Critics see AIIB as a China bank

A LEADING Asian nation proposes a new regional financial institution but the idea meets with opposition from the US and others while creating something of an international stir. It could be China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) but in 1997 it was Japan's plan for an Asian Monetary Fund, or AMF, that was making waves.

Now, the man behind the abortive AMF plan, Eisuke Sakakibara, is opposed to Japan joining the AIIB, just as China opposed Japan's initiative 18 years ago. Such are the ironies of history but the former "Mr Yen" says he is not "returning the compliment" by opposing but simply acting in the broader interests of economic development.

He does not see the AMF and the AIIB as being identical initiatives - the AMF was mooted as part of an Asia-wide protest against the way in which the International Monetary Fund handled (or mishandled) the 1997 crisis, whereas the AIIB is very much a unilateral or "bilateral" initiative on China's part, he told BT.