The idea of the AIIB (Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank) was first floated by China when she talked to Indonesia in 2013. She is inviting membership since then, and today, 31 March 2015, is the deadline, in the sense that the countries which have applied by today will be participating in the management of the Bank as the founding members. 41 countries, including India, have applied so far, but not the US and Japan.
Japan thinks that there is already the ADB (Asian Development Bank), based at Manila but practically under the Japanese leadership, with each and every Governor since its inception in 1960 has been from Japan. China says that it is not enough, in view of the huge demand of fund in the infrastructural sector.
It is interesting that China says they need an institution for the infrastructural sector because the ADB is mostly for the purpose of poverty alleviation. It is interesting as Japan's development pattern has been to build large-scale modern infrastructure, leaving the solution of the poverty problem in the hands of the market mechanism, to the trickling-down effects. I do not think the ADB has gone out of that way very far. It is the out-dated development pattern of the last century. But if China says that she will go this way, is she going to leave the solution of the poverty and the growing disparities to the market? Is such a solution possible at all in this century? Is it not all the more difficult for India?
Will Japan, then, almost alone in Asia, remain aloof from the AIIB, which is now almost a movement? It does not seem to be a wise policy. Japan should join it. She is again, once again, looking at the US, and only the US. But the US Treasury Secretary must be visiting Beijing today, presumably to get to know China's AIIB policy first-hand. Suppose, just suppose, the US makes up her mind to join it? By the end of today, but by the US time? That would be the second edition of Henry Kissinger's surprise China visit in 1971, and would be disastrous to Japan. If at all that happens, Japan should never join the AIIB to protect her honour!
Japan thinks that there is already the ADB (Asian Development Bank), based at Manila but practically under the Japanese leadership, with each and every Governor since its inception in 1960 has been from Japan. China says that it is not enough, in view of the huge demand of fund in the infrastructural sector.
It is interesting that China says they need an institution for the infrastructural sector because the ADB is mostly for the purpose of poverty alleviation. It is interesting as Japan's development pattern has been to build large-scale modern infrastructure, leaving the solution of the poverty problem in the hands of the market mechanism, to the trickling-down effects. I do not think the ADB has gone out of that way very far. It is the out-dated development pattern of the last century. But if China says that she will go this way, is she going to leave the solution of the poverty and the growing disparities to the market? Is such a solution possible at all in this century? Is it not all the more difficult for India?
Will Japan, then, almost alone in Asia, remain aloof from the AIIB, which is now almost a movement? It does not seem to be a wise policy. Japan should join it. She is again, once again, looking at the US, and only the US. But the US Treasury Secretary must be visiting Beijing today, presumably to get to know China's AIIB policy first-hand. Suppose, just suppose, the US makes up her mind to join it? By the end of today, but by the US time? That would be the second edition of Henry Kissinger's surprise China visit in 1971, and would be disastrous to Japan. If at all that happens, Japan should never join the AIIB to protect her honour!
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