How Shanghai’s ambition to be the ‘future of finance’ fell apart
上海打造 "未来金融之都 "的雄心如何破灭？

On a blustery October day, the remaining fragments of what was once Shanghai’s hottest bar and restaurant are being liquidated. The champagne glasses cost Rmb28 ($4), waistcoats hang from a Rmb1,500 lime-green screen, and a framed poster from the 1930s leans against the wall.
十月的一天，天气凛冽，曾经上海最火爆的酒吧和餐厅的残余部分正在清算。香槟酒杯售价 28 元人民币（4 美元），马甲挂在价值 1500 元人民币的石灰绿色屏风上，一张镶框的 20 世纪 30 年代海报靠在墙边。

M on the Bund closed its doors for the last time in February 2022, in the midst of China’s Zero-Covid policy. By the time its contents were finally sold off last month, they had already become relics of another era.
2022 年 2 月，外滩 M 号在中国零库存政策的影响下最后一次关门。上个月，当它的物品最终被出售时，它们已经成为另一个时代的遗物。

For more than two decades, the restaurant had been the regular haunt of business people, financiers and visiting delegations to a booming city of over 20mn people. But if they were to visit Shanghai now, “they wouldn’t believe it’s the same place,” says Michelle Garnaut, the Australian restaurateur who founded the venue in 1999.
二十多年来，这家餐厅一直是商务人士、金融家和来访代表团经常光顾的地方。但如果他们现在来上海，"他们不会相信这是同一个地方，"1999 年创办这家餐厅的澳大利亚餐馆老板米歇尔-加尔纳特（Michelle Garnaut）说。

More than 15 years after China pledged to turn Shanghai into an international financial centre, the port city has failed to live up to its early promise.
在中国承诺将上海打造成国际金融中心超过 15 年之后，这座港口城市却未能兑现其早期承诺。

Once positioned as the frontier of China’s gradual incorporation into a global economic system, its recent exceptionalism is today overshadowed by a growing rift between Beijing and Washington.
中国曾一度被定位为逐步融入全球经济体系的前沿阵地，而如今，北京与华盛顿之间日益加剧的裂痕却为中国最近的特殊性蒙上了阴影。

In a city of shipping routes and western concessions, where the distinctive trees that line its avenues were initially introduced from Europe, an inward shift across Chinese politics that accelerated during the pandemic has shaken Shanghai’s international identity.
上海是一座航运和西方租界城市，林荫大道两旁的特色树木最初都是从欧洲引进的，大流行病期间，中国政治的内向转变加速，动摇了上海的国际身份。

A beneficiary of decades of economic growth since the country opened up in 1979, the city is the world’s biggest container port and a base for many foreign companies. But it now sits uneasily amid a new era of trade protectionism and mutual suspicion across the Pacific, and is increasingly disconnected from international finance.
自1979年改革开放以来，这座城市受益于数十年的经济增长，是世界上最大的集装箱港口和许多外国公司的基地。但现在，在太平洋地区贸易保护主义和相互猜疑的新时代中，它的处境却很不稳定，与国际金融的联系也日益脱节。

American law firms, once participants in huge cross-border financial flows, have left the city as foreign investment plummets. No western bank has participated in a single IPO on Shanghai’s stock market this year, and, in a domestically-focused market, the need for foreign staff is increasingly unclear. Asset management firms that flocked to the city in the hope of a loosening of China’s capital controls must reckon with the prospect that Beijing will tighten them instead.
美国律师事务所曾经是巨额跨境资金流动的参与者，但随着外商投资的骤减，它们已经离开了这座城市。今年以来，没有一家西方银行参与上海股市的首次公开募股，而在一个以国内市场为重点的市场中，对外籍员工的需求也越来越不明确。那些因希望中国放松资本管制而蜂拥而至的资产管理公司必须面对中国政府反而会收紧资本管制的前景。

