This chapter examines China’s role and approach in the reforms of global financial governance. It investigates both the reforms of the traditional Bretton Woods institutions that the United States dominates, and the initiation and development of the new financial institutions that China leads, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF). It finds that China, by walking on two legs, commits to correcting and improving the unsustainable elements of the existing world order, rather than decoupling from it. The success of China’s multilateralism lies in its advocating for the principle of ‘extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits’, its adherence to high and feasible standards, and its use of a teleological perspective in legal interpretation. As a major driving force behind Chinese multilateralism, China needs to maintain the image of a self-restrained and benign power in international cooperation, while being assured that only an appropriate norm-taker makes a respected norm-maker.

Chapter 7 concludes Making International Institutions Work. It opens with a brief review of the main findings and the role of each stage of the empirical investigation in establishing them. I then discuss the book’s contributions to international relations, international political economy, and political science as well as other fields of social science. The third section draws out lessons for policy and practice. I identify a variety of stakeholder-specific strategies for safeguarding policy autonomy and promoting accountability reforms, contributing to a lively ongoing debate among academics and practitioners over how to achieve an effective and accountable global institutional architecture. Finally, I reflect on the book’s implications for some notable emerging issues in global governance – including responding to international crises and challenges to the modern liberal order – outlining promising avenues for further research.

The chapter looks at China’s approach to regional and global institutions. It starts with a quick review of Asian regionalism first led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Japan, focusing on how Asian regionalism facilitated China’s socialization in the 1980s–1990s. The chapter then explores China’s multipronged strategy in dealing with its evolving institutional environment. First, China has pursued a latent regionalism, which is centered on East Asia, relies on the BRI, and takes advantage of ASEAN-led mechanisms to mitigate geopolitical trends harmful to its interests. Second, China has undertaken limited institutional innovation, opting instead to promote its targeted reformist agenda towards the Bretton Woods economic order. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the only institution China created and has led, demonstrates its preference of reform over innovation concerning the global economic order. Finally, to project influence, China has relied on its leadership positions in regional organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the United Nations system, including the World Health Organization. Taken together, China’s institutional tactics show that instead of offering an alternative Chinese order, China has been mainly interested in reshaping the institutional settings of its international environment.