McGill and Concordia collaborate with a Chinese military school

Canadian universities have been collaborating on hundreds of research projects for five years with a Chinese military school charged with developing advanced weapons for Beijing, a new compilation reveals. The two English-speaking universities in Montreal are among the most active institutions in this area.

This is revealed by research carried out by the strategic intelligence firm Strider at the request of the Globe and Mail, which published the results on Monday. Strider is a company specializing in the collection and automated analysis of public data in a foreign language. Its clients include giants of the business world as well as government agencies.

The search identified all scientific papers published since 2017 by researchers from Canadian universities in partnership with colleagues from the National University of Defense Technology, a Chinese institution under the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China.

Strider has published a list of the 10 Canadian universities where researchers have the most ties with the Chinese military institute. The University of Waterloo leads the way, with 46 joint scientific papers over the past five years.

McGill University ranks third, with 25 papers during the same period, including some related to research on space lasers, hypersonic propulsion systems and satellite guidance of spacecraft.

In a summary of the paper available openly online, one of the Chinese researchers who collaborated with a McGill partner calls himself an expert in guided missile control.

Another Montreal institution, Concordia University, is in ninth place in the ranking established by Strider, with 19 joint scientific articles since 2017.

The National University of Defense Technology was founded in 1953. Former Chairman Mao Zedong had personally established the precepts of the establishment. Its researchers and graduates have distinguished themselves in particular in the development of the first Chinese intercontinental nuclear missiles, capable of striking major American cities, says the establishment’s website. They thus helped to “break the long monopoly of the United States, the Soviet Union and other superpowers on intercontinental strategic nuclear weapons”, underlines the establishment.

Former president of the institution Chen Geng had given impetus to the program, with a phrase that went down in history: “The weak get bullied and the weak get beaten. Since China has to develop its missiles on its own, let’s start with our generation! »

Greg Levesque, co-founder of Strider, says in an interview with The Press that all links between Canadian researchers and this institution are easy to find. “It’s not a linguistic challenge, in this case. The National University of Defense Technology is super well known, everyone knows what they do, they’ve been on the US export restriction list since the Obama administration, and the publications we’ve identified are in English,” he says.

The Canadian situation is similar to that of many countries that have courted China for a long time, underlines Mr. Levesque. His review on behalf of Globe and Mail was therefore not intended to present Canada as a more problematic case than others, he assures.

Important international collaborations

“Research is a global effort, and the Canadian research community strives to be as open as possible to global collaborations, while providing the security necessary to protect our national interests,” said Cynthia Lee, spokesperson from McGill University.

“Our researchers are recognized for their excellence, and they seek to partner with the best and brightest among them,” said Ms.^me Lee.

The university adds that it participated in discussions with the Canadian government that led to the adoption of the new national security guidelines for research partnerships in 2021.

“We strive for a balanced approach that promotes both the exchange of ideas, which is at the heart of research, and the importance of security issues. Academic collaborations are very often necessary for research activities, and systems are in place at Concordia to allow for open collaborations that also consider potential security aspects of research, including Canadian government national security guidelines. “says Vannina Maestracci, spokesperson for Concordia University.

The partnerships identified by the firm Strider are those that have led to official publications mentioning the names of the researchers. The research did not identify partnerships that would be hidden.

In 2018, The Press revealed that the FBI had identified McGill professor Ishiang Shih as a suspect in a case of stealing American microchip technologies for the benefit of China, with the aim of fueling Chinese research in several fields, including the military sector. The professor even used his laboratory at the university as part of his illicit activities, according to American investigators. Mr. Shih, who has since left McGill, has been contesting the search of his home by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in connection with this case for five years. He has not yet been tried in court.

Decoupling in court

During a briefing with The Press Before Christmas, officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) said they saw a growing awareness in academia about relations with China.

“We are seeing a lot of decoupling of universities from China,” said a CSIS official, who cannot be identified due to the top-secret nature of his work.

During its discussions with academia, CSIS has been accused on several occasions of racial profiling targeting researchers of Chinese origin. Canadian intelligence officers, however, replied that the threat they are concerned about comes from the government of the Chinese Communist Party, an authoritarian regime whose main victims are precisely the members of the Chinese community, here and elsewhere.