President Obama’s former National Economic Council director Lawrence H. Summers has commented on what’s been apparent to Asia Unhedged for the past few weeks: China’s ability to rally non-western and western nations behind its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank  (AIIB) signals that the U.S. has toppled from its perch as the world’s lead underwriter.

” This past month may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system. True, there have been any number of periods of frustration for the US before, and times when American behaviour was hardly multilateralist, such as the 1971 Nixon shock, ending the convertibility of the dollar into gold. But I can think of no event since Bretton Woods comparable to the combination of China’s effort to establish a major new institution and the failure of the US to persuade dozens of its traditional allies, starting with Britain, to stay out of it,” Summers said Sunday in a personal blog on larrysummers.com.

Lawrence Summers
Lawrence Summers

Summers, who served as President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, says the U.S. strategic and tactical blunder “was a long time in coming” and should spark a comprehensive overhaul of the way Uncle Sam approaches global economics. “With China’s economic size rivaling America’s and emerging markets accounting for at least half of world output, the global economic architecture needs substantial adjustment. Political pressures from all sides in the US have rendered it increasingly dysfunctional,” wrote Summers, who now serves as the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard University.

“With US commitments unhonoured and US-backed policies blocking the kinds of finance other countries want to provide or receive through the existing institutions, the way was clear for China to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,” Summers said.

Join the Conversation

24 Comments

  1. you are actually a good webmaster. The website loading speed
    is amazing. It kind of feels that you are doing
    any distinctive trick. In addition, The contents are masterpiece.
    you have performed a wonderful process in this subject!

  2. I believe this is among the so much significant information for me.
    And i am happy studying your article. However should statement on some normal things, The website style is great, the articles is in point of fact nice : D.
    Excellent job, cheers

  3. Hello! I’m at work surfing around your blog from my new
    apple iphone! Just wanted to say I love reading your blog and look
    forward to all your posts! Carry on the outstanding work!

  4. I have been surfing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours.

    It is pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all site
    owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the
    internet will be much more useful than ever before.

  5. hey there and thank you for your info – I have definitely picked up
    something new from right here. I did however expertise several technical issues using
    this site, since I experienced to reload the site a lot of times previous to I
    could get it to load properly. I had been wondering if your web host is OK?
    Not that I’m complaining, but sluggish loading instances times will sometimes
    affect your placement in google and can damage your high quality score if ads
    and marketing with Adwords. Well I’m adding this RSS
    to my email and can look out for a lot more of your respective interesting
    content. Make sure you update this again soon.

  6. Do you have a spam issue on this blog; I also am a blogger, and I
    was curious about your situation; we have created some nice procedures and we are looking to
    swap solutions with other folks, please shoot me an e-mail if interested.

  7. Magnificent beat ! I would like to apprentice while you amend your web site, how could i subscribe for a blog web site?
    The account helped me a acceptable deal. I had been tiny bit acquainted of this your broadcast offered bright clear idea

  8. Hey there would you mind sharing which blog platform you’re using?
    I’m going to start my own blog soon but I’m having a difficult time making a
    decision between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal.

    The reason I ask is because your design and style
    seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique.
    P.S Apologies for getting off-topic but I had
    to ask!

  9. You actually make it seem so easy with your
    presentation but I find this matter to be actually
    something that I think I would never understand.
    It seems too complicated and very broad for me.

    I am looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!

  10. Do you have a spam issue on this site; I also am a blogger, and I was wanting to know your situation; we have
    developed some nice methods and we are looking to trade strategies with others, be sure to shoot me an email if interested.

  11. Howdy! Someone in my Myspace group shared this website with
    us so I came to look it over. I’m definitely loving the information. I’m bookmarking and will
    be tweeting this to my followers! Great blog and outstanding design and style.

  12. Hey, I think your blog might be having browser
    compatibility issues. When I look at your website in Firefox, it looks
    fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping.

    I just wanted to give you a quick heads up!
    Other then that, very good blog!

  13. magnificent submit, very informative. I wonder why
    the opposite specialists of this sector don’t understand this.
    You must continue your writing. I am sure, you’ve a huge readers’ base already!

  14. Please let me know if you’re looking for a article writer
    for your weblog. You have some really great posts and I feel I would be a good asset.
    If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d absolutely love to write some
    material for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine.
    Please blast me an e-mail if interested. Thanks!

  15. When someone writes an article he/she retains the plan of
    a user in his/her mind that how a user can be aware of it.
    Therefore that’s why this piece of writing is perfect.
    Thanks!

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *