BEIJING -- For about a decade beginning in his adolescence, Jin Liqun spent his days in a rural village in Jiangsu, his home province.
He had no choice. China was in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. Hungry for literature, Jin devoured original versions of Shakespeare plays mailed to him by a revered secondary school teacher.
When Mao Zedong's cultural experiment ended and Jin's path to higher education opened up before him, he was nearing 30. He earned a master's degree in English literature from what is now Beijing Foreign Studies University, then studied economics at Boston University during his career at the Finance Ministry, which took him as high as vice minister. In 2003, he became the first Chinese vice president of the Asian Development Bank.
Jin, now 65, stands poised to head a new multilateral lender that some see as a Chinese-backed rival to the Japanese- and U.S.-led ADB: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Jin's lack of apparent favoritism toward China has earned him trust abroad. Fluent in English, he helped recruit members for the AIIB, drawing on his knowledge of their history and culture. Without Jin, a person familiar with his efforts says, the bank wouldn't have succeeded in attracting 57 member countries.
By his own admission, Jin learned economics and finance from English-language texts but gleaned most of his knowledge from classical Chinese literature and philosophy. He prides himself on having arrived at an international perspective while following the path of traditional Chinese scholarship. Not content with reading, Jin translated American author Ron Chernow's "The House of Morgan" into Chinese. His daughter, Keyu Jin, teaches at the London School of Economics.
People who know the elder Jin call him a well-balanced man. Developing the AIIB, born under Chinese influence, into an institution that abides by global standards may prove to be Jin's greatest balancing act.
