When China announced in 2013 that it would create the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to lend to developing countries in the region, a common belief held that this marked another sad stage in the slow death of multilateral co-operation.

Rather than channel its vast foreign exchange reserves through global agencies like the World Bank, the argument went, China was setting up its own development bank which it could dominate and in which other creditor countries could participate only on terms in effect set by Beijing.

With this week’s news that the AIIB will undertake a joint loan with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), this pessimistic scenario looks mercifully less likely. There is a strong argument for seeing the AIIB’s creation as a move by China towards embracing international co-operation, not rejecting it.