中国现代"及时雨"王岐山 从"救火"到"打虎"

In the midst of the biggest bankruptcy in Chinese history in 1998, Wang Qishan, the Communist party official in charge of the process, received a visit from an old friend with a warning.

1998年，在中国发生史上最大规模的一起破产案时，一位老友拜访了负责处理这一破产案的中共官员王岐山，并向后者发出了警告。

“I tried to tell him just how powerful these bankers were and how close their ties were to top political leaders and I said how worried I was about their reaction if he forced them to take such huge losses,” the friend and former colleague, Huang Jiangnan, told the Financial Times. “He just told me to stop speaking and insisted he had to persevere. He is really a very resolute and insistent person.”

这位曾与王岐山共事的老友名叫黄江南。他告诉英国《金融时报》：“我试图告诉他，这些银行家势力有多大，他们与政界高层的联系有多密切。我还告诉他，如果他迫使这些人承担如此巨额的亏损，我很担心他们的反应。他叫我不要再说了，表示他必须坚持下去。他真是一个非常有决断力和坚韧的人。”

A decade and a half later, the chain-smoking, straight-talking former historian will need all the resolve he can muster as he confronts far more implacable enemies in his role as China’s anti-corruption tsar.

15年后，作为中国反腐“沙皇”，王岐山面对的敌手要强大得多。这位烟抽得很凶、直言不讳的前历史学家,必须集中他所有的决心和毅力全力以赴。

Last week the body he leads – the party’s Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection – officially opened an investigation into Zhou Yongkang, the former head of China’s secret police and the most senior official to be publicly charged with corruption since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

就在上周，他领导的机构——中共中央纪律检查委员会(Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection，简称中纪委)——正式启动了对周永康的调查。周永康曾主管中国国家安全事务，是1949年以来以腐败罪名被公开指控的最高级别官员。

Mr Wang’s appointment as head of the CCDI in late 2012 was considered a disappointment by many who felt it would waste his impressive record tackling China’s most intractable financial, economic and foreign relations problems.

2012年下半年，当王岐山被任命为中纪委书记时，许多人感到些许失望。他在处理棘手的金融、经济及外交问题上的成绩令人印象深刻，让这些人感到，出任这一职位是对他能力的一种浪费。

Officially at least, Mr Wang, now 66 years old, is ranked only sixth in the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee that in effect governs China and includes President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

至少，在政治局常委的七名成员中，现年66岁的王岐山只排在第六位。七人常委实际上是中国最高层领导班子，其中包括国家主席习近平和总理李克强。

But more than 18 months into a vicious anti-corruption campaign that has netted nearly a quarter of a million cadres, including 39 officials of vice-minister rank or higher, Mr Wang’s power is now arguably second only to that of Mr Xi himself.

不过，在领导了一场逾18个月的激烈的反腐运动后，王岐山的权力几乎可说仅次于习近平。这场反腐运动已导致近25万干部落马，其中包括39名副部级或更高级别官员。

The anti-corruption drive has been the central policy of this administration and its duration and severity have surprised almost everyone, not least the bureaucrats who have been its primary targets.

自本届政府就职以来，反腐就一直是它的核心政策。这次反腐运动持续时间之长、力度之大，令几乎所有人都大跌眼镜，更不用说被当作主要目标的官僚阶层了。

Party officials have been targeted throughout the country and in sectors ranging from finance to food production. Mr Zhou’s former fiefdoms in state security, Sichuan province and the energy sector have, at least initially, been a particular focus..

反腐运动波及到了全国各地的各级官员，还涉及到从金融到食品生产在内的各个行业。周永康曾掌权的国安部门、四川省及能源产业——至少在运动之初——成了反腐“重灾区”。

The impact has been most severe on the operations of state-owned enterprises but global companies have also been hit, including pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, accused of bribery at its China operations by China’s police. Luxury brands including Swiss watchmakers, LVMH, Rémy Cointreau and Diageo, which have seen sales slump in China as officials became more reluctant to accept gifts and bribes.

国有企业受到反腐冲击最为严重，而跨国公司也同样受到了影响。其中包括制药公司葛兰素史克(GSK)，中国警方指控该公司在华业务涉嫌行贿。另外，由于中国官员不再敢接受礼品和贿赂，奢侈品品牌——包括瑞士各手表品牌、路威酩轩集团(LVMH)、人头马君度(Rémy Cointreau)和帝亚吉欧(Diageo)——在华销售都出现了大幅下滑。

At China National Petroleum Co, the state-owned parent of listed PetroChina, so many senior executives have been detained that the company has established a reporting system in which top officials check in with department heads daily, according to Chinese media reports.

据中国媒体报道，在中国石油天然气集团公司(China National Petroleum Corporation)，被“双规”的高管如此之多，以至于该公司规定，高级别官员每天都要向部门负责人报到。

If any of them drop out of contact they are assumed to have been detained by the CCDI and are replaced the following day by a preapproved successor.

如果任何人失去了联系，就会被认为已被中纪委“双规”，第二天他的职务会被事先安排的继任者接替。中国石油天然气集团公司是已上市的中石油(PetroChina)的母公司。

This arrangement reflects the extraordinary power wielded by the CCDI, a highly secretive extralegal body that has no formal right to arrest or press charges but which can investigate and indefinitely detain any of China’s 87m Communist party members.

