SY Lau, a Malaysian took China's WeChat by storm

SY Lau has made the country proud through talent, perseverance and hard work

Known globally as the WeChat Company, Tencent is the largest Internet service provider in Asia, with a market capitalisation (as of April 16, 2015) of US$193bil. It delivers value-added Internet, mobile/ telecom services and online advertising, in order to fulfil the strategic goal of providing users with “one-stop online lifestyle services”.

In 2006, when SY Lau (pic) joined Tencent as one of the senior management team, he focused on driving corporate growth with the specific mission of overseeing Tencent’s Online Media Group (OMG).

Today, OMG is one of the largest media companies in the world, with a portfolio that includes a matrix of online information and entertainment products.

We sit down to talk to the Star Speaker of this year’s Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) Conference.

Early days

I came from an average family and was raised by parents who believed strongly in traditional Chinese parenting. I am the eldest in the family with two younger sisters. My dad worked in the Nanyang Press for more than 25 years before he passed away at an early age due to illness. My mom was an excellent tailor, but I guess my sisters and I would remember her most as a disciplinarian who instilled the spirit of inquisitiveness and competitiveness within us during our formative years.

I studied in St John’s Institution before graduating with a major in Mass Communication from one of the local universities. Subsequently, after working for 10 years or so, I obtained my MBA from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and graduated from Harvard Business School upon completing their pinnacle AMP programme.

My first job was with McCann Erickson as a trainee account executive. How did I get the job? When I was in the final year of my undergraduate studies, I decided to conduct a field research on the Malaysian Advertising Industry using collections of communication theories. The research effort opened up doors for me to conduct field work with more than 10 leading advertising agencies in Malaysia.

A month before my graduation, I received six job offers from the top 4As agencies, and Noel Derby offered to pay RM1,000 to have my work translated into English for use by his company.

I chose McCann because of two reasons. I strongly believed in the motto of the company, Truth Well Told, and, more importantly, Ong Thiam Hong impressed me as a sincere business leader.

Did you go to China by accident or was that part of your plan for a long time? How did it all begin?

Well, it was both by accident and somewhat part of the plan. I was fluent in both English and Mandarin and I thought that if I had an opportunity to venture overseas, China would certainly be my first choice.

I remember when the opportunity came, I was already working with Leo Burnet. One day during lunch, I met Ong Thiam Hong and he told me McCann Hong Kong was in trouble.

One of their biggest international clients, Nestlé, had a new managing director for Greater China, and she was about to fire McCann. The new MD was Leong Ming Chee, a highly respected Nestlé veteran from Malaysia, with a remarkable track record in one of the most significant markets in Asia. So, the McCann regional management team was frantically looking for a lead person to solve this problem. Apparently Ong had given my name to the regional team based on the fact I used to be one of the well-respected account leaders on the Nestlé account in Malaysia.

I spent the next three years stabilising and building the Nestlé business for McCann, by nurturing and building a professional local team from scratch.

We ended up winning more than a dozen new business accounts for both China and Hong Kong markets.

During this time I won the prestigious Milo Account for China and the media Agency of Record (AOR) , which was a first in Asia.

Lessons learned

China is a huge market, and I have seen many business professionals cutting corners here and there in the name of responding to pressure. Irrespective of industry, I think business people today could excel more if they were more conscious of focusing on leadership led by principles.

This reminds me of an advertising campaign that I saw recently on CNBC; I think it is for a bank from Singapore. The story goes... a father was bringing his son to a fun fair. As the father was purchasing tickets to enter the circus, the ticket seller said it would cost a dollar for an adult ticket and half price for children under four. The father then asked for two tickets. The ticket seller appeared to be shocked and asked curiously about the age of the boy, to which the father replied five. The ticket seller then said you could have told me he was four and I would have let you in without knowing. The father replied while holding his son’s hands, “Well, you may not have known, but he would have.”

Today, we live in a world where few people believe principles really do define who we are. It is my wish we have more principle-driven executives in the business world.

Leadership talks

In recent years, I have been honoured to be invited to deliver a number of speeches at some of the world’s leading universities. The main topics of the speeches explored the development of China’s digital economy environment and Tencent’s role in that development.

In 2012 at Stanford, taking into consideration that the number of Chinese web users had increased slowly since June 2008, I predicted that the demographic dividend (the organic growth brought by the growing number of Chinese Internet users) is going to be cashed out.

So, I proposed that targeted advertising placement and personalised content creation would be the key to break the bottleneck.

I believe that mobile media can not only help advertisers with product promotion, brand communication and customer relationship management, but also with the integration and optimisation of business models, which can become a new marketing platform in the long run. Future digital marketing will go Personal: shifting from media buying to user buying; go Richer: developing a technology-driven creative team and raising the proportion of developers; and go Offline: powering the integrated marketing model with O2O, and achieve closed loop marketing from advertising to sales.

At the Said Business School of Oxford University last year, I shared opportunities brought about by the growth of mobile Internet access across China; we see opportunities at three different levels: the consumer level, the industrial level, and then extending to the level of the whole economy.

Mobile Internet meets the pent-up demand of Chinese people for increased and upgraded levels of consumption, facilitates a long called-for industry transformation as well as expediting the liberalisation of the national economy.

In short, the Internet plays the role of an enabler to transform the new thinking of sustainable development into reality under what we call the New Normal.

The second-mover advantage triggered by the Internet industry can be summarised by examining two different perspectives: Industrial and Geographical.

Very simply put, the Internet has changed the lives of people in China in profound and meaningful ways.

It provides not only a new way of thinking and doing, but a feasible methodology for achieving China’s economic goals. The Internet is not just a resource; it is a means to turn dreams into economic reality.

Digital vision

I think Malaysia had the vision a long time ago, but unfortunately this vision was not implemented to the best of its potential. At the end of the day, the Internet today has become a basic infrastructure, and it should be discussed at a national policy level.

When I attended the recent BoAo Economic Forum, I had the privilege to meet and dine with Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

He patiently listened to my story of how the private sector got involved in formulating a national policy for Internet Plus in China.

As you know, one of the most significant characteristics in the development of China’s digital economy exists in its integrating with various industries at high speed.

In China, we call this procedure “Internet Plus” – Internet plus the retail industry, plus the real estate industry, plus the manufacturing industry, and of course, plus the media industry.

