Canada: Canada has announced that it will suspend its relations with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), led by China, while it conducts an investigation into allegations made by a former senior staff member that the institution is under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.

Finance Minister Ms. Chrystia Freeland made the announcement following the resignation of Mr. Bob Pickard, the AIIB’s global communications director, who publicly criticised the bank for being “dominated by the Communist Party.” Ms. Freeland expressed that the investigation could lead to various outcomes, indicating the possibility of Canada withdrawing from the AIIB, which it officially joined in March 2018.

“The government of Canada will immediately halt all government-led activity at the bank. And I have instructed the Department of Finance to lead an immediate review of the allegations raised and of Canada’s involvement in the AIIB,” the Finance Minister told reporters.

The AIIB, seen by some as a Chinese rival to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, was founded in 2016 to finance railways and other infrastructure. It has 106 member governments, including most Asian countries, Australia, Canada, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. Neither Japan nor the United States are members.

The AIIB rejected Mr. Pickard’s criticism as “baseless and disappointing” and said it was proud of a staff representing 65 different nationalities.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa said the claims were “pure sensationalism and a complete lie.”

Mr. Pickard, who worked with the Beijing-based AIIB for 15 months, said on Twitter that resigning was his only option as a “patriotic Canadian” and complained that the bank was dominated by “Communist Party hacks” who were “like an in-house KGB, Gestapo, or Stasi,” the secret police of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and communist-era East Germany.

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