评论
打印
HONG KONG — For large Internet companies in the United States, the prevailing wisdom has long been that China is off limits.
香港——对于美国的大型互联网公司而言，“中国是禁区”是一个长期而普遍的共识。
Beijing’s concerns about being unable to control foreign sites, combined with regulations that require companies to censor and monitor users, has led many start-ups to heed the experience of forebears like Twitter and Facebook and refrain from opening a local China site.
北京对无法控制外国网站感到担心，再加上一些规定要求公司对用户进行审查和监控，很多初创企业因此吸取了Twitter和Facebook等前辈的教训，不在中国本土开设网站。
But that may be changing.
但这种情况可能会改变。
With its announcement on Tuesday that it was expanding in China, Airbnb joined a growing list of large American Internet companies that have begun experimenting with new models to enter the Chinese market. With more than 600 million Internet users, China is a rich prize.
越来越多美国大型互联网公司正在尝试采用新的模式，进军中国市场，现在Airbnb也加入了这个行列；本周二，Airbnb宣布将在中国扩张业务。中国拥有逾6亿互联网用户，是一个富有的矿藏。
In a statement on its blog, Airbnb said outbound bookings from Chinese tourists had risen 700 percent during the past year, making it the company’s fastest-growing market of customers booking stays outside their home country. Airbnb, a start-up based in San Francisco, allows people to offer their homes for rent; it completed a fundraising round in June of more than $1 billion.
Airbnb在其博客上发表声明，说在过去一年，中国游客境外订房服务飙升了700%，成为该公司“境外订房”领域增长最快的市场。Airbnb是一家总部设在旧金山的初创公司，用户可以用它出租自家的住所；在今年6月的一轮融资中，该公司筹集了逾10亿美元资金。
Airbnb offered few details of how it would meet that Chinese demand. But the company said it wanted to “create a truly localized platform” while being “prudent” in establishing operations within China. To help, the company said it would work with the Chinese venture capital firms China Broadband Capital and Sequoia China, the local affiliate of the American firm, to increase its presence in the country.
对于Airbnb将如何达到中国的要求，该公司没有提供具体细节，但它表示希望“建立一个真正的本地化平台”，并在中国境内“谨慎”经营。为了做到这一点，Airbnb表示，它将与中国风险投资公司中国宽带产业基金和美国红杉资本在中国的子公司红杉中国(Sequoia China)合作，在中国扩大业务。
The first move for the venture capital firms will be to help recruit a chief executive for Airbnb’s operations in China before expanding the local team.
风投公司的第一个行动，就在是帮助该公司扩充本地团队之前，招募一名首席执行官来负责Airbnb在中国的业务。
The strategy closely resembles one taken by the professional social network LinkedIn, which worked with the same two venture capital firms when it introduced a local site in early 2014. LinkedIn also hired a separate chief executive for its China operations.
这非常类似于职业社交网络领英(LinkedIn)曾经采取的战略。LinkedIn在2014年初推出中国本地的站点时，也与这两家风险投资公司进行了合作。LinkedIn也单独聘请了一位首席执行官来负责中国区的业务。
LinkedIn’s strategy was to have its partners help the company work with the Chinese government. In particular, China Broadband Capital is politically well connected. Founded by Edward Tian, an entrepreneur who once ran a telecommunications company with the son of the former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, China Broadband has assisted other American businesses, like Evernote, in entering China.
LinkedIn的策略是让合作伙伴来帮助该公司和中国政府打交道。中国宽带产业基金尤其拥有良好的政治人脉。该公司曾协助印象笔记(Evernote)等其他美国企业进入中国，其创始人田溯宁曾与中国前国家主席江泽民的儿子共同经营一家电信公司。
In an interview last year, a company spokesman said China Broadband saw its role in the LinkedIn deal as helping the American company communicate with the government.