China has already revealed that Internet Plus will become a policy for the country alongside another national strategy for the manufacturing industry, that is “Made in China 2025”.

A government fund of 40 billion yuan (US$6.38bil) has already been put in place for investment in China’s emerging industries.

Meanwhile, the “Broadband China Project” is being carried out. It will help to make broadband coverage in China reach over 250 million users, and a newly-gained user number of 4G service hit 200 million by the end of 2015.

All of these provide guarantees for the development of the digital economy.

Tencent’s future

Since Internet companies are always impacted by the combined forces of technology and users, I want to talk about some opportunities that I see as solid and realistic here...

Connecting the last billion

First of all, it took 20 years for the Internet to really take hold in China, turning 47.9% of the total population into Internet users.

For the other half of the population who are not yet using the Internet, a lot of them are elderly, young children, or those who cannot afford the necessary equipment.

To plug those people into the Internet world with easy and inexpensive access will be our major mission in the near term.

I think mobile phones are the most viable option to achieve this goal. Through what Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab calls, “connecting the last billion”, I believe Tencent will be capable of enabling the development of China even more.

Media of the ‘Mega Web’

Actually, I call this idea of a fully inter-connected world “the world of the Mega Web”, in which the role of the media will greatly expand. The media is already connecting users to content, and it will further connect us to many more things; more devices, more context, more people.

Media will expand to touch almost everything, everywhere. When connectivity expands to that level, singularity will be triggered. The information that we have will become “intellectual” as Big Data accumulates, interconnects and becomes available to even more devices. This expanded access to intelligence is the basic information we act upon, machines act upon and entire smart cities act upon.

The future: connect, call out, make the whole community answer When data itself becomes both interpretive and predictive, a judgment like “Something needs to be done to improve this situation” will more frequently be made by media rather than people, and more insightfully than we can imagine now. Once everyone is inter-connected, we will be able to reach out to every member of the society, in every remote part of the globe, and call for collective actions to solve problems both locally and globally.

Currently, our mission is to support the Internet Plus Action Plan of China. We are ready to cooperate with the partners and potential partners coming from different vertical industries on a strategic level, so that together we can provide better O2O commerce, online payment experiences and smart livelihood services for our users. We see opportunity around the world, whether this is for our own apps like WeChat or for partnership and investment in Western businesses.

I think WeChat is possibly the most recognisable brand for those in the US or UK.

Tencent also supports other famous brands around the world in markets like gaming and social. Companies like Epic Games and Riot Games are owned by Tencent, while we have our own gaming IP that is successful in China.

To see SY in action on April 21, visit www.marketingmagazine.com.my/cmo20015

- The Star/Asia News Network

Related:

Tencent: The Growing Giant

by Simon Kemp in News on 28 May 2014 at 16:06

 

 Tencent released its Q1 results earlier this month, including the latest monthly active user figures for its various social platforms.

As the chart above shows, Tencent’s platforms have attracted a huge share of the world’s social media users, even if the majority of those users are still based in China.

Despite this geographic focus, Tencent now accounts for 3 of the world’s top 5 platforms, driven by the continuing growth of QQ, Qzone and WeChat:

Qzone alone now accounts for around 40% of the world’s social media users.

Moreover, the impressive growth of WeChat (Weixin), both in terms of its active user numbers as well as the platform’s functionality, suggests that Tencent is still far from reaching its peak.

Is it only a matter of time before the rest of the world joins the Tencent family?

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Lawyers who refused to return client RM4.9mil house sale struck off rolls

Singapore's Supreme Court.

Latest case is second instance of lawyers being disbarred in two weeks

SINGAPORE — Two senior lawyers were today (April 13) struck off the roll for taking advantage of a client who had transferred S$1.8 million to their wives for safekeeping.

Mr Manjit Singh Kirpal Singh and Mr Sree Govind Menon had claimed that the money paid by Ms Bernadette Rankine was a gift, and had refused to return the money when asked.

After Ms Rankine lodged a complaint with the Law Society, the duo fought proceedings against them, alleging bias by the disciplinary panel president and filing judicial reviews to challenge decisions of the Chief Justice.

Today, the Court of Three Judges – comprising Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin and Justices Judith Prakash and Tay Yong Kwang – ruled that the lawyers had been dishonest and ordered their disbarment. “In cases of proven dishonesty, a solicitor will invariably be struck off the roll, regardless of the solicitor’s mitigating circumstances,” the judges wrote.

Mr Singh was admitted to the Bar in 1977 and Mr Menon was admitted in 1998. Ms Rankine had approached Mr Singh for legal advice in 2009, when she wanted to sell her property in Joan Road to live off sale proceeds after breaking up with a Malaysian businessman. She feared her ex-beau would try to prevent the sale of the property, which he did by lodging a caveat against it.

In 2010, the lawyers helped in getting the caveat discharged and Ms Rankine netted S$6.9 million from the sale of the property. She received a S$5 million cheque from the lawyers’ firm and used another S$50,000 to pay her personal assistant. Mr Singh handed her a cheque worth S$1.8 million and the lawyers advised her to issue cheques of the same amount to their wives for safekeeping and future legal fees, which she did.

In Dec 2010, Ms Rankine complained to the Law Society after they refused to return the money. She withdrew the complaint in Nov 2012 after getting her money back, but the Law Society pursued its charges against the duo.

The Society found Ms Rankine’s characterisation of the S$1.8 million payment to be convincing and believable, and said the two lawyers had acted dishonourably and showed no remorse for reprehensible conduct.

The duo had embarked on an elaborate scheme to cheat Ms Rankine, while ensuring the payment could not be traced back to their firm’s account, argued the Law Society, represented by Mr P E Ashokan. Instead of directly transferring the S$1.8 million from the law firm’s account to that of his wife and Mr Menon’s wife, Mr Singh had used Ms Rankine as a conduit so that things would appear above-board, noted the Court of Three Judges.

The judges noted that Ms Rankine had already paid substantial legal fees to the duo and “a gift of this magnitude to a solicitor with whom the client had no previous dealings … simply defies belief”.

Mr Singh also faced a second charge for misusing a S$20,000 cashier’s order from Ms Rankine to pay for an unrelated matter, which the judges said “underlines his lack of...integrity and trustworthiness”.

This is the second time in two weeks that lawyers have been disbarred — veteran lawyer Pascal Netto was struck off the roll last week for professional misconduct that included unauthorised borrowing from a client’s firm.

