The long-awaited US congressional approval of proposed changes in the governing structure of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has brought to the forefront of the world stage a simmering rivalry between the China and the US, according to political analysts. 

The overhaul doubles the funds available to the monetary body even as it increases the voting share of emerging economies such as China, India, Russia and Brazil at the expense of European and Persian Gulf nations.   The US retains its vetoing power within the body with a 16.7 percent voting share.

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The Obama administration spearheaded the reforms in 2010, but the US republican opposition had prevented the IMF from implementing the changes.  The delay lasted five years.

"Our national security and our economic security were very much at stake," US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said of the negotiations with the US opposition. "And as someone who for the last three years has gone to international meetings, I can tell you it was ratcheting to the point where it was doing real damage."

The five-year impasse prompted widespread criticism of the Washington-based IMF, and is reportedly the reason why China sought the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

In a recent report, the New York Times nods to an undeclared -- but by now all too well-known -- rivalry between the US and China, and suggests it was the controversial IMF impasse that finally pulled the superpower tit-for-tat out of the bag. 

"China's economy has slowed, while the United States' growth buoys the world," says the Times report.

The IMF breakthrough has, according to the Times, allayed fears among US allies that it had retreated from its erstwhile position of global economic leadership even as China's economic juggernaut has claimed a lion's share of geopolitical eminence over the past few years.

Diplomatic leaders in Beijing have acknowledged the rivalry, as well, with one Chinese official publicly stating that it stems from Washington's repeated efforts to thwart China's international agenda. 

In an article she wrote for the Financial Times, China's vice minister of foreign affairs, Fu Ying, says Washington's biggest concern in Asia appears to be the possibility that America will be "pushed out" by China.

Describing the US world order as "a suit that no longer fits", Fu claims Washington's naval and diplomatic maneuverings in the Asia Pacific region threaten to turn China's territorial disputes with its neighbors into strategic rivalries. 

The vice minister observes that the US and its allies have been making strategic mistakes in one country after another since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.  She goes on to criticize American leaders for encouraging the so-called Arab Spring after political upheavals in Tunisia in 2010.

"For the past three years the US has been trying to get out of the mess by proposing a 'pivot to Asia'," Fu says. "However, by making China the target of this initiative, it has fuelled mutual distrust between the two countries."    

But Fu -- a career diplomat who has worked in the Philippines, the UK, Indonesia and Australia -- says she believes world affairs have to be handled by countries working together.

"China needs to maintain stable and constructive relations with the US, while assuming more international responsibilities commensurate with its growing importance," Fu says.

TagsUS, China-US relations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)