The Chinese government can scarcely believe its own luck. Heaping Asian insult upon Capitol Hill injury, last week Benjamin Netanyahu committed Israel to join Beijing’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
While there is no love lost between the Israeli prime minister and US President Barack Obama, who was embarrassed by Mr Netanyahu’s congressional address on March 3, Beijing could not have expected to attract such a longstanding American ally to the AIIB when it first conceived of the institution at least two years ago.
What began as a seemingly quixotic defection to the AIIB by the UK — the first US partner to turn a deaf ear to American protestations about the bank — has turned into an unalloyed strategic triumph for Beijing.
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