Can the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank limit South China Sea pressure?

These JDAs could be created in contested areas off Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan.

Oil, gas, methane hydrates, renewable energyand even fisheries within the JDAs could then be jointly developed by Chinese and Southeast Asian energy and fisheries companies. 

The beauty of JDAs is that  countries with contesting claims to a proposed offshore agree to set those territorial claimsaside indefinitely while they cooperate to develop the resources within the contested areas. 

Final territorial determination is postponed until far down the track. At that point the stakes are lower because the resources have been developed.

All countries in the region - including China - publicly support the concept of ‘joint development’ as a means of reducing risk of war in the South China Sea.

Given this, no one would be seen as backing down. 

Successful JDAs exist all over the world. Three have operated successfully for decades in the Gulf of Thailand, adjacent to the South China Sea.

Therefore, Southeast Asia’s AIIB members, along with the AIIB’s European members and South Korea, could unite behind proposals for AIIB funding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation States’ (ASEAN)  proposed Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline (TAGP) and Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline (TAEG). 

If China dug in its heels in opposition, presumably due to conflict with its Nine-Dotted Line territorial claim, China could probably muster 47% of the AIIB’s votes in support of its position. 

Support would likely come from Russia and the AIIB’s Central Asian countries and Middle Eastern countries.

European Union members of the AIIB would almost certainly unite in favor of JDAs, along with South Korea and the AIIB’s ASEAN members themselves. Together, these would amount to another 47%.

In other words, a virtual tie. Turkey, Brazil and South Africa would represent wild card votes.