By Neo Chai Chin chaichin@mediacorp.com.sg

Woman takes due to court over refusal to return RM4.9mil from house sale

TWO lawyers who refused to return S$1.8mil (RM4.9mil) to a client were struck off the rolls on April 13.

The client had transferred the money to their wives for what she thought was safekeeping.

Manjit Singh, a lawyer of 37 years, and Sree Govind Menon, a lawyer of 16, were partners in the firm, Manjit Govind & Partners.

In disbarring them, the Court of Three Judges, with power to censure, suspend or strike lawyers off the rolls for professional misconduct, noted that the pair had acted dishonestly.

javascript:void(0); In 2009, Singh was hired by Bernadette Rankine, then an art gallery owner, to handle the sale of her house in Joan Road, off Thomson Road, which was sold for S$12mil (RM32.5mil).

She had decided to sell the property and live off the proceeds after ending her 13-year relationship with Malaysian businessman Amin Shah.

But her former boyfriend lodged a caveat against the property to block the sale. In February 2010, the caveat was lifted and the net sales proceeds of S$6.9mil (RM18.7mil) held by the law firm were ordered to be released to her.

Singh gave her a cheque for S$5mil (RM13.6mil) as well as S$50,000 (RM135,000) for her assistant’s wages.

A few days later, he gave her a cheque for S$1.8mil, while she in turn issued two cheques, one for S$1.6mil (RM4.3mil) to Singh’s wife and the other for S$200,000 (RM544,000) to Menon’s wife.

Singh had advised her to place the money with their wives for safekeeping, saying that if her former boyfriend launched more legal action against her, her money would be frozen and she would not have the means to pay for lawyers.

Nine months later, she asked them to return the money. When they refused, she complained to the Law Society. They have since returned the full sum.

In April last year, a disciplinary tribunal found the pair guilty of misconduct – Singh for advising her to pay the money to the wives and then refusing to return it, and Menon for agreeing with the advice.

The pair contended that the money was a gift from Rankine but the tribunal found this “inherently absurd”.

Yesterday, the court agreed, saying it was unlikely that Rankine, who needed money for pending legal matters, would give away one quarter of her key asset to the wives of the two lawyers she had known for less than six months and to whom she had already paid fees. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network

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The Malaysian world's top performing IFCA Software stock surges 1,300% in Kuala Lumpur!

IFCA Property Development Management Solution is a fully integrated Business Management Solution designed specifically for the Property industry. With a culmination of more than 20 years experience, IFCA Property Development Software embraces comprehensive functions, features and adopts the latest ICT tools that are poised to help elevate your Business to a paradigm shift. IFCA Software™ provides a complete solution for property developers to best manage their project development from the initial phases until key collection and beyond. It has complete built-in functionalities to ensure proper recording of each sale and its subsequent billing and administration. The software is saliently focused on its scope of capabilities. It supports multi-company, multi-projects and multi property types. It tracks and measures the effectiveness of sales campaigns and sales staff performances. It also supports user-definable payment scheme and loan financing. Headquarters IFCA MSC Bhd Wisma IFCA, No 19, Jalan PJU 1/42A, Dataran Prima, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. marketing@ifca.com.my www.ifcasoftware.com 

IFCA MSC Bhd (Formerly known as Software Online Sdn Bhd)  InfoTech http://www.ifca.com.my

Forget Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv and Bangalore.

To find the world’s top-performing software company, you have to go somewhere that few would think to look for winning investments in the technology industry -- Malaysia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur. Better known as the home of state-owned energy giant Petroliam Nasional Bhd., it’s also where shares of IFCA MSC Bhd., a maker of cloud-based software for property companies, have jumped 14-fold over the past 12 months.

IFCA’s earnings are surging just as fast as its stock after the company took an 80 percent market share among Malaysian developers and began expanding into China, where early adopters of its sales tracking and payment processing software include billionaire Wang Jianlin’s Dalian Wanda Group Co. IFCA Chief Executive Officer Ken Yong Keang Cheun (pic above) predicts that the world’s second-largest economy will become the biggest market for his $198 million software firm by 2018.

“The growth in China is incredible,” Yong said in an interview at his office in Petaling Jaya, a suburb near Kuala Lumpur. He plans to double the number of IFCA offices in the country to 16 by the end of this year.

IFCA has about 100 clients in China, where the National Bureau of Statistics estimates there were more than 90,000 real estate companies as of 2013. The country last month announced measures to make buying and selling a home cheaper, giving a boost to developers as authorities seek to cushion a slump in the property market that has weighed on economic growth.

The stock rose as much as 1.5 percent before closing unchanged at 1.35 ringgit in Kuala Lumpur, near its April 9 record.

GST Boost

Wanda uses IFCA’s software for its cost systems, bidding and capital leases, Huang Chunlei, an assistant to the president of Dalian Wanda and deputy general manager of the company’s IT department, said via e-mail.

In Malaysia, 800 of the biggest 1,000 property developers are its customers, Yong said. The company’s software sales in the country surged 76 percent in 2014 as a new goods and services tax prompted companies to upgrade their software to comply with the change. Profit jumped 12-fold last year to 21.1 million ringgit ($5.8 million) and Yong said he’s “confident” earnings will climb to another record in 2015.

“The good thing about the software is that it is niche for property developers,” Chow Yuh Seng, general manager for IT at Mah Sing Group Bhd., Malaysia’s fifth-biggest developer by market value, said in an interview.

Shares of IFCA have surged 1,321 percent over the past 12 months, the most among software companies worldwide with a market value of at least $150 million, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That compares with an average gain of 46 percent for global peers.

Malaysia Tech

“There was a strong theme for IT and software-related development companies last year, and this year is a continuation,” said Danny Wong, chief executive officer of Kuala Lumpur-based Areca Capital Sdn., which owns shares in IFCA. “The shift to Internet and technology is the new way of doing things.”

IFCA isn’t the only Malaysian software company with booming sales. Grabtaxi Holdings Pte., a mobile application that assigns cabs to nearby commuters, has grown to become Southeast Asia’s largest taxi-booking mobile application, luring investments from Temasek Holdings Pte., Singapore’s state-owned investment company, and SoftBank Corp., the Japanese wireless carrier controlled by billionaire Masayoshi Son.

