This week the news brings us a subject that we don’t talk about much, but which I think is important, and which I have therefore been following quite closely for several years. To introduce it to you, I offer you an enlightening anecdote. She is very well known in this complex and disturbing case.
Charles M. Lieber of Harvard University is one of the world’s leading chemists and nanotechnologies. His numerous publications and patents make him the ideal candidate for a Nobel Prize. He reportedly received more than $15 million in research funds from the U.S. Department of Defense. Mr. Lieber, however, is no longer at Harvard. Last April, he was sentenced to two years of supervised release, including six months of home confinement, in addition to a fine of $50,000 and another of US$33,600, this one in compensation to the American tax authorities.
From 2012 to 2017, he participated in the “1000 talents” program. It is said that he received $50,000 per month for this, in addition to generous sums to open a laboratory. Or so ? In Wuhan, China, where this program originated. Not having informed either his university or the IRS got him into trouble, but also suspicions of questionable knowledge sharing — the contract linking him to Wuhan University concerned the development of high-performance batteries for electric vehicles, an area of strong industrial competition.
China, science and technology, no more possible espionage. Here we are.
And with us?
This week, the federal government decreed that more than 100 research institutes (mostly Chinese, but also Iranian and Russian) “pose a risk to national security” and, as a result, no grants will be awarded for research in a field of so-called sensitive technologies — artificial intelligence, big data technology, quantum science, aerospace and satellite systems — if they are affiliated with one of these institutes.
This decision comes after a long series of disturbing events in the United States and here, but also in many other countries, events most often involving China and typically involving research, universities, espionage and national security. Examples ? Here it is.
Citing national security, the Quebec government bans Chinese surveillance cameras, but the companies concerned (Hikvision and Dahua) are currently seeking to circumvent this ban.
McGill and Concordia universities, it is claimed, “have been collaborating for five years on hundreds of research projects with a Chinese military school responsible for developing advanced weapons for Beijing.” The University of Montreal is not to be outdone, and after an investigation revealed a partnership dating from 2019, it has just distanced itself from one of the most important military universities of the Chinese communist regime.
A Chinese national employed by Hydro-Québec and who worked on batteries for electric vehicles is accused of spying for a Chinese university and research centers.
Let’s stop there, but without forgetting that China allegedly interfered in the federal elections in 2021, which is denied by a report from an organization… which received, “with the University of Montreal, a million dollars from rich businessmen with ties to the Chinese regime.”
We will agree: this is a very big file. Here I will content myself with saying a word on the delicate question of scientific knowledge, research and universities.
Science against dictatorships
The first thing to highlight is the fabulous and very recent explosion of science in China, which is now at the top of the podiums in publications and patents, particularly in cutting-edge sectors. With it, unfortunately, an explosion of ethical violations, fraud and plagiarism, often denounced in prestigious journals.
Universities should guarantee protection against these violations and frauds, but they poorly exercise their role as guardians of knowledge if they are subject to an all-powerful state like the People’s Republic of China. But also if they act more and more like businesses.
There are reasons to worry if these two dictatorships combine: there is something more serious, if possible. Because if scientific research produces knowledge, this often has technical applications of all kinds, some undeniably beneficial (medicines, etc.), others harmful (weapons, etc.).
Research is presumed to be free and disinterested, and the dissemination of the knowledge it discovers is not only desirable, but is even an integral part of its discovery, of which it is one of the conditions: it is for this reason that the works are read, discussed, criticized. But this system is currently being undermined by — to name just a few — the self-interested financing of research, ideologies and article factories.
For apps, it’s yet another story. Everyone has known this since at least the explosion of the first atomic bomb. And I fear that we are facing a new and dangerous turning point.
Deciding what to do then is the dilemma faced by the people who made the decision reported at the beginning of this article.