[leoc]

Michael Pettis presents a (to me) pretty strong-looking argument that the AIIB is not important http://blog.mpettis.com/2015/04/will-the-aiib-one-day-matter... though he does believe that the post-war/post-'71 dollar economy is likely coming to an end, for other reasons. For one thing, it's easy to lend money to the developing world only if you're not careful about making sure you'll get it back. (I am not an expert.)

[xnull2guest]

There are a number of scholars, even some in the circuit of the Defense Industry of the West, who have ranges of ideas with regard to how big a deal the AIIB is or will be. Although there are none that I know of who don't think the Western order isn't being challenged. What matters is that the West on the whole believes very strongly that the AIIB and associated institutions are a serious challenge because it is their belief that determines their actions. Since the West believes that its superpower status is hollowing out - even if it were not true - it will act in correspondence with this belief: in this case with surveillance, etc.

I happen to agree with the West's national security posture that their status is hollowing and that the AIIB and other institutions propose viable alternatives for large portions of the world and threaten the old order (though I'm no expert either).

The reason is that foreign investment is a way that countries can use to very strongly project power. Take the activity in the Baltics - the IMF packages to Kiev - to influence political and geostrategic outcomes which is often worth huge amounts of wealth in the long run. That is to say you aren't always going to get money from the country you are lending to, but you will get influence on political outcomes. And we can see that with China's plans in Eurasia and how these plans for example align with their veto votes on UN activity in the Middle East. Russia had tried to create a Eurasian Union, which has kind of staled but it's likely that with a giant investment bank to fund infrastructure that it can be pulled off.

Long argument short - it's not always about getting money back on your loan: it's often about getting your pipeline, your highway, your port, or your defense garrison.