China-Led Development Bank: Challenge America Failed to Notice
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In a major diplomatic setback America failed to prevent Western allies from joining the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a Portuguese journalist wrote.
US diplomacy is no longer the way it once used to be, neither politically, militarily nor even economically, political columnist Paulo Barradas wrote in the latest issue of Expresso magazine.
Ironically, the AIIB owes its very emergence to Washington’s political and diplomatic shortsightedness and inability to identify and support the changing trends, especially when it comes to developing markets whose contribution to global economic growth increases every year, Barradas emphasized.
The idea to set up the AIIB came in 2013 after Washington refused to approve IMF quota reforms to allow China and other Asian powers greater say in the Fund’s corporate management, the author noted.
Washington’s longtime allies Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland and now Australia have all applied for membership in the China-proposed AIIB.
“The main western nations’ eagerness to become founding members of the AIIB reflects their desire to land lucrative contracts for the construction of infrastructure facilities on expectations of an increased use of China’s yuan in international business transactions,” Paulo Barradas wrote.
“This is a major political and economic challenge of our day and age the US failed to notice,” the author concluded.
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