For Xi Jinping’s government, this is not necessarily a problem. A critique of finance that arose after the global crisis of 2008 has gained salience domestically, especially after a 2015 stock market crash and anti-pandemic measures that reasserted the dominance of the state. Beijing is now prioritising an internationalism based around exporting infrastructure and green technology that echoes its domestic model, and in which Shanghai plays a role.
对习近平政府来说，这未必是个问题。2008 年全球危机后出现的对金融的批判在国内日益凸显，尤其是在 2015 年股市暴跌和重新确立国家主导地位的反瘟疫措施之后。北京现在优先考虑以出口基础设施和绿色技术为基础的国际主义，这与其国内模式相呼应，而上海在其中发挥着作用。

Many of the world’s leading foreign financial firms maintain at least a nominal presence in Shanghai, hoping for one of the many U-turns that have characterised its history. But, like the colonial-era banks and counting houses that neighboured the out-of-business M on the Bund, they risk being reduced to a facade.
许多世界领先的外国金融公司至少在上海保持着名义上的存在，希望能在上海历史上的众多转折中找到一个。但是，就像外滩停业的 M 公司附近殖民时代的银行和钱庄一样，它们也面临着沦为门面的风险。

“This was really the last frontier of capitalism [in China],” says one person present at the fire sale, referring to the buzz of the restaurant’s heyday. “It’s all gone. It’s all changed.”
"说起这家餐厅鼎盛时期的热闹景象，在场的一位人士说："这里确实是（中国）资本主义的最后前沿阵地。"一切都过去了。一切都变了。

In the early 20th century, Republican-era Shanghai was, for some, an oasis of free markets. On the Bund, the waterfront mirrors the architecture of London or New York — a legacy of British, French and American concessions established in the 19th century, carved out of the Chinese government’s sovereignty.
20 世纪初，在一些人看来，民国时期的上海是自由市场的绿洲。在外滩，滨水区与伦敦或纽约的建筑风格如出一辙--这是 19 世纪英国、法国和美国在中国政府主权范围内建立的租界的遗产。

A century later, after decades of closure, market forces seemed to be in the ascendancy once again. In spring 2009, Beijing’s state council, the country’s top decision-making body, set an ambitious target: Shanghai would become an international financial centre by 2020.
一个世纪之后，在经历了几十年的封闭之后，市场力量似乎再次占据了上风。2009 年春，中国最高决策机构--北京国务院制定了一个雄心勃勃的目标：到 2020 年，上海将成为国际金融中心。

Even if the term was not strictly defined, it signalled a wider opening-up and came a year after the Beijing Olympics had alerted the world to China’s economic miracle. The goal of becoming an international financial hub is “highly desirable” not only for the city, but for China more broadly, the Brookings Institution wrote in 2011. But it also noted the disappointments of Tokyo and Frankfurt, which had once held similar ambitions, and the importance of the rule of law. Shanghai was “on track” to meet its target, the American Chamber of Commerce said a year later in 2012.
尽管这个词没有严格定义，但它标志着更大范围的对外开放，而且是在北京奥运会让世界认识到中国经济奇迹的一年之后。布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institution）在 2011 年写道，成为国际金融中心的目标不仅对北京，而且对整个中国来说都是 "非常可取的"。但布鲁金斯学会也指出，东京和法兰克福也曾有过类似的雄心壮志，但最终却令人失望。美国商会在一年后的2012年表示，上海 "有望 "实现其目标。

“I got excited, and I kept telling all the young people, the future of finance is Shanghai,” recalls Han Shen Lin, formerly deputy general manager for Wells Fargo bank in China and now China Country Director for The Asia Group, a US consultancy. At that time, “everyone thought China would succeed in loosening its capital controls,” he adds, a reference to the government’s practice of tightly controlling the flow of money in either direction across its borders.
"我兴奋不已，不停地告诉所有年轻人，金融业的未来在上海，"曾任富国银行中国区副总经理、现任美国咨询公司亚洲集团中国区总监的韩申林回忆道。他补充说，"当时，每个人都认为中国会成功放松资本管制，"他指的是中国政府严格控制资金跨境双向流动的做法。

The project, he adds, also hinged on the free movement of information and people — both of which were tightly controlled in China.
他补充说，该项目还取决于信息和人员的自由流动，而这两者在中国都受到严格控制。

