Moreover, the traditional interpretation of the Bank’s Articles of Agreement imposed a proclaimed “neutrality” that translated into a readiness to overlook the nature of its client countries’ regimes and their lack of popular accountability. Ironically, the same World Bank whose former president, Robert McNamara, transformed it almost five decades ago, at the height of decolonization, into a key instrument in the fight against communism, today views the so-called “Beijing Consensus,” by which the Chinese Communist Party maintains an iron grip on the country, as a viable development model.