Membership in Asian Infrastructure Bank Has No ‘Tangible Benefit’ for Canada, Says Former Executive

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) building in Beijing, China, on Jan. 13, 2016. (VCG via Getty Images)

The former director general of global communications for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) said Canada’s membership in the AIIB is inconsistent with its values and does not benefit the country.

“I didn’t find a single tangible benefit to communicate back home here to Canada of what this bank does that is consistent with our values in a way that would benefit Canadians,” Bob Pickard told CBC host David Cochrane in an interview on June 19.

“All we’re doing with our membership in this bank is we’re making China look good as a country able to do multilateralism. We are effectively supporting the Chinese image campaign to show that they are ready to assume world leadership and, frankly, I don’t think that’s the country that we should support, especially in the current political environment.”

Pickard, who joined the organization in March 2022, announced his resignation from the AIIB on June 14, saying the bank is “dominated by [Chinese] Communist Party members,” and had “one of the most toxic cultures imaginable.” The same day, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada would cease all activity with the AIIB and launch a review of Pickard’s allegations.

The AIIB, China’s multilateral development bank rivalling the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, was created to improve social and economic outcomes in Asia through the financing of key infrastructure. Canada became a member of the AIIB back in 2017, allocating $256 million to purchase shares in the bank.

The AIIB said in a press release on June 14 that Pickard’s comments about its leadership were “baseless and disappointing,” and that it was proud of its multilateral mission alongside 106 member countries.

‘I Increasingly Felt Clammy’

During his interview with CBC News, Pickard said there had been a “real violation of governance expectations in the AIIB,” and he had become increasingly alarmed as he found the messages he was communicating to stakeholders were “not the correct ones that match the reality of the organization.”

Pickard said while his role was to help improve the bank’s image as a “genuine” multinational and multilateral institution, he soon found that it had “more in common with being a Chinese bank than I had hoped for.”

“I felt increasingly clammy. I thought I was going to Beijing to fix an image problem and create an accurate impression. But it turns out that the reality is [not] the impression that I was going to try to create. So this, for a public relations guy, is an unconscionable and unsustainable situation,” he said.

Pickard said that shortly after joining the AIIB, he became aware that the president’s office was made up of Chinese Communist Party members with the goal of ensuring the bank’s priorities aligned with that of the regime. He referred to it as a “subterranean collection of influential insiders” that exercise control over the organization’s decisions. He said this should not happen with an independent, multilateral organization.

“Anybody who’s worked there for more than a few months knows who the [Chinese Communist] Party people are. And when I joined the bank, I was told ‘This is a Party person, that’s a Party person, and don’t cross the Party.’”

Pickard also said that during a conversation with AIIB president Jin Liqun about his decision not to visit Canada while on his way to the United States for the World Bank Group meeting, the president expressed indifference to Canada’s role in AIIB.

“He said, ‘It’d be very disappointing if Canada doesn’t join, but it’s a small country, we can move on,'” he said. “That did not impress me at this time. It was just something that we should be aware of. China has a habit of letting people know where those countries stand in the hierarchy of the world.”