The AIIB: China’s Just Getting Started

The AIIB’s success doesn’t mean that China has deposed the US — but the game has only just begun.

As more U.S. traditional allies such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy decide to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), people may start to wonder: Is this a sign that the U.S. is in irreversible decline?

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Meanwhile, joining AIIB does not necessarily mean that these U.S. allies truly trust China’s financial skills and experience, much less Beijing’s possible political intentions. But the significance of these Western economies’ involvement is obvious to AIIB and China. And the Europeans seem to have good reasons for their decisions. As Kay Swinburne, economics spokesman for the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), said to Xinhua, “Being able to influence the way in which the AIIB operates will help shape infrastructure investments across Asia and ensure that the new bank encompasses high principles of governance and transparency in investment decisions.”

Nevertheless, the growing popularity of the AIIB could give China the opportunity to take a more proactive role in its intended plan to build new multilateral world institutions. In fact, the U.S. inadvertently helped facilitate such an opportunity, through its de facto containment attitude in its diplomacy toward China (especially regarding the regional territorial disputes), combined with a negative or even exclusionary policy in current multilateral economic frameworks like the International Monetary Fund and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Full article: The AIIB: China’s Just Getting Started (The Diplomat)