"If It Is Not Socialisation, Then What? China's Institutional Statecraft In The AIIB" - By CWP Alum Christina Lai

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was established in 2014 to fund infrastructure plans and enhance economic development in Asia. As a founding member, China's strong presence raises the question of whether Beijing is selectively using institutions to promote its interests, or if it genuinely sees itself as a responsible power in the international community. This also leads to an empirical puzzle: What are China's strategies in maintaining a new institution? How can Beijing assure others and gain more influence in global economic governance? This study challenges the views on China's hegemonic ambitions in creating the AIIB, and suggests that Beijing's experience of socialisation in international organisations has positively contributed to China's institutional strategy. The author engages the current "China threat" debates in the literature of international relations and highlights that China's maintenance of both its benign image and its institutional strategy remains an understudied area. The author proposes a normative perspective to highlight Beijing's strategy in responding to the "China threat" theory. China's rise indeed offers both challenges and opportunities to the current world order.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/863490 - Christina Lai - China: An International Journal NUS Press Pte Ltd Volume 20, Number 3, August 2022 pp. 1-22 10.1353/chn.2022.0021

I am currently an assistant research fellow (assistant  professor) in the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Before joining Academia Sinica, I was a postdoctoral research fellow in China and the World Program at Princeton University.

I completed my Ph.D. in political science at Georgetown University in 2015. My research and teaching interests include U.S.- China Relations, Chinese Foreign Policy, East Asian politics, and Qualitative Research Methods. My current work addresses the critical role of rising powers in international relations. Although the existing literature on power politics has mostly focused on material capabilities, different balancing behaviors, and possible alliance formations, few have looked into the way in which a rising power justifies its rise. Combining my training in political science and my interests in East Asian politics, my scholarship examines both enduring questions of China’s rise and new topics in recent Asian politics.

Photo Credit: By 颜邯 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80617866