Two scientists in Canada passed secrets to China, an investigation shows
Two scientists working at Canada’s top microbiology laboratory passed classified scientific information to China, and one of them posed a “real and credible threat to Canada’s economic security,” national intelligence documents and a security investigation show .
The hundreds of pages of reports on the two researchers, Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, who were married and born in China, were released to the House of Commons late on Wednesday following a national security investigation by a special parliamentary committee and a panel of three pensioners. higher judges.
Canadian officials, who have warned that the country’s academic and research institutions are being targeted by Chinese intelligence campaigns, have tightened rules around cooperation with foreign universities. Canadian universities can now be excluded from federal funding if they partner with one of these universities 100 settings in China, Russia and Iran.
The release of the documents was the subject of a lengthy debate in Parliament that began before the last federal election in September 2021. Opposition parties asked to see the documents at least four times, saying the Liberal government was in contempt of Parliament in 2021. The government filed a lawsuit in an attempt to keep the data hidden, but dropped it when the vote was called.
The release comes as the country conducts a judge-led special investigation into allegations that China and other foreign countries meddled in Canadian elections and political parties. Some political opponents of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have charged that his government has failed to adequately respond to Chinese interference in Canadian affairs.
But Mark Holland, Canada’s federal health minister, told reporters late Wednesday that “at no time did national secrets or information that threatened the security of Canada leave the laboratory.”
The couple were escorted from their laboratories at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the summer of 2019 and later stripped of their security clearances. They were fired in January 2021.
The same year, the government released heavily redacted documents about their dismissals, sparking a battle with opposition parties who demanded more details about the security breach.
The large cache of newly released documents, which contain significantly fewer redactions, provide more details about the scientists’ illicit collaboration and information exchanges with Chinese institutions. The documents also showed that Dr. Qui had not disclosed any formal agreements with Chinese agencies in which a Chinese institution agreed to pay significant amounts of research funding. It was also agreed to pay her an annual salary of 210,000 Canadian dollars (approximately $155,000).
The couple could not be located and they appeared to have no apparent local representatives. Some Canadian news media have reported, citing undisclosed sources, that they moved to China after being fired. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police opened a criminal investigation in 2021, but its status is unclear and no charges have been filed.
The documents released Wednesday did not contain a general response from the couple. But this shows that Dr. Qui repeatedly said during questioning by investigators that she was unaware that she had violated safety rules, blamed the health department for not fully explaining procedures and often tried to mislead investigators until confronted with conflicting evidence.
In a letter to Dr. Qui told the public health department that she “expressed no remorse or remorse. You have not accepted responsibility for your actions and have shifted the blame to PHAC.” It added that she showed “no sign of corrective behavior, rehabilitation or desire for resolution of the situation.”
Canadian Security Intelligence also discovered that Dr. Qiu repeatedly misrepresented her ties to researchers and organizations in China, relationships she described as “close and clandestine.”
In a classified report, the intelligence community said that when asked about her exchanges with scientists and organizations in China, she “continued to make blanket denials, feign ignorance or tell outright lies.”
An internal investigation report from the Public Health Agency of Canada, which includes the laboratory, shows that the couple came under suspicion in 2018, when Dr. Qiu was named as an inventor under a patent granted in China that appeared to use research developed by the agency. for an Ebola vaccine.
That revelation in turn suggested that the couple had engaged in several safety violations at the laboratory, parts of which are designed for research on the world’s most deadly microbes, including microbes that could be used for biological warfare.
These breaches include attempts by graduate students of Dr. Qiu at the University of Manitoba, all of whom were Chinese nationals, to remove materials from the laboratory and be allowed to roam the facility unescorted.
In one episode, X-rays revealed that a package sent for Dr. Cheng had delivered to the laboratory – and labeled “kitchen utensils” – vials contained mouse proteins. The discovery underlined that Dr. Cheng had violated protocols, according to the documents.
An intelligence investigation revealed that Dr. Qiu had a formal agreement with Heibei Medical University to work on a “talent program,” something it described as a project “to enhance China’s national technological capabilities.”
A report documenting the investigation added that it “could pose a serious threat to research institutions, including government research facilities, by encouraging economic espionage.” That agreement promised about 1.2 million Canadian dollars (about $884,000) in research funding. The agency said the couple did not disclose, as required, that they had a bank account in China.
Dr. Qiu, the intelligence agency said, also had a resume she used only in China that showed she was a visiting professor at three Chinese health research institutes and a visiting researcher at a fourth.
What information Dr. Exactly what Qiu provided to China and how China may have used it is not clear from the internal investigation or intelligence reports.
The intelligence agency said many of the institutions it worked with were investigating “potentially lethal military applications.” When Dr. Asked as part of an internal investigation into the possible military applications of her work, Qiu said the idea had not occurred to her, the documents show.
The internal investigation revealed that a trip that Dr. Qiu to Beijing in 2018 was paid by a Chinese biotechnology company.
Mr Holland said the laboratory’s management had shown an “insufficient understanding of the threat of foreign interference.”
He added: “I believe there were serious efforts made to adhere to that policy, but not with the rigor that was required.”
In a statement, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the Chinese government and its agencies, “including the People’s Liberation Army, were allowed to infiltrate Canada’s top laboratory.” The statement added, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China: “They were able to transfer sensitive intellectual property and dangerous pathogens to the People’s Republic of China.”
Vjosa Isai contributed reporting from Toronto.