Canada's knee-jerk retreat from China bank shows divided world in wake of trade war

financialpost.com:

A single tweet alleging Communist Party interference was all it took for Canada to freeze ties with a China-led development bank this week. The question now is whether the United States and other allies will join Canada — and would Beijing even care?

The controversy over the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank began June 14, when Bob Pickard — its former global head of communications — declared on Twitter that he was quitting his job because the lender was “dominated by Communist Party members and also has one of the most toxic cultures imaginable.” Within hours, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced Canada would halt all activities with the bank while the government conducts a review.

The AIIB quickly denied the claims, with vice president and corporate secretary Ludger Schuknecht telling Bloomberg the bank welcomed Canada’s review because “we have nothing to hide.” China called the whole thing a “a sensational publicity stunt and a complete lie.”

Canada’s reaction appears more about current tensions with China than the substance of the allegations, according to Jeremy Mark, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and a former speechwriter at the International Monetary Fund. A recent scandal over allegations of Chinese interference in domestic elections has gripped Canadian politics in recent weeks.

“Governments are going to be hesitant about following suit without a strong reason at this point,” Mark said. “Down the road, it would be interesting to see what happens. But for the moment, I suspect we would not see anything like a mass exodus of governments from the AIIB.”

Either way, the swift escalation of the incident shows the extent to which the world has become divided over