To some extent, the structures of the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund are obsolete: they can no longer meet the needs of new emerging economies and don’t reflect today’s global economy. The AIIB could serve to invigorate the other banks to become more competitive and efficient.

Despite official American and Japanese opposition, 57 countries have opted to be among the founding members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Regardless of what naysayers believe, this remarkable turn of events can only benefit global economic governance.

The Philippines is seeing a year of impressive economic growth (at 6.3%) despite the lacking foreign direct investment due to woeful infrastructure constraints. The AIIB can be an additional source of funding for local infrastructure projects. Political disputes surrounding the China Sea disputes were not enough to trump the economic importance of this cooperation.

A more dynamic and flexible AIIB has the chance to develop and showcase strong, new and effective accountability mechanisms supported by all shareholders. Here though, China too must learn from and improve upon its own past practices if it is to prove the skeptics wrong.

Many Western countries, the World Bank and other multilateral institutions are embracing China’s proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Their analysis concludes that the bank is a strategic asset for themselves as well as Asia, and the US could benefit from the same approach.

Chiefs of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund overtly expressed their support and intention for cooperation for the AIIB, for its possibility of fast and sustainable development in new Asian economies. This hasn’t developed with a share of U.S. and Japanese controversy over supposed veto ability, lack of “high standards,” the eclectic membership, and the notion that the U.S. “won” and China “lost.”

U.S. opposition to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a misreading of global international relations trends and development, according to Wu Jianmian. The AIIB wont’ challenge the existing financial institutions, and through infrastructure development, create a new model of “win-win” cooperation. China says the door is still open for the U.S. to join.

Over the past two years, Washington has lobbied against the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Now, nearly 50 countries have joined or applied to become prospective founding members. Dan Steinbock argues that the U.S. opposition is a reflection, not the cause, of a deeper challenge – that of adjusting American exceptionalism into the era of multipolar world economy.

Instead of viewing the AIIB as a symbol of looming Chinese economic hegemony, the AIIB should instead be viewed as a global climate change solution with powerful, vastly distributed benefits. Stewart Taggart claims it would create non-discriminatory access to a massive regional market for energy sources ranging from sun, wind, and biomass to hydro and geothermal. Without the external labor sink of infrastructure projects, domestic Chinese unemployment will also rise.

Britain has broken ranks with the United States to join China in the founding of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). As other nations like Australia and South Korea choose to similarly defy U.S. opposition to the AIIB, and join, it could shake Japan’s confidence in its own position and even in the reliability of its alliance with the U.S.