The US has seemingly outgrown its paranoia against the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Signals have been beamed out of Washington of late that it is adopting a cooperative attitude toward the China-proposed initiative, which marks an apparent change of mind from its earlier suspicion and obstruction.
The U-turn of the world's sole superpower is overdue but welcome. It is indicative of the attractiveness and all-win nature of the incipient institution. But Washington needs to resist the temptation to load it with a Machiavellian ploy to convert the fledgling project into yet another tool for exerting its influence and getting its own way.
The AIIB is born out of and aimed at satisfying the huge demand for infrastructure investment in fast-growing Asia. That means its creation will not only help break the infrastructure bottleneck and boost regional development, but almost certainly bring considerable returns to any party participating in or cooperating with the enterprise.
Thus the AIIB amounts to a new cornerstone to the foundation of the existing financial architecture, further underpinning instead of undermining the system, just as the Asian Development Bank and similar regional bodies have strengthened global lending and world development.
The AIIB will function as an open and inclusive organization dedicated to cooperation and development, not as an arena to wield power and influence.
Given Washington's preoccupation with dominance, the US about-face has given rise to speculations that the superpower, unable to scuttle the AIIB, now attempts to keep the financial body on its own orbit by engaging with it.
Such theory, although easy to understand, is not necessarily true, but it is the US that bears the onus to clear the air by making a convincing case that it does not have a hidden agenda. The promising AIIB project cannot be reduced to a chessboard for geopolitical game.
The author is a Xinhua writer.