Brent Scowcroft Center Resident Senior Fellow Robert Manning writes for Nikkei Asian Review on whether China is seeking to create competing vision of world order or seeking a larger role in a reformed international system:
Perhaps the biggest concern in the U.S. and Japan about the rise of China is that even as the country has integrated itself into the global economy and existing institutions, it is trying to define its role as a major power by creating alternative institutions that challenge the existing order. But recent events, not least a new Chinese diplomatic push in the Middle East, complicate any judgments of Beijing’s global strategy.
The initial concern when China proposed the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was that Beijing might be seeking to displace the Bretton Woods institutions — the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. China says the AIIB will be a partner of the World Bank and ADB, with compatible standards, not a competitor. But with the AIIB launched on Christmas and its first board meeting slated for mid-January, the jury is still out.