U.S. Loses in Attempt to Isolate New Chinese Development Bank

Alexander Privitera

AGI Non-Resident Senior Fellow

Alexander Privitera a Geoeconomics Non-Resident Senior Fellow at AGI. He is a columnist at BRINK news and professor at Marconi University. He was previously Senior Policy Advisor at the European Banking Federation and was the head of European affairs at Commerzbank AG. He focuses primarily on Germany’s European policies and their impact on relations between the United States and Europe. Previously, Mr. Privitera was the Washington-based correspondent for the leading German news channel, N24. As a journalist, over the past two decades he has been posted to Berlin, Bonn, Brussels, and Rome. Mr. Privitera was born in Rome, Italy, and holds a degree in Political Science (International Relations and Economics) from La Sapienza University in Rome.

The recent spat between the U.S. administration and the British government over the UK’s decision to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)–despite U.S. opposition–has triggered much public noise.

Initial reactions on the U.S. side went from surprise to outrage, with Washington accusing British cousins of jeopardizing the global order and the “special relationship” in the name of short sighted commercial interests. U.S. officials conceded that the lack of progress in implementing the long overdue reform of the governance structure of the big Washington-based international organizations–the World Bank and, primarily, the International Monetary Fund–had complicated matters. However, Washington’s reaction to London’s decision to ignore U.S. concerns was one of ill-concealed anger. When Germany, France, and Italy chose to join ranks with the UK, the failure of the U.S. approach, centered around a strategy of increasing containment, was complete.

The original text of this article was published by The European Institute on March 24, 2015. Read more here.