South Korea Agrees to Join the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank

Korea Chair Snapshot

  • The ROK decision to join is not surprising after the decisions by the British and other Europeans.
     
  • Membership was probably decided internally on the argument that AIIB projects could generate construction projects conducive to South Korea’s economic interests.
     
  • The ROK should condition its MOU signing and should coordinate with other like-minded countries, such as Australia and the Europeans, to negotiate the Bank’s articles of governance in a form that complies with best practices of international financial institutions, like the Asia Development Bank.
     

Korea Chair Snapshot is a product by the CSIS Korea Chair providing key takeaways from breaking events of the day. Korea Chair Snapshot is published by the Office of the Korea Chair (http://www.csis.org/program/korea-chair) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

 

 

Image
Victor Cha
Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair