Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au

NZ has joined AIIB, when will Australia move?

New Zealand has become the 24th founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), announced on 5 January.

The AIIB is intended to direct $50-100 billion per year into desperately-needed new infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region.

New Zealand joins Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and the Maldives, in the initiative.

Indonesia, which didn’t join at the time of the initial 24 October signing ceremony, signed on to the bank’s Memorandum of Understanding in late November 2014.

The official founding date is scheduled for June 2015, and the bank is due to begin operations at the end of the year.

Where is Australia?

Despite statements from Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb in December, that we would almost certainly join, Australia still has not done so. Speaking from Beijing, Robb said that joining the AIIB is “the wish of everyone in the cabinet, from the Prime Minister down.” The question is, therefore, where are we?

Australia, South Korea and Japan all bowed to US pressure not to join, despite significant support for the initiative from within each nation. Instead, from the outside, Australia has demanded that the bank not be dominated by any one nation (i.e. China), and that it follow the World Bank and Asian Development Bank model of governance, the very institutions which have failed to fund the required infrastructure desperately needed in the Asian region, which the AIIB intends to rectify.

China’s intention in establishing the bank is conveyed by a 30 December article in the Chinese People’s Daily, “‘One Belt and One Road’ Reshaping the Global Economy”.

Author Luo Lan reports that the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road have created a “multi-dimensional connection between nearly 60 countries and regions in the area”, which will “complement each other’s strengths in economic development, improving standards of living, addressing the financial crisis, and restructuring the economy. The spin-off impact will exert a profound influence on the global economy.”

He notes that the sum of China’s investments abroad is now about equal to total foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, and with the AIIB and the special investment funds set up by China in 2014, will soon surpass incoming FDI. Over 50 countries have already participated in the Silk Road projects, covering “over 60 per cent of the world population and nearly 30 per cent of the global economic aggregate. This longest economic corridor will have a profound influence on the future global economy”, he writes.

Chinese President Xi Jinping first announced China’s intention to build the new Silk Road Economic Belt in Kazakhstan in July 2013, later announcing the construction of the Maritime Silk Road in Indonesia in October 2013. These moves will be seen as the first steps in the creation of a new world economic order, which was advanced significantly at the July 2014 BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, where the creation of the New Development Bank together with the Currency Reserve Agreement was announced.

If Australia wishes to be part of creating a new, fair and just international financial architecture, and not be left in the dust of the current collapsing financial system, it is time to make our move. Join the CEC in telling the Australian government to join the AIIB, by signing our petition to the Australian parliament, and by joining the CEC as a member.

Click here for a copy of the latest New Citizen newspaper which elaborates the BRICS plan for a new just economic system.

Click here to join the CEC as a member.

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