While Malaysia isn’t known as a hub for technology companies, the government has tried to support the industry since 1996, when it introduced the Multimedia Super Corridor, a special zone to attract technology investments and multinational companies.

Chasing Shares

The success of IFCA’s business may already be reflected in the share price, according to Ang Kok Heng, the chief investment officer of Phillip Capital Management Sdn., which manages $428 million, said by phone in Kuala Lumpur. Shares are valued at 30 times reported earnings, versus 17 times for the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“We normally don’t chase a stock,” Ang said.

IFCA plans to boost recurring income by introducing a software rental service that would make its offerings more affordable for customers via monthly subscriptions, Yong said. The firm also plans to set up a property listing website by year-end.

IFCA’s profit will probably jump at an annual rate of 228 percent over the next three years, according to Nigel Foo, a Kuala Lumpur-based analyst at CIMB Group Holdings Bhd., Malaysia’s second largest bank by assets.

“The property sector is a rich man’s industry with high risks, and it’s capital intensive,” Yong said. “People are willing to pay for solutions.”

By En Han Choong - Bloomberg

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Building structural integrity & failure: problems, inspections, damages, defects, testing, diagnosis, repair

Structural integrity and failure is an aspect of engineering which deals with the ability of a structure to support a designed load (weight, force, etc...) without breaking, tearing apart, or collapsing, and includes the study of breakage that has previously occurred in order to prevent failures in future designs.

Structural integrity is the term used for the performance characteristic applied to a component, a single structure, or a structure consisting of different components. Structural integrity is the ability of an item to hold together under a load, including its own weight, resisting breakage or bending. It assures that the construction will perform its designed function, during reasonable use, for as long as the designed life of the structure. Items are constructed with structural integrity to ensure that catastrophic failure does not occur, which can result in injuries, severe damage, death, or monetary losses.

Structural failure refers to the loss of structural integrity, which is the loss of the load-carrying capacity of a component or member within a structure, or of the structure itself. Structural failure is initiated when the material is stressed beyond its strength limit, thus causing fracture or excessive deformations. In a well-designed system, a localized failure should not cause immediate or even progressive collapse of the entire structure. Ultimate failure strength is one of the limit states that must be accounted for in structural engineering and structural design.

These articles explain the inspection, detection, diagnosis, and repair of all types of structural defects on residential and light commercial buildings and will answer most homeowner concerns. We address brick and other masonry structures, wood frame structures, log homes, modular and factory built homes, even mobile homes.

Chimneys, crawl spaces, decks, building flood damage, foundation crack and movement damage, rot or insect damage, sink holes, and water entry are examples of topics for which InspectAPedia provides inspection, diagnosis, and repair advice. Our page top photo illustrates Story Land[26] a remarkably askew wood-framed structure that would have been quite challenging to frame.

Guide to Detecting & Evaluating Structural Defects: Inspection, Diagnosis, & Repair of Settlement, Improper Construction, Rot & Insect Damage to Buildings

Articles found in this section address just about all types of residential & light commercial building structural construction, inspection, diagnosis & repair topics such as foundation damage, leaning, buckling, bowing, and cracking, FRT plywood failures, chimney inspections & safety concerns, causes and cures for rot, mold, & termites in buildings, sinkholes at building sites, stair and rail fall & trip hazards, & also special inspection methods for mobile homes.

Most structural problems can be avoided by proper design and planning; but structural failures have been common for a long time, and sometimes are costly to handle properly.

The sketch at left( courtesy Carson Dunlop) names the major structural components of a typical wood frame house set on a masonry foundation.

Structural Defect Recognition, Repair, Prevention for Building Structures, & Building Structural Failures

This photo of the leaning tower of Pisa was sent to us by our friend Tom Smith who knows a crooked building when he sees one. Smith points out that the problems with the Tower have been known for generations and must have been apparent even during construction, as the upper level was constructed with an offset to try to re-balance the structure.
Modern reinforcement has permitted removal of cables that used to be tied to the tower of Pisa. As Bernie Campbalik says about old buildings, "Yep, we had guys like that back then too."

• ARCHITECTURE & BUILDING COMPONENT ID - series of articles providing photo and drawing aids to architectural type and age of buildings and building components.
• Balloon Framing: see Framing Methods
• BASEMENT WATERPROOFING and FOUNDATION WATERPROOFING collect articles on keeping water and moisture out of buildings
• BASKETBALL MOLD SYNDROME - BBMS - sudden attention to old clues in buildings makes them seem brand new to some observers
• Best Practices Guide to Residential Construction - Steven Bliss Book Review by DJ Friedman
• Chernobyl Nuclear Plant this interesting document describes serious flaws in the construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Facility, conditions which were discussed among Russian authorities long before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occurred in the Ukraine in 1986

• Chimneys, flues, wood stoves & fireplaces: chimney inspection, defects, safety concerns, Articles about Chimney Inspection, Collapse, Damage, Repair
  • Bracing & Support for Chimneys - bracing needed at chimneys (just below)
  • BRACKET CHIMNEY COLLAPSE & FIRE RISKS - what is a "bracket chimney" and where are they found and why do they collapse
  • Chimney Collapse Hazards - Main Article
  • Chimney Movement Causes - what causes chimney separation, leaning, or curving, what can we see outside
  • Chimney Movement - Indoor Evidence - what can we see indoors that tells us that chimney or fireplace movement are occurring?
  • Chimney Movement - Outdoor Evidence is a guide to recognizing outdoor evidence of chimney movement
  • Chimney Movement is Ongoing - Evidence is a guide to recognizing when chimney movement has been ongoing rather than a single or initial settlement or movement event.
  • Chimney Crack Detection & Diagnosis - what causes cracking in brick chimneys, how dangerous is it?
  • Cracked Concrete Block Chimneys - an example of cracking in a masonry block chimney exterior
  • Curved Brick Chimneys - what causes curving in brick chimneys, how are they evaluated and repaired?
  • DRY-IN, DEFINITION of - what is dry in or dry box in building construction and what building steps must have been completed to reach dry in status?
  • Earthquake or Storms can Cause Chimney Collapse
  • Foundation Support for Masonry Chimneys
  • CHIMNEY LEANING, REPAIR OPTIONS - how do we stabilize and repair a moving chimney, when does it need replacement, what are the alternatives?
  • Loose Wobbly Chimneys need bracing or lateral support to avoid collapse
  • Rooftop View Turns to Darkness a news report of a person who was trapped inside of a collapsing chimney is in our footnotes
  • Split Openings in Brick Chimneys & Chimney Collapse Risk - we describe a case of an imminent catastrophic chimney collapse - SPLIT OPENINGS in BRICKS, CHIMNEY COLLAPSE

