个子德国中年人带他参观工厂，在烧结厂门口开始啜泣。倪根来说，“他在厂里工作了20年
。”对中国人而言，“凤凰”厂了不起之处，是它向大众汽车(Volkswagen)提供钢材。在中国，
迄今没有几家企业具备生产汽车用钢的技术，因而存在取代昂贵进口汽车用钢的潜在市场，尤其
是现在，全国的汽车销售空前繁荣。大众汽车在上海有一家大型工厂，离锦丰并不远。所以，沈
文荣的憧憬很简单。沃尔夫斯堡(Wolfsburg)设计的轿车，仍将采用多特蒙德精湛技术生产的钢
材，只是整个制造流程将在长江三角洲展开。
临走时，吴送我到大门口。他那浓密的眉毛加重了无奈的神情。他和沈文荣从小一起长大，我们
穿过工厂时，他提起了记忆中的往事。工厂前院，我们所站之处，就是他和沈文荣开始创业的地
方，当时还是芦苇荡。沈文荣的童年十分贫困，孩提时代的农舍，已隐没在大片建筑中。当时，
中国是世界上最贫穷的国家之一，沈文荣的童年要说多穷就有多穷。
我对吴带我参观表示谢意。他说，没问题。“不过下一次，”他接着说，“发个传真。”
(完)
作者金奇，英国《金融时报》前驻北京首席记者。本文摘自他的金奇《中国震撼世界：饥饿之国的崛起》(China Shakes the World: the Rise of a Hungry Nation)，此书于3月30日由Weidenfeld& Nicolson出版社出版。
A new book on China’s Rise: Shock and ore (James Kynge - The Financial Times)
March 19, 2006
Copyright The Financial Times
Published March 17 2006
By the time I got there, there was only the scar. A scar of ochre earth 25 times the size of a football field. A dozen excavators pawed ponderously at the soil as if absently searching for something lost. The place where one of Germany’s largest steel mills had stood since before the second world war was now reduced to a few mounds of twisted metal scrap. I approached a man in worker’s overalls by the side of the road. He was hoisting a huge metal segment of a pipeline on to the back of a truck. After he had settled it in place, I called over to him. He said he had dislodged, lifted and loaded 14 segments like this already and now there were only three left, enough for another week’s work. Then it would all be over. I asked him where the pipeline was going. He straightened his back and made as if to throw something in a gentle arc far into the distance. “China,” he said.
The rest of the equipment had gone earlier: the oxygen converters that were housed in a shed 60m high, the hot rolling-mill for heavy steel plates that stretched out over one kilometre, a sinter plant, a blast furnace and a host of other parts. They had all been packed into wooden crates, inserted into containers, loaded on to ships and then unpacked again near the mouth of the Yangtze River. There, on the flat alluvium beds of that mighty river, they had been reconstructed exactly - to the last screw - as they had been in Germany. Altogether 250,000 tonnes of equipment had been shipped, along with 40 tonnes of documents that explained the intricacies of the reassembly process. The man in overalls shook his head at the convoluted nature of it all. “I just hope it works when they get it there,” he said.
The ThyssenKrupp steel mill in Dortmund once employed around 10,000 people. The communities of Horde and Westfalenhutte, where workshops clustered around chimneys that could be seen from all over the city, had depended on it for generations. People had made steel here for nearly 200 years, and when the drums of German conquest rolled in 1870, 1914 and 1939, it was this corner of the Ruhr Valley that supplied first Prussia and then the German empire with field guns, tanks, shells and battleship armour. A pride in practical things was evident everywhere. A stumpy-looking, 19th-century iron blast furnace, with a notice explaining that it had been brought over from England, stood as a monument by one of the gateways to the former plant. Nearby, a plaque memorialised a local engineer.
