There is widespread concern about interference and influence by the Chinese Communist Party in Canadian academia. The University of Alberta has nearly 100 collaborative projects with Chinese institutions, and the Canadian Minister of Innovation and Technology and intelligence experts have warned that the Chinese Communist Party may be using this to steal research results; on the other hand, Li Zheng, director of the Confucius Institute at Carleton University, told a parliamentary hearing that the Chinese Communist Party is not involved in the operation of the Confucius Institute, but he did not answer questions about the Dalai Lama, the Tiananmen Square incident, or China’s human rights issues. He avoided answering questions about the Dalai Lama, the Tiananmen Square incident, and human rights in China.
While some Canadian universities and school boards have terminated their partnerships with Confucius Institutes, some continue to operate, including the Confucius Institute at Carleton University in Ottawa, whose director, Justin Li, admitted during a hearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Canada-China Relations that the Confucius Institute is funded by China, but that China He did not have to report any information to China and had no relationship with China in deciding the recruitment process, but only followed the instructions of Carleton University.
File photo: Li Changchun, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, attends the opening ceremony of the Confucius Institute at Carleton University in Ottawa, April 19, 2012. (Public Domain)
But MP Garnett Genius asked Li Zheng at the hearing whether he would attend a welcome reception if Carleton University invited the Dalai Lama to visit. Lee said, “I’m not in a position to answer that question, and I don’t have sufficient knowledge of that hypothetical question.”
Ginus pursued the question, “I’m not sure what you mean by knowledge? Is it that you don’t know this famous figure? You said the main purpose of the Confucius Institute is to promote exchange and dialogue, so what would you do if the university invited the Dalai Lama to come?” Li Zheng only responded that we will talk about it then!
Ginus then asked Li Zheng, who was in Beijing on June 4, 1989, whether the Chinese government had killed as many as 2,500 protesting students in Tiananmen Square, and whether the government had acted wrongly. incident, I was in Beijing, but no friends were victimized, and it was an unfortunate incident.”
Other members of Congress asked him if certain individuals, such as Falun Gong practitioners, could not be hired by the Confucius Institute. Li Zheng remained evasive.
Canadian intelligence officials have not only warned that the Chinese government is using Confucius Institutes to influence and infiltrate Canada, but have also mentioned that the Chinese Communist Party is stealing intellectual property through academic cooperation with Canadian universities in order to enhance its own technological and military power.
Canada’s Globe and Mail named among them the University of Alberta, which has deep ties to China and has collaborated on more than 90 projects with at least 50 Chinese national laboratories since 2005. Many of these projects involve the commercialization of Canadian-developed technologies, but with China in control, which means that Canadian money, talent and technology are invariably easily accessible to China.
It’s very dangerous,” said Scott Simon, a professor at the University of Ottawa, “for the Chinese to say they own 60 per cent and Canada owns 40 per cent, so they control everything, when we’re talking about biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and other sophisticated technologies. The university is largely funded by the provinces, so we need the provincial governments to come up with something to monitor.”
The Alberta government has expressed concern about the university’s dynamic, acknowledging that it is detrimental to the national interest, and has vowed to take action to limit some of the University of Alberta’s strategically important technology collaborations with China.
In March, Canadian Minister of Innovation and Technology François-Philippe Champagne announced that Ottawa was requiring universities to develop new risk guidelines to include national security considerations in the evaluation and funding of research projects.
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