Side Effects of Creating a Major Regional Development Bank: How Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Has Decreased China’s Network Centrality in Asia

The article’s purpose is to contribute to a contemporary debate over how to understand China’s latest institution-building activities in Asia and to explore whether the latest regional dynamics in Asia can be construed through the lens of connectedness among main actors. The network analysis method and two recent datasets of regional organisations in Asia (2015 and 2020 years) allow us to delve into the counterintuitive idea, suggesting that the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has constrained a significant aspect of China’s network power in Asia. In 2015, China became the most betweenness central actor and the actor with the strongest network ties. Subsequently, the AIIB was introduced in 2016. It became an organisation that has decreased China’s betweenness centrality while enhancing network connectivity for other actors in Asia. Despite these immediate benefits of the AIIB to the region, the possible long-term effect of China’s institutional statecraft on the existing system of international relations is the major reason why the straightforward advantages of the AIIB are often ignored.