But on a warm, bright afternoon in June 2004, Horde was clearly no longer the pounding heart of the Ruhr. The place looked laid-back, becalmed. A few people sat in the sun outside an ice-cream shop on Alfred Trappen Street, digging to the bottom of their sundaes with long spoons. Up the road, women fished into a wire basket outside Zeeman Textiel, a discount store, inspecting T-shirts for 99 (euro) cents. There were three solariums in the vicinity and a tattoo parlour advertising its ability to emblazon the characters Ai, Fu and Kang, the Chinese characters for love, wealth and health, on to the bodies of its customers. But both the solariums and the tattooist were shut.
I had come to try to understand how life was changing now that the steel plant was gone. But my inability to speak German was a handicap. I tried calling on local officials but they were unwilling to talk. People on the street, when approached, seemed to find my questions unwarranted. So I went to the Lutheran Church and phoned each of the five pastors listed in a leaflet to invite them for a coffee. Pfarrer Martin Pense was busy, Pfarrer Klaus Wortmann was out of town, Pfarrer Bern Weissbach-Lamay did not answer, and Pfarrerin Angela Dicke would have been happy to help but it was a holiday, so sorry. Pfarrer Sven Frohlich, a softly spoken man, was ready to give me a few minutes on the phone.
The death of the steel mill, he said, had been the slow but inevitable result of a loss in competitiveness. In the early 1990s, when efficient South Korean steel plants were undercutting the world, Horde steelworkers were agitating to work a 35-hour week. Then the reunification of West and East Germany took its toll by forcing the government to raise taxes and by acting as a drag on general economic activity. By the mid- 1990s, the ultimate fate of the Horde plant had become an issue of debate. To start with, the management reacted as managements generally do: it discussed merging with a competitor to derive operational synergies, cost reductions and improved competitiveness. But by 2000, when global steel prices were in a slump, all talk of rescue faded away. There seemed to be little that could be done.
Pfarrer Frohlich said that the Lutheran church’s congregation had moved away as thousands of steelworkers lost their jobs, and the community, though not poor, had sunk into a kind of numbness. Young people did not seem to feel the pull of religion in spite of the strenuous efforts, evident in the church newsletter, to lure them into all sorts of community activities. “Our identity is lost,” said Frohlich. “And that is the most important thing that can be taken away from somebody. It could take more than a decade to recover it.”
According to ThyssenKrupp, the Horde plant would have been closed regardless of whether a buyer for it had been found. But others have had their doubts. The Chinese pounced so quickly on the purchase, signing to buy it just one month after the plant was idled, that some in Horde suspected a behind-the-scenes deal. Whatever the truth, it was not the Chinese acquisition so much as the events that were to follow that stunned the local population. As if out of nowhere, nearly 1,000 Chinese workers arrived. They dossed down in a makeshift dormitory in a disused building in the plant and worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the summer. Only later, after some of the German workers and managers complained, were they obliged to take a day off out of respect for local laws.
Their industriousness alone was enough to give the hardened workers of the Ruhr pause for thought. But there was something else. Locals started to notice the Chinese deconstruction teams high up - 40, 50, 60m above ground - on exposed walkways, swinging up ladders and clinging from scaffolding poles - all without the use of safety harnesses. The spectacle became a local media sensation. Some referred to it as the “ultimate Chinese takeaway”, and on the day that a reporter from Deutsche Welle, the German broadcaster, was there, a Chinese worker was spotted dangling by a thin wire from the top of the 98m-high Horde Fackel chimney. “Have the Chinese acrobats come to town?” he asked in his dispatch.
By the end of 2002, in less than one year, the Chinese had finished the dismantling job - a year ahead of schedule that they had agreed with ThyssenKrupp and a full two years faster than the German company had initially estimated the job would take. Shortly before it was time to leave, a diplomat from the Chinese embassy in Berlin arrived to address the labourers. “The Chinese are known in Germany for washing dishes and running restaurants,” he said. “When our companies want to do business here we sometimes have to beg just for an appointment. But through your work you have earned the Chinese people some face.”
