Japan Press Weekly

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2015 April 1 - 7 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Not too late for Japan to join AIIB: Shii

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on April 1 at a press conference held in the Diet building demanded that the Japanese government join the planned new global investment bank with its focus on Asia.

Shii made this remark regarding the government decision to not become a founding member of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Shii pointed out that the ongoing preparation to launch the AIIB indicates that the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are facing a legitimation crisis and are no longer able to respond to changes in the Asian economy as well as in the global economy.

Specifically, he noted that in Asia, the Asian Development Bank under the U.S.-led world financial order is considered to be inadequate to meet emerging Asian nations’ long-term funding demands for developing infrastructures. He also cited a growing sense of discontent over the U.S.-dominated global financial institutions which impose a U.S.-style economic system and austerity measures on borrower nations under the guise of economic reform.

The JCP chair said that the AIIB represents a move to explore an alternative international economic order displacing the current order centering on the major economic powers. He criticized the Japanese government’s negative stance toward this move as narrow in outlook and overly subservient to the United States.

He said, “The Japanese government still has the opportunity to take part in the process to establish the AIIB with the aim of building a just, democratic international economic order.”