Canada has said it is freezing ties with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as it investigates claims by a former senior staff member that the institution is dominated by the Chinese Communist Party.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the move Wednesday after Canadian Bob Pickard, the AIIB’s global communications director, resigned, criticizing the bank as “dominated by the Communist Party”.
Freeland said she was not ruling out any outcome of the investigation, a hint that Ottawa could withdraw from a bank it officially joined in March 2018.
“The Government of Canada will immediately halt all government-led activities at the bank. And I have directed the Treasury Department to conduct an immediate investigation into the allegations made and into Canada’s involvement in the AIIB,” Freeland told reporters.
The AIIB, seen by some as a Chinese rival to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, was established in 2016 to finance railways and other infrastructure. It has 106 governments, including most of the Asian countries and Australia, Canada, Russia, France and the United Kingdom. Neither Japan nor the United States are members.
The AIIB dismissed the 58-year-old Pickard’s criticism as “baseless and disappointing” and said it was proud to have a workforce of 65 different nationalities.
The Chinese embassy in Ottawa said the claims were “pure sensationalism and a complete lie”.
Pickard, who worked for the Beijing-based AIIB for 15 months, said on Twitter that as a “patriotic Canadian”, resigning was his only option. He complained that the bank was dominated by “Communist Party hackers” who were “like an internal KGB or Gestapo or Stasi” — the secret police of the communist-era Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and East Germany.
The bank “has one of the most toxic cultures imaginable,” Pickard added. “I do not believe that the interests of my country are served by AIIB membership.”
The move over the AIIB comes amid continued deterioration in ties between Ottawa and Beijing, which took a turn for the worse after Canada arrested a senior Huawei executive on a US warrant in December 2018, and China arrested two Canadians days later. who eventually accused them of espionage.
The two men – Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig – were finally released in 2021 after US prosecutors dropped extradition proceedings.
“As the world’s democracies work to reduce risk to our economies by limiting our strategic vulnerability to authoritarian regimes, we also need to be clear about the means by which these regimes exert their influence around the world,” Freeland said. she announced the investigation into the AIIB.
‘Inappropriate’ influence
It was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who included Canada in the AIIB, while opposition conservatives have long demanded that Ottawa pull out of the bank, citing it as a tool for Beijing to export authoritarianism.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced Tuesday that it is investigating allegations that China attempted to intimidate a federal conservative lawmaker.
Canada has accused China of meddling in its affairs through various schemes, including operating illegal police stations and electoral interference. Beijing has denied the allegations.
The AIIB has $47.4 billion in assets, according to the bank’s 2022 financial statements, and is led by its president, Jin Liqun, a Chinese national. The vice presidents include a Briton, a Russian, an Indian and a German.
Pickard said he left China in a hurry because he was concerned about his safety after what happened to the two Michaels.
He didn’t post his announcement until he arrived in Japan.
Speaking to Tokyo news agency Agence France Presse (AFP), he said the bank mainly lent to countries involved in China’s controversial Belt and Road Initiative, and that the CCP exerted “improper” influence over every aspect of its operations .
“It is a tool for the geopolitical goals of the PRC (People’s Republic of China) … in practice, I believe it serves China’s interests,” he told AFP.
In 2017, then Vice President Thierry de Longuemar defended the bank against similar charges.
“China’s desire is not to create a new tool of the Chinese state, it is to demonstrate its ability to promote a truly international institution based in China,” he said.