A few weeks after that, they pulled out, having invited local German officials and site managers to a banquet cooked in four different styles reflecting the four home towns of the deconstruction-team chefs. The dormitories and kitchens they had been using for a year were left scrupulously clean and tidy, save for a single pair of black safety boots. These boots, it turned out, bore the brand name Phoenix and were made in China. That was curious, said Germans who had worked at the steel mill, because the plant the Chinese had just taken away was also called Phoenix, in commemoration of the way that Dortmund had risen from the ashes of bombing raids in 1944. Nobody could tell, however, whether the single pair of forgotten boots was an oversight or an intentional pun.
Eighteen months after the Phoenix’s migration, I stood in the lounge bar in Zum Brauhaus, a hostel on Alfred Trappen Street, where the landlady introduced me to a man called John. He had been born and brought up in the UK, in the northern industrial town of Bolton, and had been posted to Germany with the British Army a few years after the war. He married a German girl, and they moved to Dortmund, her home town, after he left the army. He had worked in the steel mill for more than 20 years but, now that it had gone, he took a philosophical view of its departure. The Chinese economy was booming, whereas Germany’s had reached a plateau. If they could put the Horde plant to profitable use, then maybe it was a good thing that they had bought it, he said.
But there was no denying that the Phoenix’s loss was keenly felt. You could see the psychological displacement in a small park at the lower end of Alfred Trappen Street. There, around a monument to a synagogue that was destroyed during the war, groups of unemployed steelworkers sat under spreading beech trees with their cans of lager in plastic bags. John held a thumb to his lip and made a sucking sound. A future without heavy industry was going to take some getting used to, he said. Nobody had a clear idea of what would take its place. The only thing that the local authority had come up with so far was a plan to redevelop the area that the steelworks had occupied into a lake larger than the Binnenalster in Hamburg. It would feature four small islands and a tombolo. Around the sides there would be the moorings for a marina, rows of upscale restaurants and nearly 200ha of parkland. But so far the marina scheme had not received a positive reception.
As John was talking, another former steelworker, a large, powerfully built man in his forties, joined the conversation. “Let me ask you,” he boomed. “Do we look like yachtsmen to you?”
The flight of the Phoenix made Horde one of the first communities on earth to feel the convulsive force of a rising China. Before that, it was true, there had been plenty of soundings emanating from Asia’s rising giant, but few of them had amounted to more than tremors on the seismic scale. In 2001, when the buyer of the Phoenix was negotiating the deal, China had not yet joined the World Trade Organisation and, although its economy was certainly a driving locomotive for Asia, it had yet to develop a world-class punch. Indeed, my assignment as a journalist for the Financial Times in Beijing had been taken up mainly with domestic issues. I had spent a lot more time researching and reporting on how the world was affecting China than on how China was affecting the world. The story then seemed to revolve around the large inflows of foreign investment, the latest intrigues among the modern-day mandarinate that ruled from within a forbidden compound in the centre of Beijing, and whether or not you could or should trust the official statistics.
Then, quite suddenly, or so it seemed, China became an issue of daily international importance. It is difficult to pinpoint when, exactly, that transition took place; perhaps it was late in 2003, or maybe it was early the next year. I could not be sure. In any case, it was unlikely that there would have been any single moment when everything changed. An object as large as China cannot turn on a sixpence. Nevertheless, in my imagination at least, there may have been a tipping point. It occurred during the several weeks from mid-February 2004 when, slowly at first but with mounting velocity, manhole covers started to disappear from roads and pavements all over the world. As Chinese demand drove up the price of scrap metal to record levels, thieves almost everywhere had the same idea. As darkness fell, they levered up the iron covers and sold them to local merchants who cut them up and loaded them on to ships to China. The first displacements were felt in Taiwan, the island just off China’s southeast coast. The next were in other neighbours, such as Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan. But soon the gravitational pull of a resurgent Middle Kingdom was reaching the furthest sides of the world. Wherever the sun set, pilferers worked to satisfy China’s hunger. More than 150 covers disappeared during one month in Chicago. Scotland’s “great drain robbery” saw more than a hundred vanish in a few days. In Montreal, Gloucester and Kuala Lumpur, unsuspecting pedestrians stumbled into holes.
