主题：【原创】中国给英国颜色看了 -- 阳明

WIVES and children of workers from the MG Rover Longbridge factory in Birmingham turned up in Downing Street on April 13th hoping to persuade the government to save the company. In particular, they want it to keep paying the workers' wages while the company's bankruptcy administrators try to revive a deal with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC). But the £6.5m ($12.3m) in ad hoc state aid the government has already promised the company to keep paying wages and thus try to stave off 6,000 job losses just before an election may contravene European law. The European Commission says it has not made its mind up about the matter yet.

Nor is there much prospect of the Chinese renewing their interest. SAIC walked away from a proposed joint-venture with Rover last month because it feared that it would be landed with the liabilities of a bankrupt partner as Rover ran out of cash. Not even the offer of a government bridging loan of £100m was enough to keep them talking. Now SAIC says it rules out becoming involved with MG Rover again while it is in administration or buying it as a going concern. “But the door is ajar,” says a spokesman, tantalisingly.

SAIC makes cars in China under licence in joint-ventures with GM and Volkswagen. It is desperate to get its hands on carmaking technology of its own, and even a battered brand like Rover would help it become a proper car company not just in China but internationally. But it looks as though it has gone quite a long way already to achieving these aims.

Last autumn, the Chinese paid £67m to acquire various intellectual property rights (IP) from Rover. There is still some confusion over the precise status of various deals, but car-industry sources have told The Economist that SAIC has acquired the property rights to the Rover 25 and the Rover 75. “They've got every last drawing they need to build them,” says someone close to the negotiations. In addition, SAIC has acquired and sold on to another Chinese carmaker, Nanjing, the similar rights to make the Rover 45, including the design details of a new model under development. With the IP went the right to use the Rover brand in China, but there is some suggestion now that SAIC might have to go back to BMW, the residual owner, and buy it outright.

In addition, SAIC has acquired not just the technology but also the production equipment for making Rover's K series petrol engines and for a diesel version which would be handy if SAIC ever dreamed of selling Chinese Rovers back in Europe. Whatever ambitions SAIC might still harbour, they are very unlikely to include the Longbridge factory itself, since it is unproductive by international standards and cars can be made much more cheaply in China. That leaves the most valuable part of MG Rover as the right to use the MG brands for sports cars. But even that could be compromised by the fact that SAIC seems to have acquired the right to use it on saloon cars in China.