• Deck & Porch Construction Guide - Deck & Porch construction details for safe, durable structures. Also see DECK COLLAPSE Case Study and DECK FLASHING LEAKS, ROT Case Study
• ENERGY SAVINGS in BUILDINGS - articles on insulating, finding and fixing air and heat leaks, ventilation, etc. for energy efficient buildings
• Flood Damage Control - FLOOD DAMAGE ASSESSMENT, SAFETY & CLEANUP
• Action Guide after Flooding: First Priorities of Action in Response to Building Flooding
• Cracks in Concrete Floors & Slabs, how to diagnose, evaluate, & repair slab cracks

• Flooded Building Mold Prevention how to respond to avoid mold
  FLOOD DAMAGE ASSESSMENT, SAFETY & CLEANUP - see list of detailed articles & advice found here
• Flooded Septic Systems Septic Systems what to do after a septic system has been exposed to flooding
• FLOOD VENTS & FLOOD PORTS to avoid structural damage during building flooding, flood venting, flood ports, or flood gates on buildings
• FOUNDATION CRACKS & DAMAGE GUIDE - Foundation Inspection, Materials, Defect Diagnosis, Repair Guide, how to inspect and diagnose foundation problems, in-depth diagnosis, and evaluation of all types of structural and non-structural cracks in residential foundations [Brick, Concrete, Masonry Block, Stone]
• Foundation Inspection Methods
• Site Factors Affecting Foundations
• Foundation Construction Materials how to identify different materials and types of foundation, how to recognize the effects of sequence of construction on building durability

• FOUNDATION FAILURES by TYPE & MATERIAL - see detailed links at page top & left
• FOUNDATION DEFECTS OF OMISSION how to recognize things that were left out, like footings, reinforcement, soil compaction, during foundation construction
• FOUNDATION CRACK DICTIONARY how to recognize and diagnose different types of foundation cracks, movement, damage, by the size, shape, location, pattern of cracks
• CONCRETE SLAB CRACK EVALUATION how to recognize and diagnose different types of slab or concrete floor cracks and movement
• FOUNDATION FAILURES by MOVEMENT TYPE how to recognize an diagnose different types of foundation damage by the kind of movement which has occurred
• FOUNDATION BULGE or LEAN MEASUREMENTS a simple procedure for documenting the amount of lean or bulge in a foundation or other building wall
• FOUNDATION MOVEMENT ACTIVE vs. STATIC how to determine if foundation movement was a one-time event or an ongoing problem
• FOUNDATION DAMAGE SEVERITY some rules of thumb for deciding how much foundation movement requires further action
• FOUNDATION DAMAGE REPORTS how to report foundation inspection results and damage
• FOUNDATION REPAIR METHODS a catalog of methods used to repair damaged foundations and masonry building walls
• Foundation Crack Repairs: How to Seal Cracks in Concrete a description of various products and methods used to seal or repair cracks in poured concrete walls, foundations, floors, & slabs.
• Foundation Crack Repair Using Polyurethane Foam to stop basement or crawl space leakage
• FOUNDATION INSPECTION STANDARDS a definition of scope of what a foundation inspector is required to observe and report

 

Framing & Wood Beams / Timbers Damage Inspection, Diagnosis, Testing, Repair

• FRAMING DAMAGE, INSPECTION, REPAIR - see detailed links for building framing, diagnosis, and repair at the "More Reading" links at the bottom of this article . Our photo (left) illustrates site built truss construction in a tango hall in Buenos Aires, Argentina. See these articles related to the assessment of wood framing, timbers, & structural members
• CONNECTORS, FASTENERS, TIES - where to buy, how to install, how to use structural connectors like joist hangers, rafter ties, framing connectors, anchors
  • Cracks, Checking or Splitting Beams & Log Homes
  • FIRE DAMAGE vs MOLD DAMAGE - how to distinguish between fire damage and black mold on building surfaces, how to test for mold, use of sealants and paints after a fire or after a mold cleanup
  • ROT, FUNGUS, TERMITES
  • ROT RESISTANT LUMBER
  • ROT, TIMBER FRAME
  • ROT, TIMBER ASSESSMENT
  • STRUCTURAL WOOD ASSESSMENT
• Fire Retardant Treated FRT Roofing Plywood Failures inspection, detection, testing of defective FRT plywood roof sheathing
• HOPPUS MEASURER - early carpentry & construction measurement guides & tools, history, photos, & excerpts from Hoppus's Measurer
• INSECT INFESTATION / DAMAGE - wood destroying insect inspection, diagnosis, evaluation, repair, and prevention at buildings
• Log Home Guide a guide to inspection, diagnosis, & repair of log homes, antique or old log cabins, modern kit log homes, vertical log construction, horizontal log construction, log checking, log home leaks, log home rot, log home sealants, gaskets, and coatings.
• Mobile Home Inspections manufactured homes or "trailers" require special procedures
• NOISE / SOUND DIAGNOSIS & CURE includes a discussion of the sources and cures of sounds in buildings
• Post and beam framing: see Framing Methods

• WOOD DESTROYING INSECTS carpenter ants, powder post beetles, & other wood destroying organisms
• Sears Houses: How to identify Sears catalog kit houses photos and tips for identifying these interesting homes.
  