It was not the first time that a great power had telegraphed its arrival in an unusual way. The first inkling the British had of the 13th-century Mongol invasion of Europe, for example, was when the price of fish at Harwich, a harbour on the North Sea, rose sharply. The explanation for this, people learned later, was that the Baltic shipping fleets, abruptly deprived of sailors required to fight the enemy approaching by horse from the east, had remained at its moorings. That had reduced the supply of cod and herring to Harwich, and prices had risen accordingly…
… The sea voyage of the ThyssenKrupp steel mill ended 5,600 miles away from Horde at a small, windswept port on the alluvium beds of the lower Yangtze River. The water was wide and sluggish here, and deep enough for all but the largest sea vessels to dock. A few hundred metres inland from the riverbank, the plant had been reassembled. I recognised it immediately. It looked somehow cleaner than in the photographs I had seen of it in Germany, although that may merely have been an illusion created by the white sands and metallic grey skies surrounding it.
The company that had bought the plant was called Shagang, “sand steel” after the distinctive physical environment in which it had blossomed from its humble beginnings as a village workshop in 1975. China’s entire national steel output had then been scarcely more than that of Dortmund alone. In the intervening years, though, business had taken off. The workshop’s expansion had first consumed the village that built it and then usurped the neighbouring town. Now everyone in the area seemed in thrall both to steel and to the former peasant farmer with a rudimentary education who had turned a backyard furnace into one of the world’s most efficient producers. His name was Shen Wenrong.
I stayed at the Steel Town Guest House, just down the street from the Sand Steel Hostel. The receptionist told me that everyone was thankful to Shen. Without him, she said, this place would be nothing. Now it was full of the incongruities of industrialising China. A five-star hotel with an external mural of mythical goddesses in floating gowns was under construction in the reed beds by the river. Its name, locals said, was to be Heavy Industry Hotel. Not far away, a restaurant called Sweet Water stood beside mounds of stinking rubbish rotting in a canal. Wide new boulevards had been built in another part of town, but a dearth of manhole covers had turned driving into a slalom with consequences. And in front of a sports hall, there was a scale replica of the iron bull that stands in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. On its plinth, a poem written by Shen Wenrong had been carved into granite: The bull will rush forward without whipping,/Once in flight it covers a thousand miles./We ask the golden bull; Why are you like this?/But the bull can fly over oceans too -/Only then should you call it a miracle.
The town’s name was Jinfeng and it had the air of a temporary encampment. Most of its inhabitants were migrant workers, the peasant farmers who flooded in from their villages to find work for around 40 cents an hour. There were about 30,000 of them in Jinfeng and shortly after dawn they tramped in long silent lines to the steel, cotton and glass factories that held the promise of a future free from the 1,000-year tyranny of their fields. At dusk the factories would disgorge them back to their dormitories; a sullen, twilight army. The local economy bore the imprint of their presence; shops selling hard hats, metal toecap boots and lengths of rope lined their route to work. There was also a discount garment shop for those who wanted to smarten up before triumphant trips home. A pair of leather shoes with a fashionable square toe was on sale for $4 and patterned T-shirts were going for 10 cents.
A bit further on, I dropped into a liquor store and was attracted to the poetic names on several bottles of white spirit. One Drop Fragrant (90 cents), Cool River Destiny (75 cents), Eastern Crossing (95 cents), Boiling Ditch (60 cents), Drink Happy 100 Years ($1.10). The last one I looked at was called Ordinary and it cost 20 cents, but just as I picked it up the shopkeeper called over to me. “Don’t drink that. You couldn’t stand it. It’s for migrant workers,” he said.