For Shanghai, the target was a clear opportunity. The city in 2012 pioneered the so-called Qualified Domestic Limited Partner (QDLP) scheme, one of several similarly titled policies that, behind their abstruse names, hinted at further liberalisation. The scheme, which was soon copied by other cities, allowed approved asset managers to take money — initially $300mn in total — from mainland clients and invest it overseas.
对上海而言，这一目标显然是一个机遇。2012 年，上海率先推出了所谓的 "合格境内有限合伙人（QDLP）"计划，这是几项类似政策中的一项，其深奥的名称背后暗示着进一步的自由化。该计划允许经批准的资产管理公司从内地客户处获取资金（最初总额为 3 亿美元），并将其投资到海外。

One Chinese asset manager for a foreign firm, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says Shanghai’s plan reflected its “unique position in the political structure” of China. Its party secretary, currently Chen Jining, also serves on China’s 24-person Politburo in Beijing.
一位不愿透露姓名的外资企业中国资产经理说，上海的计划反映了其在中国 "政治结构中的独特地位"。现任上海市委书记陈吉宁也是北京 24 人政治局委员。

The city was “privileged to try new policies”, the person says, and dozens of foreign asset managers set up in the city as a result, hoping that they would one day benefit from China’s internationalisation.
该人士说，这座城市 "有幸尝试了新政策"，数十家外国资产管理公司因此进驻这座城市，希望有朝一日能从中国的国际化进程中获益。

The scheme was just one of several, including the so-called Stock Connect link between the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges, that appeared to be allowing more money to leave the country in a highly controlled way.
该计划只是包括所谓的沪港通在内的几项计划之一，似乎允许更多资金以高度受控的方式流出国外。

In 2020, although the international target was largely forgotten in the furore of the Covid-19 pandemic, new relaxations subsequently encouraged more investment from the likes of Goldman Sachs, Amundi and BlackRock.
2020 年，尽管这一国际目标在 Covid-19 大流行病的骚动中被遗忘，但新的放宽政策随后鼓励了高盛、Amundi 和贝莱德等公司的更多投资。

But since then, a sense of a deeper shift in China’s approach has taken hold. Foreign asset managers, like foreign banks, have struggled to gain traction. Shanghai’s QDLP quota, which requires firms to gain approval from regulators, has remained unchanged since 2020 and at $10bn is only twice its 2015 size.
但从那时起，中国的做法发生了更深层次的转变。与外资银行一样，外资资产管理公司也在努力获得发展。上海的 QDLP 配额要求公司获得监管机构的批准，自 2020 年以来一直保持不变，目前为 100 亿美元，仅为 2015 年的两倍。

“There’s no doubt that what [was] envisioned . . . not only has not come to fruition [but] has been tabled for the time being,” says Peter Alexander, founder of asset management consultancy Z-Ben Advisors, of the various outbound schemes and the quota.
"资产管理咨询公司 Z-Ben Advisors 的创始人彼得-亚历山大（Peter Alexander）在谈到各种出境计划和配额时说："毫无疑问，[原来]设想的......不仅没有实现[而且]暂时被搁置了。

Global investors “want to buy stocks directly from the Shanghai Stock Exchange, not through the Stock Connect scheme via Hong Kong”, says one employee of an Asian central bank
一家亚洲中央银行的员工表示，全球投资者 "希望直接从上海证券交易所购买股票，而不是通过香港的股票通计划"。

The Shanghai government said that SAFE, China’s foreign exchange regulator, had repeatedly supported the expansion of Shanghai’s QDLP quota and cited participation from firms such as BlackRock and UBS.
上海市政府表示，中国外汇监管机构--国家外汇管理局（SAFE）多次支持扩大上海的 QDLP 额度，并列举了贝莱德（BlackRock）和瑞银（UBS）等公司的参与情况。

It added that Shanghai had “basically established” itself as an international financial centre by 2020, that international firms continued to expand in the city, and that financial reform and opening up would “never stop”.
报告还指出，到 2020 年，上海 "基本建成 "国际金融中心，国际企业继续在上海扩张，金融改革开放 "永不止步"。

