A Tale of Ending Poverty: The New Financial Institutions and China’s Global Strategy

The term “end-poverty” is deployed by the World Bank (WB) in working with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and countries along the Belt and Road on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This chapter contextualizes the BRI in a world a struggle, one in which actors take actions, based on their own field of expertise and knowledge, to further their interests. Inspired by David Kennedy’s argument of the role of expertise in a world of struggle, this chapter explores the role of the term, “end poverty”, in enabling relevant actors to further their interests. This chapter argues that “end poverty” is the middle-ground between various actors, including the sovereign nations, new and established financial institutions involved in the BRI. The moral endowment and indeterminacy of the term enables WB and other institutions, including AIIB and New Development Bank (NDB), to engage with the BRI for the purpose of its own agendas. The term, as well, facilitates China to deploy its global strategy in the political economy of the contemporary world. The indeterminacy of the term, however, covers up the story of the struggle of the member countries of the new institutions for strategic advantages in multilateral lending and global economic governance, and largely conceals the political objectives and effects of particular countries within the new institutions. The term as well neglects the sufferings of those disadvantaged in regions and countries of the BRI, that the BRI projects strengthens the elites and their power in the recipient countries over their populations. In deploying the term and furthering the global strategy, China’s infrastructure financing increases uncertainty and risks in the global financial system.