The motivations that worked on the Chinese mind while mooting the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank [AIIB] continue to be a topic of animated discussion. Different interpretations are possible. And, there is an amazing range possible.

Was it a single-minded objective or were there multiple considerations? Did economic considerations prevail, or, as in all good economics, politics cannot be separated?

Was the AIIB initiative another manifestation of “assertive” China – or, a genuine example of “winwin” ooperation? Indeed, is the AIIB a knife pointed at the heart of the Bretton Woods system? Is China a destroyer or a creator?

Does the AIIB signify strategic challenge to the United States’ global hegemony? Is China hoping to rule the world with money power, no matter the U.S.’s vast military superiority?

These are all plausible questions. And the answer to any one of them may not be sufficient enough to explain China’s AIIB calculus. Meanwhile, a tantalizing question also arises: Did Beijing set a compass, and the AIIB rolled out as per a predetermined ; or, did China improvise and kept fine-tuning the initiative as the AIIB leapt out of the drawing board and began assuming habitation and a name far beyond Beijing’s own expectations, including in parts of the world that were regarded as improbable?

An op-ed in the New York Times by the noted academic, author and China scholar at Johns Hopkins Ho-fung Hung comes up with a novel interpretation, which is startling in its simplicity and appealing in its freshness – namely, multilateral initiatives such as the AIIB or the BRICS Bank actually involve “a self-imposed constraint” on the part of China in comparison with the “aggressive bilateral initiatives” (with patchy returns) that China had pursued so far, and that underlying the change of approach quintessentially stems out of the need to take an alternate route for profitably investing abroad its massive accumulated sovereign wealth by seeking  “the cover and the legitimacy that will come from the participation of other countries.”

To substantiate the point, a Chinese deputy finance minister Shi Yaobin has been quoted as saying that Beijing is conscious that “every member’s share” of decision making power in the new AIIB “will decline commensurately with the gradual increase in the number of the member countries.” That is to say, China is consciously, deliberately clipping its wings within the AIIB decision-making body. (NYT)

Of course, there is merit in the argument. It is inconceivable that countries such as Britain, France or Germany aspired to be founding members of the AIIB with no hope on earth that they would have a decisive say in the management and lending policies of the institution.

There have been reports that China did a good job of persuading influential European powers to team up with its AIIB project by holding out the assurance that Beijing is willing to concede diffusion of decision-making powers and that the ‘win-win’ spirit will prevail.

We will have to wait till June when the AIIB’s charter will be ready for making a definitive conclusion. But the fact that China has shown a democratic spirit by involving the founding members in active discussion is a positive sign.  Meanwhile, it becomes possible to draw a few political conclusions already.

To be sure, the AIIB has been a masterstroke by China from the political and diplomatic angle. An irreducible minimum gain for China is that it has somewhat dented the image of being an “assertive” rising power in the Asian region. To that extent, the U.S.’ “pivot to Asia” strategy aimed at containment of China is put on the defensive.

The AIIB makes the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership project (which excludes China) look even sillier than before. From present indications, there is a fair chance that Japan to might finally decide to enter the AIIB tent. If that happens, the U.S. may be left with no alternative but to itself associate with the AIIB through some face-saving formula (which China may readily agree to.)

Second, there has been such large-scale “defection” by the US’ traditional allies to the AIIB project despite Washington’s robust efforts to prevent that from happening. Such a thing has never happened before in world affairs. Surely, there has been a depletion of US influence over its European allies.

Third, if China does show the way how a democratized system of governance can combine with non-preive lending policies, it becomes that much more difficult to postpone further the much-needed reform of the World Bank and the IMF.

Finally, the AIIB saga testifies to a discernible trend lately of China moving away from the primacy it had previously attached in its foreign policies to the relations with the U.S.

The AIIB “targets” the developing countries. The “Belt and Road” initiative also focuses on extensive networking with the developing countries of southeast and south and central Asia, the Middle East and Africa – and, in any case, the Silk Roads go back in history to a time before Columbus discovered America.