UK Falls Over Itself To Join Chinese World Bank

I’ve been saying for at least two years that economic power is moving inexorably Eastwards. In March we saw the most dramatic proof yet. And frankly, if you hold on to any nostalgic notions of Britain’s greatness, it was all a bit embarrassing. I doubt if there’ve been many nights when you’ve lain awake in bed tingling with excitement about the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The name doesn’t give too much away. But, if I tell you that it’s China’s new competitor to the World Bank, it should at least register a flicker of concern on your brow. Founded at the historic Bretton Woods conference in nineteen forty four, the World Bank is a UN institution that provides funds to developing countries. It aims to have ninety seven per cent of the world earning more than one dollar twenty five cents a day by twenty thirty. A noble aim, but one that looks increasingly challenging when the constituent countries are themselves broke and up to their tear ducts in debt. At seventy years old, the World Bank is overdue a pension and a re-think. So the Chinese have decided to start one of their own. And the unholy scramble to join it by what Dick Cheney used to call Old Europe has the air of desperation about it. Former Chinese finance minister Jin Liqun has been on a European tour schmoozing financial leaders about the benefits of joining. He speaks English and French and has a proven knack of playing EU countries off against each other. When New Zealand became the first to agree to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in January, European leaders held back. Washington was dead against it and Japan had predictably not even been invited to join. Jin Liqun let it slip to George Osborne that Luxembourg was about to join and that triggered the announcement on 12th March that the UK would also like to come to the ball. We had effectively broken ranks, upsetting not just our American buddies but our German and French partners. We may even have upset our own foreign office, but it seems David Cameron accepted the advice of his old school buddy and the Chancellor’s desire prevailed. There’s no doubt that the Chinese were quietly having a good laugh at our willingness to bring forward the announcement simply to steal a march on tiny Luxembourg. See what I mean about this being embaraasing? European posturing soon turned to self interest as France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Austria swiftly followed us in. The only problem is, no one seems terribly sure what the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank actually is, what it’s going to do or why that might benefit the UK. All we seem to have gained for being an early adopter is an invitation to a meeting in Kazakhstan, presumably to find out what it is we have become a part of. The details don’t matter. What I want you to take away from this is a clear message about who is now calling the economic shots in the world in twenty fifteen. Rumours of America’s death may have been greatly exaggerated, but the speed with which all the major European powers have signed up to an unknown entity just because it’s being touted by Beijing should hit you like a house brick between the eyes. If you still haven’t taken on board that the nineteenth century belonged to Britain, the twentieth century belonged to America and this one belongs to China, be VERY careful out there!