Green development, a China-led development bank, and a development project in Zhanatas, Kazakhstan

Thesis

In 2016, China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a Chinese-led alternative to the World Bank. Branding itself as a multilateral institution to build green infrastructure with ‘sustainability, innovation, and connectivity’, AIIB has grown to become the world’s second-largest multilateral development bank (MDB) by the GDP it represents. However, the questions surrounding AIIB extend beyond banking issues and are embedded in the politics of MDBs and the geopolitics of China’s rise. Taking a critical approach, this thesis aims to examine AIIB within the context of climate finance and the green energy transition and what implications this has for the greening of MDBs and China’s global reach. 

I make two main arguments. First, the notion of ‘green’ has enabled AIIB to engage with mainstream MDBs and promote its expansion. By aligning with mainstream development discourse and practice, the bank has successfully transformed from a regional infrastructure bank to a global development institution since 2019. Second, AIIB’s green agenda can produce both short-term effects and longer-term political consequences on the ground. While the evolving green agenda facilitates AIIB’s expansion, it can also depoliticise the highly political issues embedded in AIIB’s projects.

Drawing on year-long fieldwork in Beijing, China, and Zhanatas, Kazakhstan, this thesis offers three main contributions. Firstly, for the MDB literature, it shifts the focus from mainstream MDBs and provides a perspective on alternative institutions. Secondly, for the critical development studies, it broadens our understandings of the depoliticising effects of MDBs’ green agenda.  Thirdly, for contemporary China studies, it represents one of the first critical, bottom-up, multi- and inter-disciplinary studies of AIIB, a China-backed development institution.

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-brmj9gmyz
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Development Studies