China’s Development Finance: Ambition, Impact and Transparency

In a context of lagging reform in the Bretton Woods institutions, China has brought the debate on its role as a rising power in global economic governance onto the front pages, notably with the divided response of ‘the West’ to membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which is to be headquartered in Beijing. This Policy Briefing argues that China’s rise as a development financer has reached the point where it now has basic interests and responsibilities in the systemic functioning of global development financing. Yet there is still a long way to go before Chinese policymakers see transparency of China’s development finance outflows and impacts as an area for win-win advances.