China Studies2 Juli 2018

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – Natalie Lichtenstein

Launched by China in June 2015, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ("AIIB") currently has eighty-six members and, with $100 billion in capital, has lent around $4 billion to infrastructure projects throughout Asia. The AIIB's very creation is an important marker in China's economic and strategic rise over the past forty years, from a poor country that was entirely outside of the Bretton Woods financial system, to the largest borrower from the World Bank, and now, to the creator of a competitor institution designed to address some of the World Bank's deficiencies. In this episode, the inaugural general counsel of the AIIB, Natalie Lichtenstein, discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the background and early history of the Bank, informed by her distinguished thirty-year career in the legal department of the World Bank, where she advised on lending operations in China from their inception. The episode was recorded on January 23, 2018.

Natalie Lichtenstein was chief counsel for the establishment of the AIIB, and the principal drafter for its Charter, before serving as the Bank's inaugural general counsel. She has just published a new book with Oxford University Press, A Comparative Guide to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is the most comprehensive account of the AIIB thus far. Earlier in her career, she served in the legal department of the World Bank for thirty years, including as Chief Counsel for East Asia. Before that, as a junior attorney in the U.S. Treasury Department, she worked on legal issues related to normalization of relations between the U.S. and China. She has taught Chinese law as an adjunct professor since the 1980s, most recently at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Music credit: "Salt" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com

Special thanks to Kaiser Kuo and Nick Marziani

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(28)

The Rule of Law in Hong Kong (Part One) – Johannes Chan

Dramatic protests in Hong Kong this month, over a draft law that would permit extraditions to mainland China, underscore broader fears amongst Hong Kong residents that their city is losing its distinc...

15 Juni 20191h 19min

How to Be a Sensitive China Watcher – Kaiser Kuo

Today, the reality and consequences of China's rise have come to dominate news headlines the world over. Along with China's growing wealth and power have come new tensions, with the United States and...

24 Maj 20191h 47min

Chinese Governance Under Xi Jinping – Victor Shih

Despite little foreshadowing before he took office, President Xi Jinping has emerged as perhaps the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. This was reinforced in March 2018 when China's Natio...

26 Apr 20191h 54min

Diagnosing China's State-led Capitalism – Yasheng Huang

As Chinese economic growth slows to its lowest rate in 30 years, there is rising concern (including among some Chinese scholars and officials) about the long-term viability of China's distinctive form...

12 Apr 20191h 47min

Local Governance and Accountability in China – Dan Mattingly

How do autocratic regimes secure political obedience, and implement unpopular policies, without always resorting to outright coercive tactics? In a provocative new book, Yale University political sci...

4 Apr 20191h 6min

Property Rights and Economic Development in China – Susan Whiting

At least since China's 1994 fiscal and tax reforms, land-backed development has served as the greatest source of revenue for Chinese local governments—potentially almost 1 trillion US dollars in total...

22 Mars 20191h 5min

The Evolution of Workers' Rights in China – Mary Gallagher

Economic reform since the late 1970s, as well as the dynamics of globalization unleashed in full by China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, have significantly complicated the relation...

14 Mars 20191h 19min

Rights Lawyering in China – Teng Biao

Over the past 16 years, there has emerged in China a community of self-identified "rights defense" (weiquan) lawyers, akin to "cause lawyers" in the United States, who select cases and frame legal adv...

6 Mars 20191h 29min