The BRICS Bank Isn’t Challenging the System, Only Western Leadership of It

Less than a month after the signing ceremony of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, another global financial institution was launched 1200 kilometers further south. Based in Shanghai, China’s financial hub, the New Development Bank’s creation marks an important step in the history of the BRICS grouping. After being a mere investment category between 2001 and 2007 and an informal platform between 2008 and 2014, the launch of the NDB marks the beginning of a new era for an unlikely grouping that has been confronted with broad skepticism and rejection in the Western media since the very beginning. While the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has received far more media attention – largely due to the United States’ ill-conceived attempt to keep others from joining it – the NDB will begin with initial capital of $100 billion, the same as the AIIB. The five BRICS countries all have equal voting shares.

Three questions matter: First, how will the NDB influence ties between member countries? Second, how will it affect development and lending practices (conditionalities)? And finally, and most importantly, is the BRICS-led bank proof that the BRICS have a revisionist agenda as far as the international system is concerned?

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