For The Asia Group’s Lin, the schemes did amount to some loosening of capital controls over the past decade, but he similarly points to a “slowdown” of that loosening in the last three years. “That has been a primary detriment to China — [and] to Shanghai — being an international financial centre in the conventional sense,” he says.
亚洲集团的林先生认为，在过去十年中，这些计划确实在一定程度上放松了资本管制，但他同样指出，在过去三年中，这种放松 "有所放缓"。"他说："这对中国--[以及]上海--成为传统意义上的国际金融中心是一个主要的不利因素。

But capital controls are ultimately a matter of “national security” for Beijing, Lin adds. “I remember [when] coming into China, I went through a bit of a shock period on capital controls,” he says. “I had been taught in the conventional western sense.”
但林毅夫补充说，对中国政府来说，资本管制归根结底是一个 "国家安全 "问题。"他说："我记得，[当]来到中国时，我经历了一段关于资本管制的震惊期。"我接受的是传统的西方教育"。

In the freewheeling markets of Republican China, foreign banks provided “wealthy officials and merchants with the ideal place in which to deposit and hide their funds from the government” which was unstable at the time, writes Hong Kong-based historian Ghassan Moazzin.
驻香港的历史学家加桑-莫阿津（Ghassan Moazzin）写道，在民国中国自由奔放的市场上，外国银行为 "富裕的官员和商人提供了理想的存款场所，他们可以将资金藏匿起来，以躲避当时不稳定的政府"。

The weight of this legacy was still felt many years later. Even as it appeared to be opening up to them, China maintained extreme regulatory caution over the role of foreign financial institutions on its soil. It nonetheless encouraged them to enter the country as part of an ethos of learning from international practices dating from the 1980s.
多年后，人们仍能感受到这一遗产的分量。即使在中国看似向外国金融机构开放的同时，中国对外国金融机构在其领土上的作用仍保持着极度谨慎的监管态度。尽管如此，中国仍鼓励外国金融机构进入中国，并将此作为从 20 世纪 80 年代开始学习国际惯例的精神的一部分。

Ken Wilcox, who between 2011 and 2015 ran the now defunct China joint venture of Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in 2023, says that when he received a banking licence, he was informed by Shanghai regulators that his company could not use renminbi for three years. The rule, introduced in 2006, was designed to limit foreign competition and remained in place until 2019.
肯-威尔考克斯（Ken Wilcox）曾在 2011 年至 2015 年间负责管理硅谷银行在中国的合资企业，该企业已于 2023 年倒闭。他说，当他获得银行执照时，上海监管机构通知他，他的公司在三年内不能使用人民币。这一规定于 2006 年出台，旨在限制外国竞争，一直持续到 2019 年。

This was a problem, says Wilcox, as “our expected potential client base was largely early stage venture-backed technology companies and the only currency they use is renminbi”.
Wilcox 说，这是一个问题，因为 "我们预期的潜在客户群主要是早期风险投资支持的科技公司，而他们使用的唯一货币是人民币"。

To complicate matters further, he had needed to hire 62 staff, mostly Chinese, in order to obtain the licence. The regulator offered subsidies — with an accompanying request: “Please act like good citizens and do what Chinese banks would do, teach other banks your business model, because you’re here to help China.”
更复杂的是，为了获得许可证，他需要雇佣 62 名员工，其中大部分是中国人。监管机构提供了补贴，但同时也提出了要求："请像好公民一样，做中国银行会做的事，向其他银行传授你们的业务模式，因为你们是来帮助中国的"。

Wilcox quickly grew frustrated. “I spent all my time trying to get a message to Xi,” he says.
威尔科克斯很快就感到沮丧。"他说："我把所有时间都花在了给习近平传递信息上。

Three years later, and finally able to use renminbi, Wilcox received more bad news. “We admire your business model so much that we intend to use it ourselves,” Shanghai officials informed him. They were opening their own bank.
三年后，终于可以使用人民币的威尔科克斯收到了更多坏消息。"上海官员告诉他："我们非常欣赏你的商业模式，我们打算自己也采用这种模式。他们要开设自己的银行。

