AIIB not an exclusive tool for Belt and Road

John Kirton, director of the G7 Research Group at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto

The Silk Road Fund is more directly related to the Belt and Road Initiative while the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank also has other broader goals and missions. For long, emerging economies have tried, unsuccessfully, to increase their voting shares in international financial organizations such as the International Monetary Fund so that they more accurately reflect the global economic reality. In addition, there remain many other problems with the established development banks such as their inefficiency.

As such, the AIIB's formation was necessitated by the weaknesses of the existing international financial and development institutions, and its functions go beyond collecting and offering funds for Belt and Road projects. For example, the AIIB works with other institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to jointly finance development projects. Overall, there is a cooperative relationship between China-led institutions such as the AIIB and the Belt and Road Initiative－the AIIB contributes to the initiative through infrastructure financing, and such project financing for the initiative is an important, but not the exclusive focus of the AIIB.

China has made it clear that the goal of the Belt and Road Initiative is not to set up an alternative system, nor is it directed against any countries. Rather, it is an initiative to make improvements to the existing system. In addition, rather than aiming to seek hegemony, it is to create mutual cooperation for the benefit of all. And there is little reason to doubt this rhetoric regarding the initiative's intentions.

China is one of the greatest beneficiaries and also one of the countries with the greatest stakes in the current global system, and it is not looking for any fundamental changes to the status quo. Thus, China would rationally avoid any moves that have even a hint of hegemonism, because it would only create more enemies in the region and around the globe. The Belt and Road Initiative is about generating the type of global connectivity that both China and the world benefit from, and it is about making friends along the Belt and Road, instead of gaining enemies.

Beyond its intentions, the initiative in practice has focused on infrastructure, an approach that goes back to the basics of development. However, China's influence may almost inevitably rise along the Belt and Road routes, and likely spread to the cultural and soft power sphere more broadly.

The increasing influence will be a natural and inevitable result of China's growing role in shouldering more international responsibilities. The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China does not have any strong ideological associations, and China positions itself as a part of the developing world that it is investing in, rather than from a position of ideological superiority.