The U.S. may have mastered the notion of soft power. But if there is one thing we can say about the world’s No. 2 economy it is this: those guys in China sure know how to imitate. China’s proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is soft power at it best.

China watchers have been combing through the details of the new initiatives and proposals Xi has recently introduced, such as “One Belt, One Road” (1B1R) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Even though these new initiatives are still under construction, the fact is that this has been the biggest foreign policy shift in Beijing since 1989. The bigger question here is, what is the grand strategy behind Xi’s plans?

China has dramatically scaled up its global loan book over the past five years by dealing with countries largely ignored by Western lenders, whether for political reasons (Russia) or economic (Argentina). 

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping are preparing for their most important series of meetings since the Sunnylands summit in June 2013 in California. (...) Since many of the differences will not disappear any time soon, China and the United States should focus more on expanding cooperation; when cooperation expands, it helps the two to manage and control their differences. 

The debate about whether Australia should join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has gone beyond the realm of economic development and investment to hit at the core of Australia's apparent security dilemma.

Australia, Indonesia and South Korea skipped the launch of a China-backed Asian infrastructure bank on Friday as the United States said it had concerns about the new rival to Western-dominated multilateral lenders.