On June 19, Gu Bin, an associate professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University and an expert at China Forum under Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy, wrote a commentary for China Daily titled “Is Canada meddling in development bank’s affairs?”

The article responded to the recent claim of Bob Pickard, a Canadian national and former officer of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that he found the bank to be “dominated by Communist Party hacks,” and so he decided to resign and “high-tailed it.”

Pickard based his claims on the mere fact that there are many Communist Party of China members in the bank, which only proves how ignorant he is of China and how politically motivated his remarks were, wrote Gu Bin. The bank’s headquarters is in China, so it is natural that many of the bank’s employees should be Chinese, and natural as well that they should be Party members, for, as Pickard should know, the CPC has nearly 100 million members.

Gu also questioned the Canadian government’s attitude in the matter, which vowed a probe into Pickard’s allegations and threatened to take action against the bank. If Canada insists on interfering in the bank’s affairs and fails to fulfill its obligations, it will only hurt the country’s influence at the bank and its international reputation.

Read the article here: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202306/19/WS648fa22ea31033ad3f7bcf34.html