Canada is suspending its activities with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to probe allegations that the bank is dominated by the Chinese Communist Party, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday.
The Canadian government "will immediately halt all government-led activity at the bank," Freeland told reporters, adding that she has "instructed the Department of Finance to lead an immediate review of the allegations raised and of Canada's involvement in the AIIB."
She also said she was not ruling out "any outcome" of the review, hinting that Ottawa could pull out of the bank.
The comments came as Bob Pickard, the AIIB's global communications director and a Canadian, tweeted Wednesday he had resigned, claiming the development bank is "dominated by Communist Party members."
"I don't believe that my country's interests are served by its AIIB membership," he said.
Freeland said Canada will discuss the matter with the bank's other member countries.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Thursday the AIIB has acted as "a truly international, rules-based, high-standard institution" with the joint efforts of the members.
Wang also stressed at a press conference in Beijing that the bank recruits and manages its staff from 65 countries and economies "in accordance with the principles of openness, meritocracy and transparency."
Proposed by China in 2013, the AIIB was launched in 2015. The United States and Japan are the only Group of Seven industrial powers that have not joined the bank.