• Sink Holes: Can X-Ray Vision [Advanced Building & Building Site Inspection Techniques] Warn of Sink Holes? in Florida or elsewhere
  
  

• STAIRS, RAILINGS, LANDING INSPECTIONS, CODES - stair construction dimensions and specifications, stair codes
• Stairs and Railings: A Checklist for Stair, Railing, Landing Safety Inspections

• TIMBER FRAMING, ROT and TIMBER ASSESSMENT - Timber Frame Construction, Barn Collapses, Timber Frame Rot: post and beam framing history, inspection, diagnosis, repair
• SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEMS Solar house designs, problems, retrofits, optimization
• TERMITE SHIELDS vs TERMITICIDE - how to avoid termite damage to buildings that use foam board insulation at the foundation or underneath stucco.
• THERMAL EXPANSION of MATERIALS how temperature changes affect building materials and cause building leaks or other failures
• Trailer vs Mobile Home vs Modular vs Panelized Construction an explanation of terms and how to identify these structures.
• WATER ENTRY in BUILDINGS series of articles on the causes and cures of high indoor moisture, wet basements, wet crawl spaces, and moisture related problems like attic condensation and mold.
• X-Ray Vision for Home Inspection: [Advanced Building & Building Site Inspection Techniques] - Developing your X-Ray Vision, Levels of Fear, and how to use them to find and report significant, hidden problems on Buildings or in the inspection of almost any complex system
• X-Ray Vision for Home Inspection: a Power Point Presentation© of the X-Ray Vision Home Inspection class detailed-text shown above.

Rot, fungus, Termites, Carpenter Ants, Powder Post Beetles, & other Wood Destroying Organisms

Our photo (left) illustrates a combination of factors leading to a strong indication of serious structural damage at a home: aluminum siding at ground level (risk of insect attack) combined with buckled siding at the bottom course (a condition that only occurs long after original construction) point to crushed wooden sills under this structure, most often due to insect attack or rot or both.

• INSECT INFESTATION / DAMAGE - complete guide to wood destroying insect inspection, diagnosis, evaluation, repair, and prevention at buildings
• The Sick House/Sick Building Information Website Organized, un-biased, in-depth advice about mold, allergens, and other indoor contaminants: finding, testing, cleaning, clearance testing, and preventing mold, mildew, wood destroying (rot) molds (fungi). Explains how to assure that testing for toxic or allergenic molds is performed using valid field and lab methods. Advice and test procedures are provided for odors and odor source detection, toxic gas testing and gas source identification.
• "House Eating Fungus" Meruliporia incrassata (also called "Poria" the house eating fungus) in the U.S. or Serpula lacrymans in Europe) can cause severe structural damage. Evidence of hidden "poria" may be found by expert inspection methods which include tracing sources and paths of probable Building leaks and moisture traps. Further, careful indoor particle sampling methods can often permit the presence of this mold to be identified in the laboratory.
• WOOD DESTROYING INSECTS carpenter ants, powder post beetles, & other wood destroying organisms

Continue reading at BRICK FOUNDATIONS & WALLS or select a topic from the More Reading links shown below.

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STRUCTURAL INSPECTIONS & DEFECTS at InspectApedia.com - online encyclopedia of building & environmental inspection, testing, diagnosis, repair, & problem prevention advice.

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• STRUCTURAL INSPECTIONS & DEFECTS
• ARCHITECTURE & BUILDING COMPONENT ID
• BRICK FOUNDATIONS & WALLS
• BUCKLED FOUNDATIONS due to INSULATION?
• BUILDING DAMAGE ASSESSMENT & REPAIR
• BUILDING SETTLEMENT
• CHIMNEY CHASE Construction & Defects
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• COLUMNS & POSTS, DEFECTS
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• FRAMING DETAILS for BETTER INSULATION
• FRAMING DETAILS for DOUBLE WALL HOUSES
• FRAMING CONNECTORS & JOIST HANGERS
• FRAMING FASTENERS, NAILS, SCREWS, & HIDDEN
• FRAMING & SUBFLOOR for TILE
• FRAMING MATERIALS, Age, Types
• FRAMING METHODS, Age, Types
• FRAMING SIZE & Spacing, Age, Types
• FRAMING TABLES, SPANS for DECKS
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• GLUES ADHESIVES, EXTERIOR CONSTRUCTION
• HOUSE PARTS, DEFINITIONS
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• INSECT INFESTATION / DAMAGE
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• MODULAR HOME CONSTRUCTION
• OSB - Oriented Strand Board
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• STONE FOUNDATIONS
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• STUCCO WALL METHODS & INSTALLATION
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• WINDOWS & DOORS, Age, Types
• WOOD FOUNDATIONS
• WOOD STRUCTURE ASSESSMENT
• WOOD BEAM VISUAL INSPECTION
• FAQs below discusses field reports of problems & solutions for this topic

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Structural Integrity and failure:</sup>
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The global centre of gravity shifting to Asia

“Danny Quah of the London School of Economics has calculated the world’s economic centre of gravity and reckons that, thanks to Asia’s rise, over the 70 years from 1980 to 2050 it will move eastwards from the mid-Atlantic all the way to somewhere between India and China. By 2015, the halfway point on this great journey, it will have reached the city of Bandar-e Mahshahr, in Iran, on the north-eastern tip of the Persian Gulf .”

 Danny Quah’s calculation of the world’s economic centre of gravity has been included in The Economist’s eye-catching statistical landmarks of 2015

Many see the rush to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as the beginning of a new international financial order and the decline of US dollar hegemony.

BRITAIN’S recent decision to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a founder member has led to a kind of stampede by other allies of the United States in Europe such as Germany, France and Italy to follow suit.

So did two other important Asia-Pacific allies, Australia and South Korea. The only other major US ally in Asia which did not was Japan.

What is striking is that these allies went against the express wishes of the US which apparently saw the AIIB as a potential challenge to the domination of the international financial architecture by the US-controlled World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Particularly stunning is the British decision. According to senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Britain’s Cambridge University Martin Jacques, in this year’s Boao Forum, this is the first time since Breton Woods in the 1940s, except for one occasion when Britain refused a US request to send troops to Vietnam, that Britain had ever said no to the US so publicly!

Jacques exaggerates somewhat as he should have begun with 1956 as the year when Britain abandoned an independent foreign policy, as a result of its misbegotten adventure in Suez, and became a faithful junior partner to the US.

Still, it is no less remarkable, even beginning with 1956, for it took about six decades before a clear British nay to the US came about.

Many saw the rush to join the AIIB as signifying the beginning of a new international financial order and the decline of US dollar hegemony, with China deemed to be the new or most influential nation.

Some, however, saw Chinese weakness rather than strength in this spectacle.

London’s Financial Times argued that resorting to a multi-lateral institution to exercise influence suggests weakness as China will be less able to get its own way, not to mention possible badgering from non-governmental organisations in future deliberations of the AIIB, than if it could do so by bilateral means.

It remains to be seen if a new financial order will eventuate. I will however make a few points about this development.

