Asia's development banks pursue different agendas

Tokyo

THE coming out party (as some termed it) in Beijing last week for President Xi Jinping's One Belt-One Road (OBOR) scheme came close on the heels of the Asian Development Bank's 50th birthday celebrations in Yokohama and that may or may not have been a coincidence. But it was certainly symbolic.

It highlighted the divergence of views on development policy between China, on the one hand, and the US and Japan, on the other, (with Europe somewhere in between). China's view can be called "pragmatic" while that of the ADB's biggest shareholders is more ideological and interventionist.