Photo: AIIB

The Chinese Embassy in Canada on Wednesday blasted Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) former global communications director's comments on the bank as sensationalism and a total lie, stressing that China is an active contributor to maintaining world peace, boosting mutual development and dealing with global challenges.

The comment came as AIIB's global communications director Bob Pickard, a Canadian, tweeted on Wednesday that he had resigned and alleged that the bank is "dominated by the Communist Party of China."

Following his remarks, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada government will immediately halt all government led activity at the bank, and she has instructed the Department of Finance to lead an immediate review of allegations raised and of Canada's involvement in the AIIB, Reuters reported.

The AIIB responded to Pickard's public comments and characterization of the bank as baseless and disappointing. "We are proud of our multilateral mission and have a diverse international team representing 65 different nationalities and members at AIIB, serving our 106 members worldwide, many of whom have been with us since our formation in 2016," the bank said.

The embassy stressed that AIIB is a multilateral development bank, whose mission is to focus on financing infrastructure and other manufacturing sectors in order to promote sustainable development of the Asian economy, create value and improve infrastructure connectivity. The bank also carries out close cooperation with other multilateral and bilateral development institutions to boost regional cooperation and partnerships to effectively address development challenges.

"As an important member of the AIIB, China always complies with multilateral rules and processes and participates in decision-making through multilateral governance mechanism including the bank's council and directorate," the embassy stressed.

The embassy stressed that China is an active contributor to maintaining world peace, boosting mutual development and addressing global challenges.

The real risks the world encounters are camp confrontation, a "new cold war," arbitrary interference in other countries' domestic affairs, creating regional instability, politicizing economic and trade issues and undermining global stability, and shifting economic and financial risks and periodically reaping other countries' wealth. "It's these risks that the international community should be alert to and jointly resist," the embassy said.

In response to Freeland's "authoritarian regime" claim on China, the embassy said certain countries frequently interfere in other countries' affairs, make irresponsible remarks and even wield the stick of sanctions against other countries, which absolutely represents authoritarian behavior.

Huang Zhong, an associate researcher at the Center for Canadian Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, told the Global Times on Thursday that Canada may not really pull out of the AIIB because it wants to play a role in multilateral institutions and aims to diversify its trade with more countries to reduce economic reliance on the US when it joined the multilateral institution in 2018.

"It's beneficial for Canada to stay in AIIB, as it gains access to the huge Chinese market and other markets via the platform. Unlike the US that has massive economic scale, Canada will face heavy losses if it withdraws from the multilateral platform," he said.