One is that it has shown in a dramatic way the global reach of Chinese economic strength, especially in the financial arena.

While it is true that China is already an economic force in other parts of the globe such as in the continents of Africa and South America, not to mention Asia and Australia, this is probably the first time that a major European nation has made an economic decision with obvious political implications favourable to the Chinese.

Someone defined a superpower as a nation or state that can project dominating power and influence in the globe, sometimes in one region or more, and that has the potential to attain global hegemony.

In this respect we can consider China an economic superpower.

Of relevance to our understanding of Chinese strength is the reason behind the British decision.

Britain in the past year or two has evinced a more positive attitude towards China.

According to an analysis in the Internet magazine, Counterpunch, the recent British economic recovery has been mainly based on financial flows to property and infrastructural projects in London and the south of England, and the prosperity of the City of London.

And the city of London is what keeps Britain from becoming a third-tier economy.

This is so important that David Cameron and the Conservatives could conceive of Britain leaving the European Union if the EU were to mess with the running of the City by imposing regulations.

A lot of the money recently has come from China and Britain is very keen to be involved in the offshore trading of the Chinese renminbi. Thus, there is every prospect of Britain getting more action from a China, with foreign reserves of around US$4tril (RM14.68tril), looking for more ways to use the renminbi.

Joining the AIIB in such a fashion, not only brings with it the prospect of possibly getting a leg up in future AIIB projects, but also gains Chinese goodwill. But it is important not to exaggerate Chinese strength. It is a superpower only in the economic arena, and not in other spheres such as the military and political.

Militarily, the US far exceeds China in the amount of money spent and in technological sophistication. Politically, what China can at present offer cannot match the global impact of values associated with the US such as democracy and human rights.

Even in the economic sphere, the Chinese Gross Domestic Product is only equal in size to the US in purchasing power terms, and not in dollar terms where the US GDP is more than one and the half times that of China.

In per capita terms, US GDP is at least four times more. And the US is still far more advanced in the sophistication of its financial market and industrial structures.

The significance of this AIIB development is not a demonstration of raw Chinese economic power.

It is unlikely to do away with the WB or the IMF.

It is really another symptom, this time in Europe and in the financial arena, of the global centre of gravity shifting to Asia.

By Dr. Lee Poh Ping

> Dr Lee Poh Ping is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of China Studies in the University of Malaya. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.


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The AIIB groundswell; Asian development to the fore

Washington's Lobbying Efforts Against China's 'World Bank' Fail As Italy, France Welcomed Aboard. The cheese really does stand alone. Every single U.S. ally with the exception of Japan have all hopped on board the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB. Italy and France were approved on Thursday to become founding members, bringing the total membership base to 33 from the original 21.

The AIIB groundswell

Just in time for the deadline, an impressive coalition of countries have signed on for the newest development bank on the block

THE deadline of March 31 has passed, and 52 countries are now on the list of would-be founders of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

The China-led bank was launched in October last year at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, a year after Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a bank to offer funds for development projects during his official visit to Indonesia.

The initiative would promote regional inter-connectivity and economic integration, he said when delivering a speech at the Indonesian Parliament.

In the past few days leading up to the deadline, news of more countries hurrying to join the AIIB made headlines, especially when a few of them announced the decision at the recently concluded Boao Forum in Hainan province, which Xi officiated.

The world was watching closely to see if the United States and Japan would sign up as founding members just before the deadline, but both have decided to opt out of the bank that is seen as a rival to the Western-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Back in October last year, the bank had confirmation from 21 countries to participate as founding members – Malaysia was one of them – all of which are in the Asian continent.

The tipping point came when the United Kingdom announced its decision to join the AIIB in the middle of March, to the surprise of many.

More countries followed suit right after that, including France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland.

Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Britain’s Cambridge University, said the rise and growing awareness of the Chinese possibility in the context of a multilateral initiative pressed Britain to act the way it did, making AIIB not just an Asian institution but a global one.

“I think this is an extraordinary historical moment,” he said in a panel discussion during the Boao Forum.

“The new institutions (AIIB and the New Development Bank operated by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) do not necessarily conflict with the Bretton Woods institutions. They are very different.

“The developing countries now account for nearly 60% of global Gross Domestic Product and they represent 85% of the world population.

“The new institutions, unlike the Bretton Woods institutions, are being defined as relevant to the needs of this 85% of world population, most of whom are concentrated in this continent.”

Countries which have missed the March 31 deadline can still join as ordinary members, while those that have already submitted their application will find out if they are on the final list of founding members by April 15.

With an initial capital of US$50bil (RM184bil), AIIB is scheduled to be officially established at the end of the year, after the rules are finalised and signed in mid-2015.

New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley said there is a need to define “infrastructure” to determine the types of projects that are qualified to obtain funding from the AIIB.

“If I could be provocative – if you were to put a diverse group of qualified women and men together and ask them the question, you’ll get a broader definition than if you just ask the question of classical male concept of buildings,” she said.

“We need to stand in the shoes of the people whose lives will be unleashed if we get this right. Just bringing in the classical morals of the same thing would not give us the breakthrough.”

Josette Sheeran, the president and Chief Executive Officer of the Asia Society, chipped in on this, citing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda of building more toilets as an example.

“The reason young girls don’t go to school in India is that there is no toilet. That’s the kind of infrastructure that would really capture the mind of humanity and transform hope in the world,” she said.

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was more concerned about the governance of the new banks, placing emphasis on professionalism, transparency and quality leadership.

“The people hired for AIIB must be professionals who know what infrastructure financing is all about,” he said.

“The quality of people will determine the ability of these banks to analyse risks to give money and to make credible loans which are payable back.”

Transparency, in the opinion of Deloitte global chairman Steve Almond, is also key to attract the private sector to come onboard.

“The regional or sub-regional projects are arguably the ones that bring the greatest impact to economic development. But because they go across the borders, they are also harder to manage and least likely to attract private sector capital,” he said.

“We need the mechanism to provide confidence to the private sector, and transparency governance is one of the compelling reasons to encourage them to come and join the projects.”

And what is the magic that would make good governance work?

Li Ruogum, former chairman and president of Export-Import Bank of China, believes in understanding.

“This newly established institution cannot just clone the older one, as we are working in a very different environment.

“We have to accumulate our experiences and need to have a mind of innovation. All should come together and understand each other, and try to achieve good governance.”

