林中斌 部落格 / Blog Chong-Pin Lin

Frustrated with the lack of governance reform, slow pace of project implementation and reluctance to expand lending on the part of the existing development banks, China is starting its own. The bank, which will help meet Asia's rapidly growing infrastructure needs, is likely to operate initially by tapping existing capital markets in Hong Kong, London and New York, and by lending in dollars. But as China eases restrictions on inflows and outflows of capital and the renminbi becomes convertible, the bank could be important for tapping China’s excess savings and putting them to good use in developing Asia.

It is likely that the new bank will both cooperate with and compete against the existing development banks. It will cooperate because, for many large projects, co-financing makes sense. But as the new bank will also try to be leaner and faster than the existing banks, it will provide some healthy competition. And hopefully the success of the bank will encourage more rapid reform of the old institutions. That would be the best global outcome of all. If we want China to buy fully into the existing institutions, then we have to give it the seat at the table that it deserves.

David Dol, a former U.S. Treasury and World Bank representative in China, is a senior fellow in the China Center at the Brookings Institution.

America is right to worry about Beijing’s proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank because it is about much more than economics. Beijing naturally hopes that this massive fund will enhance its claims to regional leadership.

Just as Washington has tried to use the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact to block China’s political ambitions in Asia, China is hoping to use the investment bank to push back. The difference is that the investment bank, unlike the trade pact, will probably work.

The economic case is hard to fault. Asia needs huge investments in infrastructure, and existing institutions like the Asian Development Bank have neither the capital nor the management capacity to deliver them. China has plenty of money and enormous expertise, having delivered in recent years perhaps the most remarkable infrastructure-development program in history.

But of course the new bank would reflect and promote China’s priorities and values, not America’s. It would enhance China’s role as the leading power in Asia, and therefore diminish U.S. regional leadership. This is exactly why Washington has been lobbying so hard against it.

Those efforts seem destined to fail. Not even Australia, America’s warmest ally in Asia, will oppose it, because the economic logic is too strong. Meanwhile the trade pact is struggling. And this should make U.S. policymakers ask a deeper question: can the pivot toward Asia really work? Does it make sense to keep trying to compel China to accept a subordinate role as a "responsible stakeholder" in a U.S.-led system?

Or is it time for the United States to accept that China’s economic growth is inevitably transforming Asia’s political balance, too? Perhaps Washington needs to stop trying to preserve the old Asian order, and try instead to maximize its role, alongside China, in the new one. That would mean supporting China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, is the author of “The China Choice: Why We Should Share Power.”

There is growing demand for financial and technical assistance in infrastructure investment in Asia. Over the last 30 years, China has gained valuable knowledge in this area and has accumulated enough foreign reserves to contribute to Asia’s prosperity. Sharing some of that know-how would help China move beyond its labor intensive manufacturing economy. For instance, under the Asian bank, China could move some of its manufacturing industry to places like Brunei, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam and help these countries prosper by providing them with the financial assistance to build highways, high-speed trains, harbors and utility facilities.

The establishment of the Asian bank will also facilitate the renminbi’s role as an international trading currency and foreign reserve currency for China’s trading partners in Asia. These are necessary steps for China to internationalize its currency. The bank will provide an alternative channel for China to diversify its 3 trillion renminbi in foreign reserves.

It’s also worth noting that the establishment of this Asian bank will strengthen China’s position and influence in Asia by counterbalancing Japan’s power and the United States’ presence in the region.

For China, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is the next logical step, despite misgivings from the West.

Oliver Rui is a professor of finance and accounting at China Europe International Business School and the director of its World Bank China Centre for Inclusive Finance.