Foreign financial businesses, often referred to in the 2000s as the “coming wolf”, have long operated under a tacit understanding that such issues would balance against eventual gains. In 2020 and 2021, Beijing allowed foreign firms to take full ownership of their businesses, encouraging new investment.
外资金融企业在 2000 年代常被称为 "来袭的狼"，它们长期以来一直在一种默契下运作，即这些问题将与最终收益相平衡。2020 年和 2021 年，中国政府允许外资企业完全控股，鼓励新的投资。

Geopolitical tensions with the US have not only threatened to reverse an earlier convergence, but also undermined the flow of data as well as people. “Even a confidential [meeting] with SOE [state-owned enterprises] heads one-on-one, is hard to get nowadays,” says a senior executive from one Asian investment bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
与美国的地缘政治紧张局势不仅有可能逆转早先的趋同，而且还破坏了数据和人员的流动。"一家亚洲投资银行的一位不愿透露姓名的高级管理人员说："如今，即使是与国有企业负责人一对一的秘密[会晤]也很难获得。

The domestic financial industry has also fallen out of favour, with widespread pay cuts and a focus on the “real economy”. “Many financiers now feel a sense of shame about their profession,” the banker says, adding that Shanghai is “drifting further away from its goal of becoming a global financial hub. But publicly, you must uphold the official slogan.”
随着普遍减薪和对 "实体经济 "的关注，国内金融业也已失宠。这位银行家说："许多金融家现在对自己的职业感到羞耻，"他还补充说，上海 "离成为全球金融中心的目标越来越远。但在公开场合，你必须坚持官方的口号"。

Shanghai is drifting further away from its goal of becoming a global financial hub. But publicly, you must uphold the official slogan
上海离成为全球金融中心的目标越来越远。但在公开场合，你必须坚持官方口号

Meanwhile, as economic momentum weakens in China, with the government under pressure to meet a 5 per cent GDP target, financial benefits from a presence on the mainland are less clear cut. Across 88 foreign-owned enterprises in asset management, Z-Ben Advisors estimates that a return on invested capital has been limited for most “if not all” of them and that “self-sustainability is largely out of the question”. “Cash burn is, therefore, a recurring and widespread problem,” the consultancy noted in September.
与此同时，随着中国经济发展势头减弱，政府面临着实现 5% GDP 目标的压力，在中国大陆开展业务所带来的经济效益也不那么明显。据 Z-Ben Advisors 估计，在 88 家从事资产管理的外资企业中，"如果不是全部的话"，大多数企业的投资资本回报率都很有限，"基本不可能自负盈亏"。因此，"烧钱 "是一个反复出现且普遍存在的问题。

Against the backdrop of a domestic model that takes a different perspective on both finance and the outer world, Shanghai’s identity has already shifted.
在以不同视角看待金融和外部世界的国内模式背景下，上海的身份已经发生转变。

“There was a time when China had ambitions to [turn] Shanghai [into] a global financial market, and rhetorically they will still say that, but I think realistically it is about domestic capital formation,” says Z-Ben’s Alexander.
"Z-Ben 公司的亚历山大说："曾几何时，中国雄心勃勃地要把上海[变成]一个全球金融市场，口头上他们仍会这么说，但我认为现实上这与国内资本形成有关。

“I believe there are going to be opportunities for foreigners to come in,” he adds. “But it’s going to be passive.”
"他补充说："我相信外国人会有机会进来。"但这将是被动的。

The pandemic, in which the Chinese government imposed three years of lockdowns, intensified a sense of distance from the wider world.
在这场大流行病中，中国政府实行了长达三年的封锁，这加剧了与更广阔世界的距离感。

After a Covid-19 outbreak in Shanghai in the spring of 2022, local authorities initially responded with a degree of flexibility, before imposing a strict two-month lockdown. Widely seen as orchestrated by Beijing, it came to embody the newly-restated dominance of the capital over the city’s relative freedom to innovate, as it had with the QDLP scheme.
2022 年春，上海爆发了 Covid-19 疫情，当地政府最初采取了一定程度的灵活应对措施，随后实施了为期两个月的严格封锁。人们普遍认为这是北京一手策划的，它体现了新近恢复的首都对城市相对创新自由的主导地位，就像在 QDLP 计划中一样。