Check-in-China by Tho Xin Yi

 
Asian development to the fore

Chinese President Xi Jinping. - AFP  
Hungry for development: In 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed a new development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. One year later, 22 Asian countries had signed up, including 10 Asean countries - Blooberg

Asia’s need for better infrastructure and more development is too important to be held to ransom by outdated big power politics and petty posturing.

FOR many observers, the US “pivot” (later renamed “rebalancing”) to the Asia-Pacific was classic Obama: the rhetorical flourish was more dramatic than the policy substance.

In the second half of its first term, the Obama administration sought to assign two-thirds of its military assets to the Asia-Pacific theatre, up from the standard half from the even split between the Pacific and the Atlantic.

By the middle of its second term, officials were struggling to maintain a semblance of a policy largely left to coast under its steadily diminishing momentum. US foreign policy, and by extension US defence policy, appeared distracted by other concerns.

The State Department and the Pentagon seemed consumed at once by the Syrian debacle, Iraq’s instability, rising terrorism everywhere, civil war in Ukraine, Europe’s problems with Russia, Iran’s nuclear programme and an uppity Israel.

Then there were the ever-present ­budgetary constraints. Deploying another 16% of military assets to the Asia-Pacific, from half to two-thirds, seemed hardly noticeable or achievable.

Meanwhile, officials were anxious to insist that the rebalancing had nothing to do with the rise of China and its growing assertiveness in the region. It was, they said, part of efforts to preserve US strategic interests.

Whatever the choice of words, and however implicit China may be as motivation, rebalancing was fast becoming history. By March last year, a Pentagon official admitted it was going nowhere.

However, the Obama administration’s gift of verbalising policy intent made US intentions clear enough.

President Obama had famously said the US should be writing trade rules in the Asia-Pacific rather than let China do it.

Thus, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact with controversial demands that swiftly became synonymous with US trade preferences. But China had not been idle either.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed a new development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). One year later, 22 Asian countries had signed up, including all 10 Asean countries.

In Asia, the world’s most promising continent for rapid economic growth, infrastructure needs for development are peaking. The IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) can serve only a fraction of its needs: between 2010 and 2020 alone, some RM30tril is needed.

China set a deadline of March 31 this year for countries around the world to sign up as Prospective Founding Members (PFMs) before operations begin later in 2015. China would provide the biggest contribution to the authorised capital of US$100bil (RM363.49bil) and initial subscribed capital of US$50bil (RM181.75bil).

The US immediately saw this as a game-changer challenge to its dominance in global lending. For decades, it has controlled the World Bank, and through its European allies, the IMF and through its ally Japan, the ADB.

These institutions have been known to set tough conditions on debtor countries that may not serve domestic aspirations or national interests. A cash-rich China also felt it remained under-represented in these institutions even after becoming a leading global economy.

Washington had hoped, even expected, that its allies and friends would stay away from the AIIB as a rival institution. But like its pivot or rebalancing strategy, that hope steadily faded.

In Europe, Britain as the closest US ally was the first to sign up to the AIIB early last month. Soon, other major European economies like France, Germany and Italy followed, as did all the Scandinavian countries.

Washington then quietly pressured Japan, South Korea and Australia to stay away. But Seoul and Canberra signed up anyway. By then, the US had started to soften its stand, denying that it had ever pressured any country to stay away. It was only unsure if the AIIB would adhere to best practices in international lending.

Then, other US allies like Taiwan and Israel also signed up. The US was becoming increasingly isolated, with only Japan as the other major economy for company.

But not for long, perhaps. Last Monday, Japan’s ambassador to China, Masato Kitera, said in a Financial Times (FT) interview that Japan would join the AIIB as well, probably around June.

That came as a bombshell to the conservative Japanese government. It would seem too much of a betrayal of yet another US ally, the final one being the “unkindest cut of all”.

The next day, on the deadline for countries to sign up as PFMs for the AIIB, Tokyo denied that Ambassador Kitera ever said such a thing. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Japan had no imme­diate plans to join the AIIB.

Besides being a US ally, Japan was also wary of the prospect of the AIIB undercutting the ADB.

Whatever the actual chances of Japan joining the AIIB, Tokyo would want to underplay it as much as possible.

Like the US, Japan said it was reluctant to sign up because of uncertainty over the AIIB’s standards. But countries such as Britain and Singapore that have joined said the best way to ensure high standards was to get on board and be part of the decision-making process.

To be part of that process, it was necessary to sign up early before the big decisions were made. The terms and conditions of lending and borrowing have still to be firmed up as dozens of countries including giants like India and Russia are already in.

The FT report also revealed that Japanese business leaders were pressuring their government to join the AIIB. Mitsubishi bosses, for example, had expressed confidence in Jin Liqun, a former senior ADB official who will head the AIIB.

On the deadline last Tuesday, China announced that 30 countries had been admitted as PFMs. More than a dozen others were in the queue.

Then a flood of criticisms and denuncia­tions of the stubborn US position came, mostly from within the US itself. Analysts and commentators, including in Forbes and The Economist, said the US administration had miscalculated badly in staying out, only damaging US long-term interests in East Asia and the Pacific.

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright also condemned the US position, lamenting the way Washington had scored another own goal by rebuffing the AIIB. The US had placed itself behind the curve in changes in the Asia-Pacific rather than stay at the leading edge.

If and when Japan finally signs up, the US may have to be resigned to becoming a part of the AIIB. But as a latecomer, it may be limited to playing only a bit part such as an observer rather than sit at the main table.

China has long regretted the US fixation with what it calls a Cold War “them against us” bipolar mentality that frustrates progress on many fronts. For the countries of Asia hungry for more development, progress must not be held hostage to big power rivalry.

Ultimately, any rivalry between the US and China today is not over political ideology but economic ideology: the Washington Consensus of free trade rhetoric where the state and private industry are at odds with each other versus the emerging Beijing Consensus of close public-private partnerships that have worked so well for so much of Asia already.

US opposition to a proven formula for Asia is most unlikely to win friends and supporters anywhere, least of all in Asia.

By Bunn Nagara Behind the headlines

> Bunn Nagara is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia.

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Big boost for Asia with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Launch, a positive step.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping's (C-R) meeting with the members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China 24 October 2014. 21 Asian countries are the founding ...