While U.S. was busy in the Middle East, China quietly sneaked up. The sad thing is that the lobbies in D.C. still do not want to pay any attention to China, they still want to keep the focus in the Middle East as if the world revolves around the Middle East.
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The U.S. may have mastered the notion of soft power. But if there is one thing we can say about the world’s No. 2 economy it is this: those guys in China sure know how to imitate.
China’s proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is soft power at it best. An idea once cast aside by the U.S., today even the International Monetary Fund is getting in on China’s latest big bank.
IMF director Christine Lagarde said there was “massive” room for IMF co-operation with the AIIB on infrastructure financing, the BBC reported this weekend.
The U.S. government won’t want to be left out of this. It will probably lend support too the bank by sending experts and advisors to help inform governance structures and standards, say directors from the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. The U.S. can also work with European countries that have joined the bank in order to use their influence to ensure that the AIIB adheres to best practices, CSIS experts said last week.
AIIB is a multilateral development bank proposed by and majority controlled by China. It has a 36% stake in the governing structure of the bank as it is now. AIIB exists to finance the infrastructure needs in the Asia Pacific region and is different from China’s latest development banking project, the so-called BRICS Bank. The real name for that one is the New Development Bank (NDB), China created with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa last summer. The BRICS bank is a dollar-denominated lending institution that will invest primarily in those five markets, but also in other countries of interest to its members.
This new bank is different. For those who love a good old fashion power struggle, the New Development Bank everyone thought was designed to replace the World Bank is sort of like a velociraptor. The AIIB is a T-Rex.
“China continues to aggressively position itself for a much more prominent role in the global financial system,” says Jan Dehn, an economist with the Ashmore Group in London. Ashmore loves China. It’s one of the only foreign investment firms that has access to the local Chinese bond market, so it watches the country like a hawk. Or sticking with the dino-metaphors, a pterodactyl.
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With New Bank China Shows U.S. It s Got Soft Power - Forbes
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The U.S. may have mastered the notion of soft power. But if there is one thing we can say about the world’s No. 2 economy it is this: those guys in China sure know how to imitate.
China’s proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is soft power at it best. An idea once cast aside by the U.S., today even the International Monetary Fund is getting in on China’s latest big bank.
IMF director Christine Lagarde said there was “massive” room for IMF co-operation with the AIIB on infrastructure financing, the BBC reported this weekend.
The U.S. government won’t want to be left out of this. It will probably lend support too the bank by sending experts and advisors to help inform governance structures and standards, say directors from the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. The U.S. can also work with European countries that have joined the bank in order to use their influence to ensure that the AIIB adheres to best practices, CSIS experts said last week.
AIIB is a multilateral development bank proposed by and majority controlled by China. It has a 36% stake in the governing structure of the bank as it is now. AIIB exists to finance the infrastructure needs in the Asia Pacific region and is different from China’s latest development banking project, the so-called BRICS Bank. The real name for that one is the New Development Bank (NDB), China created with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa last summer. The BRICS bank is a dollar-denominated lending institution that will invest primarily in those five markets, but also in other countries of interest to its members.
This new bank is different. For those who love a good old fashion power struggle, the New Development Bank everyone thought was designed to replace the World Bank is sort of like a velociraptor. The AIIB is a T-Rex.
“China continues to aggressively position itself for a much more prominent role in the global financial system,” says Jan Dehn, an economist with the Ashmore Group in London. Ashmore loves China. It’s one of the only foreign investment firms that has access to the local Chinese bond market, so it watches the country like a hawk. Or sticking with the dino-metaphors, a pterodactyl.
...
With New Bank China Shows U.S. It s Got Soft Power - Forbes