US increasingly left out as new countries join AIIB

United States remains among the very few major economies of the world that didn’t join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a Chinese initiative to rival the role of U.S. lead International Monetary Fund and Japan led Asian Development Bank (ADP). The bank was first proposed in China in 2013 and the initiative was launched officially in Beijing in October 2014. The United Kingdom surprised the western world when it announced that the country will join the bank as a founding member. After which an array of western countries including Germany and France joined the initiative so that they are not left out.

Since then 57 countries have joined the initiative and all as a founding member. As of now, China has the biggest voting power about 29.9 percent, followed by India (8.625 percent), Russia (6.81 percent), Germany (4.77 percent), and Korea (4.03 percent). So far the bank has accumulated about $85.91 billion of paid up capital.

Three major countries that didn’t join the initiative was the United States of America, Canada, and Japan. But Canada became the first country to apply for a membership and the Bank President Jin Liquan said that he welcomes the application and the new member would be welcoming  Canada by early next year. This has left the United States as the only major economy besides Japan to stay out.