Opinion | China-led infrastructure bank must live up to its pledge of 'clean and green' operation

Tuesday was the deadline for application to become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The participation of advanced economies such as Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Luxembourg has given the project a good start.

Now, all eyes are focused on how the bank will be run: how decisions will be made and shares divided, and what the lending criteria should be.

The infrastructure bank is China's response to the perceived unfairness of the global financial order. Despite the rise of the emerging economies in the wake of the global financial crisis, reforms to the current financial architecture to reflect the rise were repeatedly blocked. China and its fellow emerging economies were left with little choice but to forge their own path.

For the first time, China will lead the operation of a multilateral financial institution. It must not squander this rare opportunity to play the role of a "responsible major country".

Unlike the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank does not regard poverty reduction as its raison d'être. Instead, it sets out to provide funding for commercially viable basic infrastructure needed to link up the region. This reflects China's strategic vision in foreign policy: through the construction of basic infrastructure, China seeks to realise its dream of "One Belt, One Road", a new wave of globalisation serving Asia-Pacific trade.

This is a grand ambition. China has pledged to work with the bank's other founding members to create a "win-win" financing platform that is professional and efficient.

It has done a good job so far in the run-up to the bank's establishment, but many observers have expressed worries, not least that the Chinese-run bank will fail to ensure a project's labour and environmental standards meet international benchmarks. No doubt bias and arrogance have coloured such views.