When the Postal Savings Bank of China announced it had raised $7bn from a group of international investors it marked a significant step towards what is expected to be one of the biggest Chinese listings in 2016.

中国邮政储蓄银行(Postal Savings Bank of China)宣布向多家国际投资者募集了70亿美元，标志着该行朝着首次公开发行(IPO)迈进了一大步。外界预计，该行的上市将是2016年中国最大的IPO之一。

Alongside China Life and giants of global finance such as UBS and JPMorgan, it raised funds from the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, representing a turnround for a state bank that just three years earlier had seen its president charged with corruption.

除了中国人寿(China Life)以及瑞银(UBS)、摩根大通(JPMorgan)等国际金融巨头以外，中国邮储银行还从世界银行(World Bank)旗下的私营公司国际金融公司(IFC)募集了资金。这表明，与3年前行长被控贪腐的时候相比，这家国有银行已经迎来了彻底的转变。

But the deal has become emblematic of the often subtle ways in which Beijing and Washington battle for influence behind closed doors at the World Bank. It has also cast a shadow over the departure of China’s most senior official at the World Bank, former Goldman Sachs banker Jin-Yong Cai, who after a turbulent three years at the helm of the IFC leaves this week to return to Asia and the private sector.

这笔交易也凸显出北京和华盛顿是如何在世行中暗地里争夺影响力的，这种较劲经常以十分微妙的方式进行。它也给世行中级别最高的中国籍官员、前高盛(Goldman Sachs)银行家蔡金勇(Jin-Yong Cai)的卸任投下了阴影。在IFC首席执行官位置上度过了风云变幻的3年后，本周他将离开世行，重返亚洲再次投身私营部门。

While Mr Cai and other senior World Bank officials insist that he is leaving 10 months before the end of his four-year term for personal reasons and there are no allegations of any wrongdoing, his exit followed an unusual rebuke by the World Bank’s board for the Postal Savings Bank of China transaction that he championed. It comes amid what senior bank officials say were mounting concerns by the US and others over alleged favouritism involving a growing number of IFC deals with Chinese state-owned companies.

尽管蔡金勇和其他世行高层官员坚称，他提前10个月离职——他的任期本该是4年——是出于个人原因，而且他也未被指控从事了任何不当行为，但在他离职前，世行执行董事会曾不寻常地谴责了IFC投资中国邮储银行的交易（该交易得到蔡金勇支持）。这件事发生的同时，有世行高层官员表示，美国和其他方面对IFC与中国国有企业达成的越来越多的交易涉嫌偏袒日益感到担忧。

At $300m, the IFC’s investment paled in comparison with the $2.5bn China Life paid for its 5 per cent stake in the Postal Savings Bank. However, it was the largest the IFC had ever made in a Chinese bank and Mr Cai saw it as an example of the “big bang” deals for which he hoped to be remembered.

中国人寿买入中国邮储银行5%股份所花费的25亿美元，让IFC的3亿美元投资相形见绌。然而，这是IFC有史以来对一家中国银行进行的最大一笔投资，被蔡金勇视为“重磅”交易的一个范例，他希望通过促成这样的交易为人们所铭记。

According to senior World Bank officials though, big shareholders questioned how the investment fitted with the IFC’s mandate to lend to private companies in places where capital was either unavailable or too expensive and other investment options were not available.

不过，按照世行高层官员的说法，世行大股东质疑这笔投资是否符合IFC的使命——放贷给缺乏资金或资金成本过高并且缺少其他投资选项的地方的私营企业。

Plenty of other investors were lining up for a stake in the Postal Savings Bank of China. Moreover, it was unclear, the officials said, just what the development impact — a crucial test for IFC investments — would be despite Mr Cai’s claims that it fit with the bank’s “financial inclusion” strategy.

除了上面提到的投资者，还有大量的投资者在排队等候买入中国邮储银行的股份。此外，这些官员们表示，尽管蔡金勇声称该交易符合世行的“金融包容”战略，但这笔交易带来的发展影响并不明确，而发展影响正是对IFC投资的一项关键考核标准。

“It is unclear to me what the role is for the IFC in [the Postal Savings Bank of China],” says Peter Woicke, a former JPMorgan banker who ran the IFC from 1999 to 2005 and oversaw its initial investments in China’s banking sector. “If that [investment returns] is why you are doing it you might as well be Goldman Sachs. But the job of the IFC is not just to be Goldman Sachs.”

“在我看来，IFC（在中国邮储银行）扮演的角色并不清楚。”前摩根大通银行家彼得茠伊克(Peter Woicke)说，“如果这样做是为了（投资回报），你可能就和高盛差不多了。但IFC的职能不止是为了成为高盛。”沃伊克曾在1999年到2005年间领导IFC，监督过IFC对中国银行业的首批投资。

The IFC and Mr Cai argue the investment in the Postal Savings Bank will help bring financial services to many of China’s “unbanked” and provide a healthy investment return as well.

