‘Outright lies’: China’s Ottawa embassy dismisses explosive AIIB claims

Name: Chinese Canadians caught in the crossfire as Canada-China tensions rise
Uploaded: 2023-06-15T07:00:14.000Z
Duration: 2 min 13 s
Description: Chinese Canadians caught in the crossfire as Canada-China tensions rise

Fallout from the explosive resignation of the bank’s global communications head has already sparked a Canadian investigation

The Canada national Bob Pickard said party members dominate the development bank which has a ‘toxic culture’

Reading Time:2 minutes

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The Beijing headquarters of global development lender Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Photo: Reuters

Connor Mycroft

Published: 3:00pm, 15 Jun 2023

China’s embassy in Canada has dismissed as “outright lies” high-level claims that the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is dominated by members of the Communist Party.

The embassy issued a statement on Wednesday, hours after the bank’s global communications director Bob Pickard made the claims, prompting Ottawa to call an investigation on the same day into its membership of the multilateral lender.

Pickard, a Canadian national, said on Twitter that he had resigned from the China-backed global development bank because it was “dominated” by party members and that “Western publics” were not being “served by their membership in AIIB”.

Canada’s deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland quickly announced an “immediate halt” to all government activity with the bank while an “expeditious” review of the claims takes place.

Freeland also said she would be approaching Canada’s allies about the allegations, highlighting recent efforts by Western countries to “de-risk” their economies from China, which drew a sharp rebuke from the embassy.

An embassy spokesperson said “relevant individuals’ remarks on the AIIB are purely sensational hype and outright lies”.

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Chinese Canadians caught in the crossfire as Canada-China tensions rise