LegiStorm

Summary:

In October 2013, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Bali, Indonesia, China proposed creating a new multilateral development bank (MDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). As its name suggests, the Bank's stated purpose is to provide financing for infrastructure needs throughout Asia, as well as in neighboring regions. As of January 2017, the AIIB has approved nine projects, investing a total of $1.7 billion. The AIIB was formally established in late 2015 with 57 founding members. Membership in the AIIB is open to all members of the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The AIIB’s Articles of Agreement create two classes of membership: regional and non-regional members. According to the AIIB Articles, regional members hold 75% of the total voting power in the Bank. Fourteen of the G-20 nations are AIIB members. The United States is not an AIIB member. The AIIB was initially conceived as a regional financing mechanism for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road (OBOR)” initiative. This initiative is a central component of President Xi’s regional economic and foreign policy and aims to boost economic connectivity from China to Central and South Asia, the Middle East and Europe (the Silk Road Economic Belt) and, along a maritime route, from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe (the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road). President Xi, more so than previous Chinese leaders, has pursued policies to establish new China-led trade and financial institutions, as well as to further integrate China within the existing international financial institutions. President Xi said that the AIIB would “promote interconnectivity and economic integration in the region” and “cooperate with existing multilateral development banks,” including the World Bank and the ADB. As AIIB membership has expanded to include developed countries in Asia and Europe (and possibly Canada), China has since tried to distance the AIIB from the OBOR initiative through co-financing arrangements for its initial loans. It is uncertain how China will balance its stated goal of establishing an independent and high-standard MDB, while pursuing China’s own economic and national security priorities. The AIIB's initial total capital is $100 billion, with 20% paid-in and 80% callable. China is contributing $50 billion, half of the initial subscribed capital. India is the second-largest shareholder, contributing $8.4 billion. The Bank is based in Beijing, China and headed by Jin Liqun, a former Chinese vice minister of finance, Chinese sovereign wealth fund chairman, and ADB vice president. China's voting share at the AIIB (28.7%) is substantially larger than that of the second-largest AIIB member nation, India (8.3%). This is the largest gap between the first- and second-largest shareholders at any existing MDB. The AIIB has a governance structure similar to other MDBs, with two key differences: (1) it does not have a resident board of executive directors that represents member countries' interests on a day-to-day basis; and (2) the AIIB gives more decisionmaking authority to regional countries and the largest shareholder, China. The AIIB presents several policy issues for Members of Congress to consider, including:  the future direction of the AIIB and potential U.S. role, including the question of whether the United States should join and U.S. policy toward the new institution;  independence, transparency and governance of the bank and implications for other MDBs, particularly projects that are co-financed with other MDBs; and  commercial implications for U.S. firms, including procurement opportunities.