A review of corporate documents reveals that Brookfield—the influential $900 billion Canadian investment fund from which Liberal Prime Minister-to-be Mark Carney stepped away from in order to replace Justin Trudeau as Canada’s leader—maintains over $3 billion in politically sensitive investments with Chinese state-linked real estate and energy companies, along with a substantial offshore banking presence. One of its major real estate ventures, a $750 million entry into high-end Shanghai commercial property in 2013, involved a Hong Kong tycoon affiliated with the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—which the CIA labels a central “united front” entity of Beijing.
The investment occurred while China’s real estate bubble was peaking. Last year, as China’s market crashed, and vacancies soared in Shanghai, Brookfield under Carney secured hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the Bank of China to refinance its Shanghai commercial land holdings. According to The Bureau’s research, this emergency loan came a decade after Carney, serving as Governor of the Bank of England, aided Beijing by facilitating the Bank of China’s expansion of its global financial footprint. In his 2013 speech, UK at the Heart of Renewed Globalisation, Carney announced that “The Bank of England [has] signed an agreement with the People’s Bank of China … Helping the internationalisation of the Renminbi is a global good.”
While Brookfield had already amassed well over three billion dollars in estimated investments and managed assets in China before Carney took the helm in 2020, research indicates that he played a role in expanding the firm’s footprint there. This included refinancing its 2019 acquisition of Shanghai commercial real estate—initially valued at approximately CAD $2 billion at the peak of China’s real estate bubble—though its actual worth was likely significantly lower when Brookfield secured nearly $300 million at four percent interest from the Bank of China last year.
Given that his history of deep investment in China—if not his holdings, reportedly now placed in a blind trust—could potentially color Carney’s plans for Canada, these developments are especially notable as a trade war between the United States and Beijing escalates.
Carney and his cabinet members will be sworn in at 11 a.m. this morning at Rideau Hall, the Governor General’s official residence. The timing of Carney’s appointment as prime minister adds urgency to ongoing questions about potential conflicts of interest, with matters further complicated by reports that his first international meeting will be with European leaders next week—who are themselves grappling with sweeping tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration.
Brookfield’s substantial investments in China—directly or indirectly involving state-linked entities—include hundreds of millions in renewable energy assets acquired through TerraForm Global in 2017, a $750 million real estate stake in China Xintiandi since 2013, a 2019 Shanghai land purchase valued at approximately $2 billion, a $100 million joint venture with GLP for solar projects launched in 2018, and reported plans to raise hundreds of millions more in both real estate and China green sector investments.
Hellbound and Down 