4 - China and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: Undermining Hegemony through Goods Substitution?

Summary

China has begun to take a more active and assertive role in international public goods provision and the results of this are more varied than the duality of revisionism versus status quo orientations would have it. As a goods supplier, China is increasingly identifying gaps in the existing international order and filling them without necessarily challenging the USA directly. In this chapter, Julia Bader shows how China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) became a successful example of asset substitution. The AIIB was initiated as a counter-hegemonic attempt, targeted at the architecture of international finance and at US dominance therein. Yet, as ever more European democracies somewhat unexpectedly joined the Bank – against the wishes of the USA – the institution gradually transformed into an integrated part of the existing international financial architecture. The case of the AIIB illustrates how opportunistic hedging and uncoordinated herding by third states may inadvertently undermine the existing order. Bader shows how the framework of international goods provision, involving producers and consumers alike, directs our attention to non-hegemonic actors as crucial but overlooked players.