As a result, Shanghai’s expat population plummeted. One estimate attributed to a think-tank in the city puts the foreign population at 72,000 at the end of 2023, compared to over 200,000 in 2018. “We only have started to appreciate now how the free movement of people back and forth has diminished quite a bit,” says The Asia Group’s Lin.
因此，上海的外来人口急剧下降。据该市一家智囊团估计，到2023年底，外来人口将达到7.2万人，而2018年则超过20万人。"亚洲集团的林先生说："我们现在才开始意识到，人员的自由流动减少了很多。

“If I were a Chinese city I wouldn’t take the lead on policy now,” says the Chinese asset manager, highlighting the economic difficulties. Shanghai’s earlier “leadership”, he says, was critical because “as businesses in China our voices are minor”. The country is “a managed country, a managed economy” and we “need local government to create some holes in the wall so we can move liquidity out”.
"如果我是中国的一个城市，我现在就不会在政策上起带头作用，"这位中国资产经理强调了经济困难。他说，上海先前的 "领导作用 "至关重要，因为 "作为中国的企业，我们的声音很小"。中国是 "一个有管理的国家，一个有管理的经济"，我们 "需要地方政府在墙上开一些洞，这样我们就能把流动性转移出去"。

Some believe Shanghai’s decline can be reversed. Despite their struggle for profitability, Z-Ben notes that there have been few exits from asset managers. Alexander points to “the expectation that this might turn around and ‘we want to make sure we stay there and don’t leave’.”
一些人认为，上海的衰落是可以逆转的。Z-Ben指出，尽管资产管理公司都在为盈利而奋斗，但很少有资产管理公司退出。亚历山大指出，"人们期望情况会好转，'我们要确保我们留在那里，不要离开'"。

Elsewhere, there are policies that capture the attention of those still banking on opening-up, such as a new swap connect programme between Shanghai and Hong Kong, launched in 2023 and part of reforms to growing derivatives markets.
在其他方面，也有一些政策吸引了那些仍寄希望于对外开放的人的注意，比如上海和香港之间新推出的互换连接计划，该计划将于 2023 年启动，是不断发展的衍生品市场改革的一部分。

Given its vast size and domestic importance, multinationals across a range of sectors have a major presence in and close to Shanghai, providing some default business for their compatriot financial institutions, even if a disappointing economy has strained business activity and geopolitical tensions have weighed on new investment. Tesla has its biggest factory in Shanghai, and over half of the Fortune 500 appeared at an annual import fair this month.
鉴于上海幅员辽阔且在国内举足轻重，各行各业的跨国公司都在上海或上海附近设立了重要机构，为其同胞金融机构提供了一些默认业务，尽管令人失望的经济使商业活动趋于紧张，地缘政治紧张局势也拖累了新投资。特斯拉在上海拥有最大的工厂，《财富》世界 500 强企业中有一半以上参加了本月举行的年度进口博览会。

Given China’s capacity for sudden changes, others see Shanghai as a countervailing force to a wider shift inwards. The Chinese asset manager says the city “always promotes liberalism” through turbulent times from the civil war to the pandemic. “It’s a communist city, but deep down, in its heart, it’s very liberal,” he says.
鉴于中国的突变能力，其他人将上海视为更广泛的内向型转变的反作用力。这位中国资产经理说，从内战到大流行病，上海在动荡时期 "始终倡导自由主义"。"他说："这是一座共产主义城市，但在内心深处，它是非常自由的。

For Garnaut, the restaurateur, her “gut feeling” is that the city’s current predicament is temporary. People in China, “especially those in Shanghai”, have an approach that “whatever the system, they make it work,” she says. “Somehow they work around it.”
对于餐馆老板 Garnaut 来说，她的 "直觉 "是这座城市目前的困境只是暂时的。她说，中国人，"尤其是上海人"，有一种 "无论制度如何，他们都能让它运转起来 "的方法。她说，"他们以某种方式绕过它"。

And even though her restaurant’s last remaining possessions have finally been sold off, it appears its reputation has not entirely faded from the scene. “We still get reservations on the website,” she adds.
尽管她的餐厅最后仅剩的财产终于被卖掉了，但它的名声似乎并没有完全从人们的视线中消失。"她补充说："我们的网站上仍然有预订。