By William Yale
Can Beijing’s claim that it wants to provide ‘global public goods’ via the AIIB taken at face value?
A month after controversy erupted over the announcement that multiple U.S. allies will join China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Obama administration’s response was clearly misguided. Concerned that the AIIB represented a power play by China for influence in the rest of the world at the expense of the U.S., administration officials criticized the bank for not adhering to the “high standards” required of U.S. and Western-led international institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
In contrast, there was a clear alternative for the United States: welcome China’s contribution to economic development in the developing countries of Asia and even join the bank itself. Indeed, U.S. officials, intellectuals, and pundits of all stripes repeatedly complain that China has not lived up to its obligations as a major power to provide the “global public goods” that help prop up the international system. At face value, the AIIB seems like it will exemplify the kind of role in the world the U.S. would like China to play.
Read the full story at The Diplomat