Following that, it should help other countries clearly understand how they can benefit from these proposals and what the potential risks are.

Before the international community knows how China aims to protect its national interests in the future, it will be very difficult to transform these strategies from words to deeds.

China changed the key points in its promotion of the AIIB, and the change worked well. China now emphasizes the AIIB seeks returns from every investment it makes, and it will not offer subsidized or soft loans. China also stresses that it is responsible for all the fund contributors to the bank.

China now has 26.06 percent of the voting right in the AIIB after purchasing $29.78 billion worth of capital stock subscriptions according to the resettled rules agreed by all the co-founders of the bank. And it has said that with more countries joining the bank, its voting right will probably drop below 25 percent. The successful combination of explanations and actions is an important reason why the AIIB was established in a short time.

Besides, China should draw a lesson from the change in its AIIB diplomatic discourse, and use the experience to clear the international community's doubts over its Belt and Road Initiative. To make the initiative successful, it should express clearly how cooperation with other countries can help it serve its own needs, such as restructuring its economy and dealing with the overcapacity in some of its industries.

By clearly expressing its national interests, China can convince other countries of its analyses as well as expand the common interests of all relevant parties.

Fang Songying is a researcher in politics at Rice University, and Liu Wei is a researcher in international relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article was first published on thepaper.cn on Jan 6.