中國人投巨資打造中國城意欲何在？

托利多（Toledo）雖然是俄亥俄州的第四大城市，但是，其經濟繁榮程度，和排在它全面的克利夫蘭、辛辛那提、哥倫布這三位大哥相比，實在是不知道該怎麼樣比。不論是地利還是人和，這座位於俄亥俄州與密西根州交界處的小城市，都早已不再占有優勢了。

在歷史上，這裡曾經得益於來自底特律的繁榮帶來的地利優勢，而一度欣欣向榮。今天，隨着底特律的敗落，如果它期望只是靠自己的一己之力，再來個起死回生，恐怕也不是一件容易的事情。經濟的繁榮，靠砸錢（中國模式！），很多時候恐怕也不是成功之道吧，至少對於長期而言，短期的政績工程自然是“與眾不同”了。

雖然如此，中國人卻有不信邪的主。這不，大手筆的中國投資者，就已經開始在這裡布局，期望在這個擁有“地利優勢”的地方，藉助於低廉價格的地皮，來打造一個繁榮的巨大中國城。

打造富有特色並且繁榮昌盛的中國城的夢想，好像很多年之前就有不少的人在談論，也有不少的人砸下大量的真金白銀，在一個個大大小小的城區，打造一個個沒有特色的中國城。到目前為止，成功的程度，似乎也不是很理想。

很多人以為，最近幾十年來中國城相對三十年之前的大繁榮的趨勢，在今後，還應該會被繼續的發揚光大。但是，這些人似乎忽視了一個巨大的現實差異：今天在美國出現的中國人，華裔什麼的，已經和幾十年前的那些老移民，那些口口聲聲“祖國的昌盛和繁榮才是自己在海外得以站直的本錢”的人，有着巨大的不同。再者，這批新的華裔，在獲得學位，找到不錯的工作之後，很多人又非常自然地開始了，自己和家人徹底的脫離和中國城關係的新生活了。很多人，一年都難得有幾次機會，到城市中心的中國城去看看了。他們開始真真實實的融入美國的主流文明了。

這種對中國城冷落的必然性，將帶給那些希望過去的快速發展趨勢“必然”會繼續的人們，以很大的負面驚喜。中國人在美國的生活方式和生活環境，已經是遠不同於早期的中國移民了。這些以厚實的知識為基礎的中國人和華裔，已經完全有能力，在一個沒有中國城的環境下生活的更好，他們之中越來越多的人，也更樂意按照更為美國化的生活方式來生活了。

如果你看不到這種變化的來臨和它所帶來的巨大影響，而繼續的想當然，按照傳統的思路來改變美國的生活格局，或者，只是按照你在中國所獲得的成功經驗，來在美國再造輝煌，時間帶給你的，很可能就不是歡聲笑語，而是簌簌的淚珠了。

最近，為了繁榮俄亥俄州的城區經濟，四家賭場已經開始營業。為了這些賭場，業主們已經奮鬥了好幾年，在一次次的投票否決之後，依然鍥而不捨，終於在這次巨大的金融危機之後，“乘人之危”，讓俄亥俄人不得不低下自己高貴的頭顱，而認可了這種怎麼樣看都是勞民傷財的“投資”之舉的合法性。

很多人就此預測，基於這種賭場經濟的拉動，俄亥俄將會很快迎來城市中心區的再次繁榮和昌盛。

我個人覺得，這要麼是一些人的異想天開，要麼是有些人的有意識忽悠，雖然他們自己都不可能相信，這樣的時代會再次來臨。

“兵者，鬼道也”，可能說的就是這種玩法吧。

雖然我個人最近也在這個小城投入了百萬之眾，但是，我所投資的地點，是該城市唯一也是最繁忙的購物中心——Franklin Park Mall。我無意，也無力去改變該地區的商業格局，充其量只是借力打力罷了。在那個城市，對於我，好像還沒有第二個商業區值得投入巨資的。

對於在美國類似“中國城打造”這樣的大手筆和高風險投資，其資金來源，如果是來自國內和國內相關的投資者，是不是也值得中國政府相關部門好好的關注一下呢？如果這些資金是來自政府和納稅人的口袋，如果是有人用類似在國內的做法，來在美國搞空手套白狼，或者是“借花獻佛”，結果又在美國的土地上搞就一個個的爛尾樓，那麼，誰來買單的問題，是不是也是一個很重要的政治問題了？

Why are the Chinese investing in Toledo?

By Graham Webster, contributor

FORTUNE -- In March 2011, Chinese investors paid $2.15 million cash for a restaurant complex on the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio. Soon they put down another $3.8 million on 69 acres of newly  econtaminated land in the city's Marina District, promising to invest $200 million in a new residential-commercial development. That September, another Chinese firm spent $3 million for an aging hotel across a nearby bridge with a view of the minor league ballpark.

