Experts call on Canadian universities to close off China's access to sensitive research

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Experts call on Canadian universities to close off China's access to sensitive research

The U.S. State Department revealed last week that, over the past three months, it has expelled more than a thousand Chinese "high-risk graduate students and research scholars" who were working at American universities.To get more China breaking news, you can visit shine news official website.

The State Department said their visas were revoked under Presidential Proclamation 10043, issued by President Donald Trump at the end of May to counter "a wide‑ranging and heavily resourced campaign to acquire sensitive United States technologies and intellectual property, in part to bolster the modernization and capability of its military, the People's Liberation Army."

The individuals whose visas were revoked represent only a small fraction of the 370,000 Chinese nationals studying in the U.S. — and a big escalation in Washington's conflict with China over the control of the world's most coveted technologies.

Washington is not alone in suggesting that the Chinese military has encouraged or even enlisted academics to collaborate with counterparts in the West, in person or remotely, while masking their affiliations with the People's Liberation Army [PLA] or its institutes of learning, such as the National University of Defence Technology.

In Canada, the Commons Committee on Canada-China Relations heard similar allegations in testimony in the weeks leading up to prorogation — including the claim that some of the core technology behind China's surveillance network was developed in Canadian universities.

In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald documented a startling array of projects which saw Australian scientists collaborate with Chinese universities to carry out military research beneficial to the PLA — some of it funded by Australian taxpayers. Much of that research found its way into new Chinese weapons systems or the surveillance networks employed by the Chinese regime, the Herald said.In 2018, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute published a study that looked at the number of peer-reviewed papers co-authored by PLA scientists and overseas researchers. It found that universities in Australia and Singapore had the highest level of collaboration.

But three Canadian universities also made the top ten ranking: the University of Toronto (10th place), McGill University (9th), and the University of Waterloo (4th).

There were just over 140,000 Chinese nationals studying in Canada before the pandemic hit. Waterloo's vice-president of research Charmaine Dean said her university's focus on science and engineering makes it naturally attractive to Chinese researchers, citing artificial intelligence and robotics as two areas of particularly strong cooperation.

She said science — not geopolitics — is front of mind for Waterloo researchers. "Individuals tend to work with other researchers that are brilliant around the world in order to advance an area," she said.

Dean is one of a group of research VPs from Canada's 15 main research universities who have met with officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to discuss their work with Chinese counterparts.