Asian Investment Bank Loses Grip: US Effort Fails

When Poland and Taiwan entered the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the AIIB’s circle of friends grew to 52 countries. The Chinese media is simply wild about counting new members every day; new friends and old rivals are clearing out the old to make way for the new, and all is warm and fuzzy. We can see allies excitedly clicking the AIIB’s “Like” button, as well as America calling after its friends, facing the wall to reflect on its faults, then crying on its toilet. A March 19 Wall Street Journal article stated that former World Bank president Robert Zoellick criticized the Obama administration’s approach to the AIIB to be “mistaken both on policy and on execution.”

Within a week, the Post issued two articles to describe America’s predicament, one using the word “failed” and another using the words “failed and failed spectacularly.” On March 31, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that America has misjudged the AIIB and “screwed up”; it did not expect other countries to join the AIIB.

America Screwed Up

“Screwed up,” “failed and failed spectacularly ….” Washington authorities have clearly underestimated China’s power and the AIIB’s magnetism. In fact, not only did America fail to foresee this, but China was surprised, too. Regarding the AIIB’s attraction of old European allies including England, France, Germany and Israel, Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, who was actively involved in the AIIB’s preparations, has reiterated his surprise. China’s surprise became a victory, whereas America’s was a misfortune. China is not alone; other countries are steering clear of the U.S., too. Chief Financial Times commentator Martin Wolf wrote this in his article “A Rebuff of China’s AIIB Is Folly”: “Jack Lew, U.S. Treasury secretary, has voiced American concerns that the Asian bank would not live up to the ‘highest global standards’ for governance or lending. As a former staff member of the World Bank, I must smile.”

If we follow White House China analyst Michael Pillsbury’s thinking, we would say that the U.S. was strategically deceived once more. Pillsbury points out in his new book “The Hundred-Year Marathon” that since 1955, Chairman Mao Zedong himself started a strategic deception program that, for as long as a hundred years, had cast around the world an image of China as a poor, backward and self-centered country, teasing the past U.S. government to allow communism to replace the American world order.

The Deception Continues

Strategic deception suddenly sounds very funny. America, a master of foreign policy, is not to be toyed with, whereas China, holding onto its Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, has ironically become strategically fooled. Doesn’t anyone remember Zhang Zhaozhong stating sternly, “You are all too young. What China has is strategic studies and future studies, not a ‘Strategic Foolyou Agency.’ I just can’t believe that people create problems that don’t exist.” Then again, from a different perspective, if Pillsbury’s strategic deception refers to China’s flexible pragmatism that it has been implementing for a long time, then the term “strategic deception” is not so funny. From the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s term, China has walked the path of foreign relations leadership with calm long-term inspection, standing its ground, remaining honest, never taking the lead, and doing its part.