类似这样的安排，反映出中纪委所拥有的非同寻常的权力。这个高度保密的机构置身于司法体系之外，虽然不具有逮捕和起诉的权力，却有权羁押和调查中国8700万党员中的任何一人。

In practice, the CCDI is regularly accused of brutality, particularly towards lower-level cadres.

在实际操作中，中纪委经常被控蛮横执法——尤其是在对待较低级别干部时。

Since early 2013, nearly 70 officials have committed suicide or died in custody after coming under investigation.

2013年初以来，被各级纪委调查的官员中，已有近70人自杀或在羁押期间死亡。

Yet until Mr Wang took over, CCDI officials were renowned as some of the most corrupt in China, and the body is still widely regarded as a political tool for taking down rivals within the system.

不过，直到王岐山执掌帅印之前，中纪委的名声都不怎么好。有人认为中纪委官员才是中国最腐败的一群官员，还有人认为中纪委是干部们在体制内清除异己的政治工具。

Even Mr Wang himself has hinted at the need for a more robust and institutionalised system to tackle endemic corruption.

即便王岐山也曾暗示，必须建立更健全的体制，才能解决贪腐成风的问题。

“Our current task is to alleviate the symptoms [of corruption] in order to give us time to eventually cure the underlying disease,” he said in a speech late last year on the CCDI’s anti-corruption efforts under his watch.

去年晚些时候，在谈到中纪委在他领导下开展的反腐行动时，他曾表示：“坚持标本兼治，当前要以治标为主，为治本赢得时间。”

When he was named to head the body in late 2012, Beijing politicos joked it was because he had no children, since many of the offspring of senior Chinese leaders have amassed enormous fortunes in the past few decades.

当王岐山被任命为中纪委书记时，北京的一些政客曾开玩笑说，这是因为他没有子女。在过去几十年里，许多中国高级领导人的子女都聚敛了巨额财富。

A more serious explanation is that Mr Wang is not seen as a member of any one faction but has been close to various top leaders over the years.

但对这一任命更严肃的一种说法是，王岐山不被视为任一派系的成员，多年来却一直与中国历届最高领导人都保持密切关系。

But it was his ability, and his willingness to say what he really thought in a system that encourages sycophancy, that endeared him to China’s leadership in the 1990s and gained him a reputation as the party’s “chief of the fire brigade”.

不过，他能够在上世纪90年代获得中国高层的青睐，并博得中共“救火队长”的名声，主要还是因为他能力超群，且直言不讳——这在一个鼓励奉承的体制内尤其难得。

As head of China Construction Bank in the mid-1990s he created the country’s first real investment bank in a joint venture with Morgan Stanley and in the late 1990s he oversaw the $4bn bankruptcy of state-owned Guangdong International Trust and Investment Corp in the heavily indebted province of Guangdong.

上世纪90年代中期，作为建设银行(China Construction Bank)行长，他曾与摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)合资成立中国第一家真正的投资银行。90年代末，他又在债台高筑的广东省督办过国有广东国际信托投资公司(Guangdong International Trust and Investment Corp)的破产案，这一破产案涉及资金规模达40亿美元。

In 2003, when the Sars epidemic hit Beijing, Mr Wang was parachuted in as mayor to deal with the crisis and when the 2008 financial crisis struck he was again put in charge of China’s response.

2003年，当北京遭遇非典(SARS)袭击时，王岐山曾被空降为北京市长处理这一危机。而在2008年全球金融危机爆发之际，他再次被委以重任，负责主持中国的应对方案。

Mr Wang has often been Beijing’s point-man in tricky negotiations with Europe and the US, and he tells people that his favourite television show is House of Cards , the intrigue-laden US political drama starring Kevin Spacey.

在中国与欧洲或美国展开棘手谈判时，王岐山往往会成为北京方面的代表。他还曾告诉人们，他最喜欢的电视剧是《纸牌屋》(House of Cards)，这是凯文•斯贝西(Kevin Spacey)主演的一部勾心斗角的美国政治剧。

Henry Paulson, former US Treasury secretary, who worked with Mr Wang closely during the financial crisis and on the Guangdong bankruptcies in the 1990s when he was at Goldman Sachs, describes him as “an avid historian [who] enjoys philosophical debates and has a wicked sense of humour”.

金融危机期间，时任美国财政部长的亨利•保尔森(Henry Paulson)曾与王岐山密切合作。而其实早在1998年王岐山处理广东省的破产案期间，当时还在高盛(Goldman Sachs)任职的保尔森就曾与王岐山合作过。对于王岐山，保尔森的评价是：“一个执著的历史学家，喜欢哲学辩论，还有着略显顽皮的幽默感”。

These traits prompted Mr Wang two years ago to recommend all his colleagues at the top of the Communist party read Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic Ancien Regime and the French Revolution.

正是这样的个性，促使王岐山在两年前向所有中共高层同僚推荐亚里克西斯•德•托克维尔(Alexis de Tocqueville)的经典名著《旧制度与大革命》(Ancien Regime and the French Revolution)。

Old friends of his say Mr Wang’s choice of reading material was meant to send several messages – that attempts at reform may lead to unintended consequences but also that resisting reform can leave the ruling elite with their heads chopped off.

王岐山的几位老友表示，王岐山选择此书是想传递出两层信号：改革可能会造成意料之外的后果，但不改革可能会让统治精英们掉脑袋。