United States' bid to head off the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), proposed by China for the rapidly growing Asian region, ended in abject failure as organizers announced that about 46 countries, including some of U.S.' closest Asian and European allies, had applied to become founding members of the bank.
The news has elicited widespread criticism of how the Obama administration handled the entire episode, reported The Washington Times.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hit out at the administration on Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies by saying, "we screwed it up." She added that we should not have done it this way.
Both Albright and Lawrence Summers, President Barack Obama's former National Economic Council director, said that the Congress shared the blame for the diplomatic debacle for failing to pass a widely-supported International Monetary Fund reform measure that would have given growing powers such as China and India a greater say in IMF decisions, in keeping with their growing economic clout.
The AIIB then became a vehicle for nations who were annoyed at being overlooked by the U.S. and the west who dominated the established international financial bodies as the World Bank and IMF.
Jin Liqun, the secretary-general of the AIIB's secretariat, said at a conference in Kazakhstan that organizers hoped to have the Shanghai-based bank's charter signed and in place by mid-year, and open the bank by the end of the year.
China is putting up nearly 50 billion dollars to help capitalize the bank, which is meant to fund infrastructure projects in rapidly growing Asia.
The expedited schedule signified a diplomatic failure for the Obama administration, which has long feared that the AIIB would compete with the U.S.-dominated World Bank and undercut international lending standards on such issues as labor standards and corruption. Also, Washington has been concerned that the bank may be used by Beijing to advance its political and strategic goals in the region.