The Inter-American Development Bank has scrapped plans to hold its annual meeting in China next week after Beijing excluded the newly appointed board member from Venezuela chosen by opposition leader Juan Guaidó .
On Friday evening the IDB released a statement saying its directors had decided to change the location of its annual meetings with a recommendation to come within 30 days. The planned meeting between March 28 and March 31 in Chengdu, China, would “not be held”, it said.
The extraordinary cancellation of the annual meeting of a multilateral development bank a week before the gathering highlights the extent to which the IDB has been caught in the middle of the economic and strategic rivalry between Washington and Beijing. It reflects similar challenges for institutions ranging from the International Monetary Fund to the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.