TO THE alphabet soup of international development banks (ADB, AfDB, CAF, EBRD, IADB), add one more set of initials: AIIB, or for the uninitiated, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. On October 24th, representatives from 21 Asian nations (pictured above) signed an agreement to establish the AIIB, which, as its name suggests, will lend money to build roads, mobile phone towers and other forms of infrastructure in poorer parts of Asia. China spearheaded the bank and hopes to formally launch it by the end of next year. More money for critical projects might seem unambiguously good, but the AIIB has stoked controversy because Asia already has a multilateral lender, the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Why is China creating a new development bank for Asia? China’s official answer is that Asia has a massive infrastructure funding gap. The ADB has pegged the hole at some $8 trillion between 2010 and 2020. Existing institutions cannot hope to fill it: the ADB has a capital base (money both paid-in and pledged by member nations) of just over $160 billion and the World Bank has $223 billion. The AIIB will start with $50 billion in capital—hardly enough for what is needed but still a helpful boost. Moreover, while ADB and World Bank loans support everything from environmental protection to gender equality, the AIIB will concentrate its firepower on infrastructure. Officially at least, ADB and World Bank officials have extended a cautious welcome to the new China-led bank, saying they see room for collaboration.

Behind the scenes, though, the Chinese initiative has set off a heated diplomatic battle. America has lobbied allies not to join the AIIB, while Jin Liqun, the Chinese official who will head the bank, has shuttled between countries to persuade them to sign up. At the bank’s inauguration ceremony, Australia, Indonesia and South Korea were conspicuously absent. In public, the concern cited by America and some of the hold-outs has been a lack of clarity about AIIB’s governance. Critics warn that the China-led bank may fail to live up to the environmental, labour and procurement standards that are essential to the mission of development lenders. However, China has insisted that AIIB will be rigorous in adopting the best practices of institutions such as the World Bank. Given that the bank will be placed under such a close microscope, there is good reason to believe China on this.

But the real, unstated tension stems from a deeper shift: China will use the new bank to expand its influence at the expense of America and Japan, Asia's established powers. China’s decision to fund a new multilateral bank rather than give more to existing ones reflects its exasperation with the glacial pace of global economic governance reform. The same motivation lies behind the New Development Bank established by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Although China is the biggest economy in Asia, the ADB is dominated by Japan; Japan’s voting share is more than twice China’s and the bank’s president has always been Japanese. Reforms to give China a little more say at the International Monetary Fund have been delayed for years, and even if they go through America will still retain far more power. China is, understandably, impatient for change. It is therefore taking matters into its own hands.

Dig deeper:

Setting up rivals to the IMF and World Bank is easier than running them (July 2014)

Jim Yong Kim’s efforts to reform the World Bank are in trouble (Oct 2014)

Calm and confusion at the world’s biggest development institution (Oct 2013)