Later that afternoon, near the Steel Town Guest House, a white truck moving at the speed of a milk float came down the road playing a jingle and a recorded message from a speaker on its roof. “Jinfeng Cinema. Outstanding Song and Dance. Travelling Performance. Five O’Clock Start. Don’t Miss It,” the message said. In the passenger seat, a young woman with rouged cheeks and her hands interlaced in front of almost naked breasts was “casting the beautiful eye” to passers by. On the other side of the road, a truck carrying iron ore juddered to a halt, its driver and passengers craning to get a better view.
Before coming to Jinfeng, I had spent weeks trying to secure an invitation to Shagang to see Shen. But at every step I had been thwarted by a man called Wu. When I phoned him to request a visit, he suggested that I send a fax. I did. But he told me it needed alterations. I made them. Oh, and there should be a list of questions that I wanted to ask, he added. I wrote them. When my documentation was finally to his specifications, the stalling took a different tack. Things were busy now, he said. Next year might be a better time to visit. Besides, Jinfeng had no good hotels, and transport was inconvenient….
…Shagang bought the steel mill by paying its price in scrap: $24 million. Its transportation by land and sea from Dortmund had cost $12 million and its reconstruction (plus the purchase of the land) another $1.2 billion. All told, it came in at about 60 per cent of the cost of buying a new plant and, by reconfiguring it, Shen was confident he would be able to squeeze 3m more tonnes of annual output from it than the Germans had managed in Dortmund. When it started producing at full tilt, it would more than double Shagang’s current capacity, catapulting the company into the ranks of the world’s top 20 producers.
If Shagang had decided to buy a new plant, not only would the cost have been far greater but also it would have taken about three years to make and one or two years to assemble. By comparison, Phoenix was indeed a fast, low-maintenance horse. Shen said he had the advantage during negotiations with ThyssenKrupp because, although steel prices worldwide were in a trough in 2001, he knew that demand in China was set to balloon over the following two to three years. The Germans, he said, were just happy to find a buyer. They could not have been expected to foresee that an extraordinary upsurge in Chinese demand in 2003 and 2004 would propel global steel prices to levels at which Phoenix in its original Dortmund setting would have made a handsome profit.
All in all, the Germans had been very co-operative, Shen said. Both he and Qi Guangnan, the chief engineer who had packed up the plant in Horde, had an admiration for their technical knowledge and their trustworthiness. And clearly, they had loved their factory, said Qi. He recounted how a big, middle-aged German who showed him around had started sobbing at the door of the sinter plant. “He had worked there for 20 years,” Qi said. But the great thing about the Phoenix plant, as far as the Chinese were concerned, was that back in Germany it had supplied steel to Volkswagen, the car maker. In China, few firms as yet had the technology to make automobile-grade steel. There was a market to be had in substituting for the expensive imports of auto-grade steel, especially now that car sales nationwide were in an unprecedented boom. Volkswagen itself had a large plant in Shanghai, which was not too far away from Jinfeng. Shen’s vision, then, was simple. Cars designed in Wolfsburg would still be built with steel made from Dortmund’s fine technology - only the whole process would unfold within the span of the delta where the Yangtze meets the sea.
As I left, I was accompanied to the gate by Wu, whose resigned expression was accentuated by the weight of his bushy eyebrows. He had been with Shen since they grew up and, as we walked through the plant, he spoke of the memories he was seeing in his mind’s eye. The place where we stood on the factory forecourt had been a bed of reeds when he and Shen had first started out. And somewhere lost in the mass of buildings was the site of the farmer’s shack where Shen had lived out a childhood as poor as it was possible to be in one of the world’s most impoverished countries.
I thanked Wu for taking me around. He said it had been no problem. “Only next time,” he said, “send a fax.”
James Kynge is a former Beijing bureau chief of the FT. This is an edited extract from his book “China Shakes the World: the Rise of a Hungry Nation”, published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on March 30. The book can be bought at a 25 per cent discount for £13.99 plus p&p through the FT ordering service at 0870 4295884 or at
http://www.ft.com/bookshop
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