IFC和蔡金勇表示，投资中国邮储银行有助于将金融服务拓展到中国许多“没有银行账户的人”中间，同时还能带来健康的投资回报。

The clash surfaced when the World Bank’s board considered the IFC’s $300m investment in June. When the 25-member board gathered to vote on it June 9, according to minutes, the representatives for the US, Japan and big European shareholders including the UK, Germany and France all abstained. Altogether nine directors responsible for 56.4 per cent of the IFC’s voting shares withheld their approval.

6月世行执行董事会商议IFC这一投资事项时，冲突浮出了水面。根据会议纪要，6月9日董事会25名成员开会投票时，美国、日本还有英国、德国和法国等主要欧洲股东国的代表全部弃权。总共9名董事拒绝赞成该投资，他们合占56.4%的投票权。

Because those directors abstained rather than voted against, the investment went ahead. But in the nuanced arena of World Bank board politics where outright votes against projects backed by powerful shareholders such as China are rare the vote amounted to a dramatic rebuke to Mr Cai.

由于这些董事只是弃权而非投反对票，这项投资得以推进。但是，在世行董事会政治这个微妙的舞台上，直接投票反对有影响力股东（如中国）支持的项目是很罕见的，因此这次表决等于是以一种戏剧性的方式谴责蔡金勇。

“It’s very unusual,” said Chad Hobson, executive director of the Bank Information Center, a Washington-based campaign group focused on the World Bank. “They don’t [normally] go to the board when they are going to lose a vote.”

关注世行、总部在华盛顿的活动团体银行信息中心(Bank Information Center)的执行董事查德霍布森(Chad Hobson)表示：“这很不寻常。（通常）如果他们会输掉投票，他们就不会参加董事会会议。”

The vote, according to current senior bank officials, came after the US had for more than a year been expressing growing concerns about a number of IFC transactions involving Chinese state-owned companies around the world. Those concerns had seen the US either abstain or vote against a renewable energy project in Pakistan and a proposed $140m in investment in IFC projects involving Chinese state-owned grain trader COFCO.

根据世行现任高官的说法，这次投票之前，美国一年多来对IFC在世界各地一系列涉及中国国企的交易表达出越来越大的担忧。出于这种顾虑，对于巴基斯坦一个可再生能源项目，以及对有中粮集团(COFCO)参与的IFC项目拟议的1.4亿美元投资，美国不是投弃权票就投反对票。

It also came as Chinese stock markets were in turmoil and just ahead of the release in July by the World Bank of a report, which the bank later pulled, in which it warned that China’s “distorted” financial sector was in urgent need of reform.

这次投票还发生在中国股市暴跌之际，之后世行还在7月发布了一份报告，警告中国“扭曲的”金融业亟需改革——不过随后撤回了这份报告。

Mr Cai defended the investment but noted that anything to do with China often had extra sensitivities attached.

蔡金勇为这笔投资辩护，不过他也指出，任何与中国有关的事情都格外敏感。

“There are always different views on projects in China,” he said. “I understand that.”

他说：“我明白，人们对中国的项目总是抱着不同的看法。”

With its 40,000 mostly rural branches, the Postal Savings Bank of China allowed the IFC to help spread financial services further into China’s countryside where some 235m still did not have bank accounts, Mr Cai said. It would also enable the IFC to learn from one of the world’s biggest postal banks. “How do we gain our experience? We can’t just get it by reading books. We have to be involved in transactions,” he told the Financial Times.

蔡金勇表示，凭借中国邮储银行主要分布在农村地区的4万个营业网点，IFC能够帮助中国农村地区普及金融服务。在那里，大约2.35亿人仍然没有银行户头。此外，IFC还可借此从全球最大邮政银行之一的身上学到经验。他告诉英国《金融时报》：“我们如何获得经验？我们不能只从书本上获得经验。我们必须参与交易。”

Mr Cai insisted it was a good investment for the IFC, which has had to sell other equity holdings in China to fund dividend payments to the World Bank to finance its low-interest lending to the world’s poorest countries.

蔡金勇坚称这对IFC来说是一笔很好的投资。IFC不得不卖出在中国持有的其他股权以向世行支付股息，为世行向贫困国家发放低息贷款充实资金。

Some of the IFC’s other equity investments had had a difficult time, he said. In the year to June 2015 it took $700m in writedowns on its equity investments in emerging markets, according to figures provided by the IFC. China had been a rare bright spot, Mr Cai says, although the IFC declined to provide details of how its investments there had performed amid recent turmoil in the Chinese market.

蔡金勇说，IFC其他股权投资中有一部分情况不妙。根据IFC的数据，在截至2015年6月的一年里，IFC在新兴市场的股权投资减记了7亿美元。蔡金勇表示，中国是个少见的亮点。不过，IFC并没有详细披露今年中国股市暴跌期间其在中国的投资情况如何。

“We have made so much money from our investments [in China]. We are so lucky. We thank the Chinese for giving us this opportunity,” Mr Cai said.

蔡金勇表示：“我们从我们（在中国）的投资中赚了很多钱，我们很幸运，我们感谢中国人给了我们这种机会。”