Canada Announces Shutdown at Asian Investment Bank

A former Canadian executive of the bank denounces the interference of the Communist Party in the decisions of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). These sensational accusations were followed by Canada's announcement that it was withdrawing from the AIIB, a source of possible new tension between Canada and China.

It was Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland who announced that Ottawa would "immediately cease all activities within the bank." AFP/File

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The AIIB, founded in 2016 – with the aim of countering Western influence in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank – now has 106 member countries. Among them, too, the France and Germany, but not the United States, which feared from the outset Chinese domination over this structure, which mainly finances projects within the framework of the "New Silk Roads", dear to the Chinese number one Xi Jinping.

As soon as Bob Pickard joined the bank in March 2022, he was warned not to "get confused with members of the Chinese Communist Party (...) because they are powerful." Then, he quickly understood that the bank must above all serve the interests of Beijing. Loans therefore mainly go where China pursues its geopolitical objectives.

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Why is Canada participating in a bank that makes China more powerful? ", wonders this executive and he resigns. "Lack of transparency", "parallel decision-making system", "excessive influence of the Communist Party", accusations deemed "baseless" by Beijing. But Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is taking them seriously and has announced that Ottawa will "immediately cease all activities within the bank."

A quarrel that adds to others, among them the arrest of the chief financial officer of Huawei in 2018 and the decision in 2022 to ban the telecom giant from the Canadian market. The reception of 10,000 persecuted Uighurs in China and the investigation into Chinese interference in the last two Canadian elections were also not to Beijing's liking.

>> Read also: "Between Canada and China, there are many problems dating back to 2018"

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