In the first year he was treasury secretary, Henry Paulson went to China at least four times. He was on a mission to take relations to another level. (His mission changed abruptly in the autumn of 2008.)
Paulson said he had a special relationship with Chinese officials borne out by the 70-something visits he had made while at Goldman Sachs. I covered Paulson’s campaign to engage China and, to be honest, I observed little evidence that he got anything more out of Beijing than a similarly motivated US official of his stature could have achieved. But perhaps China was listening more intently than I thought? I say this upon discovery that the Chinese architects of of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have borrowed a Paulson-era idea about how modern multilateral institutions should be governed. Continue reading ... Comments are closed.
|