Winton Dong

    dht620@sina.com

    CANADA will apply to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Ottawa’s Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in an official statement in Beijing on Aug. 31.

    Canada’s announcement came during its Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first official visit to China, who attended the 11th G20 Summit between Sept. 4 and 5 in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province. President Xi Jinping said China welcomed Canada’s decision while meeting with Trudeau at the summit. According to Jin Liqun, president of the AIIB, besides Canada, there are more than 20 other countries waiting to join the AIIB and the door is wide open to the whole world.

    The AIIB, a not-for-profit multilateral bank initiated by China, was officially established last December and started operation in January this year with 57 founding members including the United Kingdom and Australia.

    With Canada’s recent application, the United States and Japan will be the only two countries within the Group of Eight (namely the United States, the U.K., Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Italy and Russia) that are still lingering outside the AIIB.

    Despite the fact that the AIIB is now promising and warmly applauded by many countries worldwide, its initiation process was bumpy and thorny at the beginning. In October 2013, President Xi first proposed to set up such a financial institution, aiming to boost Asian infrastructure construction. The United States considered the AIIB to be a rival to the West-dominated World Bank, International Monetary Fund and even the Asian Development Bank. But China said the AIIB would not be in competition against those existing institutions, but would act to complement them.

    Under this circumstance, the United States has been working hard to urge its allies not to join the bank. On March 12, 2015, Britain became the first Western economy to officially apply for a founding membership of the bank, thus breaking the dam on the U.S.-led resistance to the AIIB. After getting the news, the United States soon issued what was seen by many observers as a warning to Britain over its public support for the AIIB.

    Encouraged by the determination of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other Western countries also expressed their interest and applied to join AIIB soon after. Those applicants do not want to miss the chance to share the results of China’s fast economic growth, and expect more participation in Asia’s development, although their actions will surely agitate and meet disapproval from the United States.

    Such centrifugal actions of its allies also serve as a strong signal that the capability of the United States to control or influence its “little brothers” is not as powerful as before. For many years, the United States, Japan and some other countries have been working hard to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). To their disappointment, at present such an agreement is not only strongly objected by America’s senate and its two presidential nominees — Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but also brings no benefits to its allies. However, the establishment of the AIIB and China’s Belt and Road Initiative have already generated some substantial fruits and inclusive development to the global economy. For example, on June 25 this year, the AIIB approved four infrastructure projects respectively in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Tajikistan with a total investment of US$509 million. The British Ministry of Trade and Development and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development also joined the four projects.

    Despite the fact that the AIIB has started off well, there is still a long way to go before it truly succeeds as an international financial institution. During the odyssey, what we need the most are expertise, confidence, integrity and patience.

    (The author is the editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily and guest professor of Shenzhen University with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)