The creation of the prosaic-sounding Asian Infrastructure Investment Development Bank (AIIB) has landed the biggest blow to America’s superpower status in the post-war era.  Such is the verdict of former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, one of the West's foremost public intellectuals and a man whose voice reverberates around the corridors of the world’s chancellories.  

Just a few days shy of China’s end-of-March deadline for founding membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Australia confirmed that it will join the AIIB. Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government announced over the weekend that it had chosen to sign on to join the bank as a founding member, becoming the latest U.S.-allied state to join an institution that some in the United States see as a competitor to U.S.-led international financial institutions, like the World Bank.

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.

One of the more controversial developments in the aid sector in recent times has been China's move to set up a multilateral development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

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). 

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has appealed to all diplomats to act like salespeople. During his election campaign he also outlined his vision, focusing on people’s economic welfare, in particular in rural development, agriculture, fisheries, marine resource development and infrastructure.

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.