Cooperation, not competition
- By Zhang Monan
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E-mail China.org.cn, May 15, 2015
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The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, with 57 countries confirmed as founding members, has created a new conception for global financial governance. Within an open and inclusive framework, the AIIB is open to all Asian countries and other economies, does not set any conditions or threshold for cooperation, and does not exclude nor target any third party. In a broader sense, the AIIB is redefining the global economic order and the "competition-cooperation relationship" in the governance framework.
The world today is still locked in the post-crisis mentality that seeks drastic, all-round changes. There is no shortage of dynamics for development, but the real shortage is new conceptions for growth and cooperation. So the initiation of the AIIB is the right thing at the right time. As a matter of fact, there have already been various proposals to expand the financing capacity for infrastructure construction in the Asia-Pacific region, including the ASEAN infrastructure bond fund, the ASEAN infrastructure development bank, the ASEAN infrastructure financing mechanism, the Northeast Asian development bank, the proposal for Asian infrastructure financing, the proposal for the APEC infrastructure investment and the East Asian infrastructure investment fund, but none of these proposals has made substantial progress. Then, what are the winning points for the AIIB?
Since the initiation of this bank, countries around the world have showed different attitudes and stances towards it — some opposing it, some supporting it, some remaining cautious toward it and some fence-sitting about it. It is only natural that different countries take varied stances, because they choose to understand it in the perspective of their own national interest.
In terms of size, the AIIB, with a planned initial equity capital of about $100 billion and an initial subscribed capital of about $50 billion, is still far behind the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, with $165 billion and $280 billion in paid-in capital, respectively. In terms of members, the AIIB has 57 founding members, far fewer than the ADB, which has 67 members, and the WB, which has 188 members. What is really encouraging, however, is that the AIIB could win support from 57 member countries in just one and one-half years in its preparations from October 2013 to April 2015. How could the AIIB win such widespread trust in such a short time?
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