The investors have framed their purchases as a gateway for further investment opportunities in the Midwest. The newly sold hotel is about an hour's drive from the Detroit airport, and on its website, the  hotel's purchaser, Five Lakes Global Group, advertises Toledo as a "5-star logistics region" with access to Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Chicago, and Detroit.

With a population of 287,000, Toledo is only the fourth largest city in Ohio, but it lies at the junction of two important highways -- I-75 and I-80/90. "My vision is to make Toledo a true international city," Toledo's Mayor Mike Bell told the Toledo Blade.

Bell, an independent who took office in 2010, has made repeated visits to China to court investors. A welcome message from Bell, subtitled in Chinese, appears on Five Lakes' Chinese website. Five Lakes' Chinese name might be better translated as "Great Lakes" Global, and the company's website advertises a regional investment forum to take place in Toledo in September, with speeches by Bell and Ohio Governor John R. Kasich.

While the national economic conversation on China is preoccupied with Chinese-held government debt, local governments have been working for deals that benefit local economies. Bell is not alone: many mayors and other local officials have traveled to China to meet with potential investors and visit joint ventures between U.S. and Chinese companies. Just recently, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad accepted an invitation to visit China after the state hosted visiting Chinese Vice President and presumptive next leader Xi Jinping. Indiana's Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman this month led her second trade mission to China. And Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed led his own team a few weeks ago.

Chinese citizens are second only to Canadians in the number of real estate investments in the U.S.,  according to the National Association of Realtors. The Rhodium Group, a global economic consultancy, ranks information technology, hospitality, and real estate as the top three areas of Chinese private investment in the U.S. From 2003 to 2011, Rhodium counted 236 private investment deals worth a total of $6.3 billion. Of those, 10 fell under hospitality, real estate, and entertainment.

Toledo is not alone in experiencing an influx of overall Chinese investment in recent years. While most deals in Rhodium's data took place on the coasts, seven China-Ohio deals were recorded from 2008 to  2011, compared with none from 2003 to 2007.

China's super-rich have good reason to diversify their holdings. In China the possibility of a real estate bubble and uncertainty about the banking system can make U.S. real estate, even away from the metropolis, an appealing bet.

In early June, Beijing again cut interest rates, finally weakening demand for loans after years of rapid investment in things like airport infrastructure, which may or may not pay off. Peking University
Professor Michael Pettis cautions that non-performing loans (NPLs) could jeopardize the economic system for ordinary people.

There is at least one more reason some investors would turn to the U.S.: Foreign investors who put at least $1 million into a U.S. business and meet other requirements can be eligible to apply for a green card. The minimum investment in high-unemployment areas, such as East Toledo, is $500,000.

Just who is investing in Toledo? The restaurant complex and riverfront development investors have been identified as Yuan Xiaohong and Wu Kin Hung, working through a company called Dashing Pacific Group Ltd. The investors behind the Five Lakes Global Group have not been identified.

Yuan Xiaohong （袁小紅）

The Toledo Blade has covered the deals extensively, but both its reporting and a Chinese investigation the paper commissioned turned up only limited information about Yuan and Wu's backgrounds and very little on Five Lakes.

One of the parties to the Five Lakes hotel sale told the Blade the investors behind Five Lakes Global are not the same as those from Dashing Pacific. They may be tied in some way, however. Both companies
list the same Toledo lawyer as registered agent on their incorporation documents, and Simon Guo (Guo Zhixin), who was credited with introducing Bell to Wu and Yuan according to the Blade, is also listed as "chairman" of Five Lakes Global on the company's Chinese website.

The Blade's investigators found that Wu was once a government bureaucrat working on development in Shenzhen, a southern Chinese city near Hong Kong that has grown from a village to a hub of global manufacturing since China's economic opening began in the '70s. The investigators speculated that a man with his background would have become quite rich and would have no trouble raising the $200 million proposed to develop the Toledo Marina District. Yuan told the paper she is a Hong Kong citizen originally from the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia.

More than a year after the riverfront land was purchased, the announced $200 million development has yet to break ground. Dashing Pacific is in a legal dispute with tenants at its restaurant complex. The lease
provides for separate metering and billing for utilities, and the tenants claim Dashing Pacific has not lived up to the contract.

Joe Clarke, an attorney for the tenants, says he has asked the court to hold Dashing Pacific in contempt after it failed to respond to a preliminary injunction ordering that it install separate meters. An attorney listed for Dashing Pacific did not return a phone call seeking comment.

As for the two Chinese firms, Toledo residents are as curious as anyone. "Nobody here, including myself, knows much about them," Clarke says.