该公司发言人在去年的一次采访中表示，在LinkedIn的交易中，该公司认为自己的作用是帮助美国公司与政府沟通。
Although it is unclear what demands Airbnb might face, proposed Chinese laws dictate the company must store Chinese customer data inside China. That could mean giving the government access to data not just about the domestic travels of Chinese, but also about where they stay abroad.
虽然目前还不清楚Airbnb可能会面临哪些要求，但中国正在拟议的一些法律规定，各公司拥有的中国用户数据必须保存在中国境内。这可能意味着政府不仅可以获得中国人在国内旅行的数据，还能获得他们在国外旅游的数据。
But cracking the Chinese market must happen first. Brian Chesky, the chief executive and a co-founder of Airbnb, wrote in the blog post that Chinese tourists have been the top spenders internationally since 2012. Expanding inside China will allow the company to make money on their domestic travels as well.
但首先要做的是打入中国市场。Airbnb联合创始人兼首席执行官布莱恩·切斯基(Brian Chesky)在博客中写道，从2012年起，中国游客已经跻身于国际旅游的主要消费群。Airbnb在中国境内扩张，可以从中国的国内旅游市场中赚到钱。
To do so, Airbnb will run up against a local analogue, Tujia, which is already valued at more than $1 billion and offers access to hundreds of thousands of properties across China. Like Airbnb, Tujia helps people market homes to tourists for short-term stays, but it also provides an array of other services around the rental, like cleaning and managing properties.
要做到这一点，Airbnb将与中国本土品牌途家开展竞争。途家的估值已逾10亿美元，其网站上提供了数以十万计的中国住所。像在Airbnb上一样，用户也可以在途家上把住所出租给游客短期居住，但途家还提供一系列和租房相关的服务，比如打扫和管理物业等。
It is unclear whether Airbnb will take up similar services to persuade Chinese to open their doors to visitors. They have an experienced adviser in the industry in the form of Sequoia China’s founder, Neil Shen, who is known in China for starting the Chinese travel site Ctrip.com.
目前尚不清楚Airbnb是否会采用类似服务，说服中国人向游客敞开大门。他们有一名经验丰富的行业顾问——红杉资本中国基金创始人沈南鹏，他在中国因为创建旅游网站携程网(Ctrip.com)而闻名。
In his blog post, Mr. Chesky said Mr. Shen “has deep experience in the Chinese Internet and hospitality sectors.”
切斯基在博客文章中称，沈南鹏“在中国网络及服务领域拥有丰富经验”。
Even as LinkedIn and Uber have led the way for Airbnb, neither has managed to avoid causing a stir. Some LinkedIn users complained online that the company had failed to communicate how and why it was censoring content for users in China. It also briefly censored posts in Hong Kong, which enjoys freedom from Beijing’s content restrictions.
先行一步的领英和优步(Uber)没能避免引发不满。领英的一些用户在网上抱怨称，该公司没有表明他们如何及为什么审查中国用户的内容。该公司还一度对香港的内容加以审查，而那里是无需接受北京的内容管制的。
And several Uber offices have been raided in recent months by local Chinese police and regulators who say the company’s service is illegal. Uber drivers and taxi drivers alike have protested in different cities. Uber is also working to ensure that more of the data from its China operations are stored within the country, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
近几个月来，优步的几个办公室遭到当地警方及监管机构的突查，他们称该公司提供非法服务。一些城市的优步司机和出租车司机进行了抗议。据一名知情人士透露，优步还在努力确保更多中国业务的数据储存在中国。
All three companies are likely aware of the potential political fallout that could come if they change their minds. Google, which once acceded to China’s demands to censor content, noisily reversed course in 2010, delivering uncensored results to Chinese users from servers in Hong Kong.
这三家公司可能都认识到，如果它们改变主意，可能会带来政治后果。谷歌(Google)曾同意中国提出的内容审查要求，但在2010年高调地逆转路线，通过在香港的服务器为中国用户提供不受审查的搜索结果。
That soured the company’s relationship with the Chinese authorities, and Google products are blocked in China.
此举致使该公司与中国当局的关系恶化，谷歌产品在中国被封。
