Buy a take-out chicken dinner in Los Angeles or an onigiri rice ball from a convenience store in Tokyo, and there is a good chance the plastic bag it comes in will have been made in China.

無論是在洛杉磯叫一份雞肉餐外賣，還是在東京的便利店買一份飯團，裝食物的塑料袋都很有可能產自中國。

Just as likely, the bag's journey to the checkout counter from its birthplace in a Middle Eastern oil patch will have been shepherded by a Japanese trading company, Mitsubishi.

同樣有可能的是，塑料袋從中東某油田的誕生地長途跋涉到收銀臺的旅程，是在日本貿易公司三菱(Mitsubishi)的操作下完成的。

Mitsubishi's five-year-old plastic bag business – a tiny part of its huge trading and investment empire – is an example of how China is playing a more central role in the operations of some of Japan's biggest companies, the sogo shosha, or general trading companies.

三菱的塑料袋業務已開展了5年，在這個龐大的貿易和投資帝國中，這塊業務微不足道。但此項業務證明了中國是如何在日本一些最大公司——即綜合性貿易商社(sogo shosha)——的運作中，扮演著越來越重要的角色。

Shosha such as Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo and Marubeni have been among the biggest beneficiaries of China's rise. Having built their businesses supplying resource-poor Japan with raw materials, in the 1990s they switched from simple fee-based trading to investing, taking stakes in everything from Siberian gas fields to Australian iron ore mines.

在中國崛起的最大受益者中，包括了三菱、三井(Mitsui)、住友(Sumitomo)和丸紅(Marubeni)等綜合商社。它們通過為資源匱乏的日本提供原材料而擴張了業務，其后在上世紀90年代，從單純收取酬金的貿易轉向了投資，從西伯利亞的氣田到澳大利亞的鐵礦，到處都有它們的股份。

The timing was perfect. When roaring Chinese demand lifted commodities prices a few years later, the shosha booked windfall profits.

它們的時機選擇非常完美。數年后，當中國需求激增推高大宗商品價格時，這些商社都錄得了高額利潤。

Their traditional import-export businesses flourished too. Shosha brokered sales of Japanese capital goods to China – from factory equipment to power plants to bullet trains – and arranged imports of Chinese processed food and clothing to Japan.

它們傳統的進出口業務也興旺起來。這些商社安排日本的資本貨物銷往中國——從工廠設備、發電廠到高速火車——并安排中國的加工食品和服裝進口到日本。

“China is the only country that we dedicate a separate office to managing. That shows you how important it is to our business,” says Shohei Hino of Mitsubishi's China unit.

三菱中國業務的Shohei Hino表示：“中國是我們唯一單獨設立辦事處進行管理的國家。這說明了它對我們的業務有多么重要。”

Today the shosha are looking at new ways to take advantage of China's growth by increasing their direct investments in the country.

如今，各商社正尋找新的途徑，通過加大在華直接投資，從中國的增長中獲益。

The enterprises that are taking shape as a result are often more “foreign” and complex than anything they have tried before – taking the companies well beyond their roots in Japan.

由此形成的企業，往往比它們之前嘗試過的任何形式都更加“外國”和復雜——使這些公司遠遠超越了其本土“根源”的范疇。

Take the plastic bags. Mitsubishi exports polyethylene sheets to China from Sharq, a Saudi Arabian petrochemical company in which it owns a minority stake.

以塑料袋為例。三菱從沙特阿拉伯的石化公司Sharq（三菱擁有其少數股份）向中國出口聚乙烯薄膜。

Once in China, the sheets are turned into bags by a Mitsubishi-affiliated manufacturing company, before being shipped to KFC chicken outlets and Lawson convenience stores – also part-owned by Mitsubishi – in the US and Japan.

到了中國，這些薄膜就被一家三菱旗下的制造公司加工成塑料袋，再運往美國和日本的肯德基(KFC)門店和羅森(Lawson)便利店——三菱同樣擁有這兩家公司的部分股權。

Another big Japanese trading group, Itochu, has been an active investor in China's domestic food market.

另一家日本大型貿易集團伊藤忠(Itochu)也是中國國內食品市場上活躍的投資者。

In 2008 it paid $710m for a 20 per cent stake in Ting Hsin, a big food processing group. That followed a deal with Cofco, China's state-owned food processor, to buy grain and other agricultural commodities in global markets, an effort to build pricing power and combat rising food costs.

2008年，伊藤忠以7.1億美元購得大型食品加工集團頂新(Ting Hsin) 20%的股份。隨后，又與中國國有食品加工企業中糧集團(Cofco)達成協議，在全球市場上采購谷物及其它農作物，以增強定價權，并應對食品價格的不斷上漲。

Other traders are also targeting Chinese stomachs. Last year Marubeni agreed a soyabean-procurement deal with Sinograin, a state-owned grain importer, and has invested in a bakery in Shanghai that makes bread using Marubeni-sourced wheat. It has moved into China's nascent wine industry as a co-investor with Asahi, the Japanese brewer, in a winery in Nantong.

其它貿易商也將目標瞄準了中國人的“胃”。去年，丸紅與中國國有谷物進口企業——中國儲備糧管理總公司(Sinograin)達成了一項大豆采購協議，并在上海投資了一家面包房，用來自丸紅的小麥制作面包。丸紅還進軍中國新興的葡萄酒行業，與日本啤酒制造商朝日啤酒(Asahi)在南通共同投資了一家葡萄酒釀造廠。

Marubeni is also investing in water, taking a 40 per cent stake in a purification plant in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, that is majority-owned by Veolia of France.

丸紅還投資于水務行業，在四川成都一家凈化廠擁有40%的股份——法國威立雅集團(Veolia)擁有該公司多數股權。

Some of the shosha's most intriguing moves have involved brokering trade between China and third countries. Mitsubishi, for example, has sold Chinese-built cement-making equipment to Vietnam, and sees future opportunities in marketing Chinese-made railway cars to India and other developing countries.

綜合商社最讓人感興趣的舉動，涉及到斡旋中國與第三國之間的貿易。例如，三菱將中國生產的水泥制造設備銷往越南，并且認為將來有機會向印度及其它發展中國家推銷中國制造的鐵路車輛。

“China doesn't have experience selling its own products overseas, so Mitsubishi's job would be to find customers,” says Mr Hino of Mitsubishi.

三菱的Hino表示：“中國缺乏向海外銷售自己產品的經驗，因此，三菱的任務是找到客戶。”

One risk to the strategy is that as Chinese companies grow and gain more international experience, they will see less need to piggyback on the shosha.

這種戰略的風險之一，是隨著中國企業逐漸成長，并獲得更多的國際經驗，它們將認為沒有什么必要繼續依附日本商社。

That has already happened with manufacturers in Japan, and is one reason the shosha were forced to shift away from trading to investment.

一些日本制造商已經遇到了這種情況，這也是商社被迫從貿易轉向投資的原因之一。

Another obstacle is lingering resentment of Japan's wartime occupation of China, which some trading company managers worry might surface if they seek majority control of their Chinese ventures.

另一個障礙是中國人長久以來對日本戰時侵占中國的怨恨情緒。一些貿易公司的高管擔心，如果它們尋求獲得在華合資企業的多數股權，這種情緒可能會爆發出來。

“Can you imagine a Japanese-controlled utility raising water rates in China?” asks one. “There's no way we would even try.”

“你能想象，在中國，一家由日本控股的水務公司提高水費嗎？”一位高管問道。“我們連試一下都沒門兒。”

This is the third in a series on Japan's business relations with China.

譯者/何黎