China-Canada ties to get frostier after call to leave AIIB, analysts say

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau under pressure to scrap a planned US$189 million investment in Beijing-led bank as anti-China sentiment grows in Ottawa

But leader is unlikely to bow to pressure from opposition party or Washington, observers say

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been accused of being too soft on China. Photo: AP

Published: 9:00pm, 12 Dec 2019Updated: 1:55am, 26 Dec 2021

The already icy relationship between China and Canada is set to get even frostier, analysts said, after lawmakers in Ottawa on Tuesday approved the creation of a special committee to review ties with Beijing and called for the country to withdraw from the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

“Ties are already freezing,” Liang Yunxiang, an international affairs expert at Peking University, said. “If Canada left the AIIB it would only make things worse.”

The decision to set up a 12-person committee to review Ottawa’s dealings with Beijing followed a proposal by the opposition Conservative Party, which has accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of being too soft on the Asian giant.

Canadian leader Justin Trudeau is under pressure to scrap a planned US$189 million investment in the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Photo: Reuters

The group, which is set to meet for the first time on January 20, “will help shed light on Justin Trudeau’s failures to stand up for Canadian interests with respect to Beijing”, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman Erin O’Toole said in a statement.

The Conservatives have also called on Trudeau to scrap a planned C$250 million (US$189 million) investment in the AIIB, which Canada joined in March 2018 despite protestations from the United States, which expressed concerns about the bank’s perceived lack of transparency and claims it would be used by China to expand it geopolitical influence.