Commons intelligence committee questions Danny Alexander's role with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

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From this morning's Guardian:

David Cameron’s appointment as vice-chair of the £1bn China-UK investment fund and Sir Danny Alexander’s appointment as vice-president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank [AIIB] were in part engineered by the Chinese state, parliament’s intelligence and security committee found.

Their appointment was to lend credibility to Chinese investment as well as the broader Chinese brand, according to confidential evidence given to the intelligence watchdog.

The report goes on to quote the evidence to the committee of Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong:

"I think they [China] probably think we are not entirely reliable useful idiots … I think they regard us as an economic opportunity and as an opportunity to, through elite capture, through the cultivation of useful idiots, through playing on things like the ‘golden age’ of British-China relations, getting us by and large corralled into doing the sort of things they would like us to do."

And it reminds us that, despite opposition from Washington, the UK played a big part in the creation of the AIIB. Good relations with China were seen as a particular enthusiasm of George Osborne.

Danny Alexander was appointed to a role with it after losing his seat at the 2015 general election. 

At the time this was attributed to the influence of Osborne, whose number two Alexander had been at the Treasury under the Coalition. I was reminded of a younger son being sent out to the Empire to make his fortune.

The Guardian also mentions the dramatic resignation last month of the AIIB's global communications chief Bob Pickard. He said on Twitter at the time.

The bank is dominated by Communist party members and also has one of the most toxic cultures imaginable. I don’t believe that my country’s interests are served by its AIIB membership.

Happy to be gone from that cesspool. The Communist party hacks hold the cards at the bank. They deal with some board members as useful idiots. I believe that my government should not be a member of this PRC [Chinese] instrument. The reality of power in the bank is that it’s CCP from start to finish.

Danny Alexander was quoted by Reuters as saying Pickard's allegations that the Chinese Communist Party has undue influence on the bank "are without any foundation whatsoever".

You can read the intelligence and security committee press release about its new China report online, but the full report does not seem to be on its website yet.