Part Two

Written by: Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba

In the previous article on the racial and political persecution of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and Dr. Keding Cheng, The Canada Files showed that CSIS, in the entire 600-page report, never presented even a shred of evidence to support their claims. The reason why? Dr. Xiangguo Qiu is ineligible for the Chinese program she’s accused of participating in.

The smears against Dr. Qiu and Dr. Keding’s character are rooted in a vicious campaign to cover up the PHAC’s racism towards them, to incite anti-Asian, anti-China sentiment. The negative impact that this unjust smear campaign will have on international scientific cooperation in the future is untold. However, despite the allegation that China ‘steals technology’, the plurality of patent applications around the world actually come from the Chinese, so the harm that will be done to the health sector will be significant.

Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng’s rebuttals of CSIS smears on their character

Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng were both maliciously portrayed in the CSIS assessment of their characters as dishonest and underhanded (Page 131 and Pages 140-142). They were also smeared as unprofessional and untrustworthy, and eager to take shortcuts and skip protocols for their own benefit. Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng defended themselves frequently against this characterisation, and could back up their claims with tangible facts.

For example, after CSIS noted claims from Dr. Cheng that it was common to use regular email for communications, Dr. Cheng backed up the claim with a screenshot of his superiors using regular emails as well (Pages 209-211). Moreover, when Dr. Qiu was maliciously accused of cooperating with the Chinese military without following the proper protocols, she showcased a clear example of when her own superiors promoted the collaborative project publicly in the Canadian press, on July 17, 2019 (Page 195).

Ineligibility for The “Top Talent” programs

In the report, CSIS accused Dr. Xiangguo Qiu of participating in the “Thousand Talents Program” and of hiding around a million to multiple millions of renminbi in foreign Chinese accounts, paid to her as “compensation” for acting as a Chinese spy (Pages 112-119). The claim is meant to both smear Dr. Qiu as a dishonest person and to smear China as a disingenuous and “corrupt” society.

The “Thousand Talents” program, that Dr. Qiu is alleged to have been enrolled in while working for PHAC at the NML, still has its criteria publicly listed on the website, and the criteria hasn’t changed to this day. The program was launched in 2009, about eight years before Dr. Qiu was alleged to have been enrolled in the program (Page 113). What’s guaranteed to make her ineligible for this program is the alma mater requirement. The applicant needs to have graduated from an ivy league school outside of China. Dr. Qiu graduated from her doctorate program in 1985 at Tianjin Medical Laboratory in China. Therefore, she’s already ineligible on that basis.

It’s also unclear if Qiu met the age requirement for the program. A TTP applicant cannot exceed the age of 55 at the time of the application. The Canada Files could not find a publicly available date of birth for Dr. Qiu, which had a source backing it up. Dr. Xiangguo Qiu mentioned in the interrogation that she lost interest in any application to the program after learning of the age restriction (Page 128).

The allegation of handing “secrets” and “technology” over to China’s PLA

The general smear of malicious cooperation with the Chinese military was easily refuted by the fact that open cooperation with National labs in China always involved military personnel, as admitted by CSIS themselves in the report (Page 120), because fighting off pathogens and bio-weapon warfare from the United States is a natural national security issue, (as China and the DPRK experienced throughout the Korean War – which Canada helped make possible). Therefore, there are always going to be military scientists at national labs in China. Cooperation with the military in that case was inevitable, and was approved by PHAC themselves, particularly in the case of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Page 112).

Considering these facts, Chinese military personnel would inevitably be involved in exchanges with the National Microbiology Lab in Canada. Fully aware of this fact, and fully aware of the fact that extensive and drawn out security checks would delay and unnecessarily hinder scientific cooperation, a fast track Reliability Status clearance was issued (3:21-3:25) as a process to make things easier for cooperation within the lab.

Moreover, while allowed at the NML, the Restricted Visitor was also issued a Visa without any national security concern at Canadian Customs, while using a Chinese Service Passport (Pages 123-124) for public employees and military personnel. Moreover, the Leadership of PHAC themselves approved the visitor after getting a report from CSIS, as was admitted to by David Vigneault during the April 8, 2024 Committee hearing on Canada-PRC Relations (20:34:07-20:35:25). This is because despite all of the propaganda and nonsense on colonial media, Chinese Military Personnel are not actually a serious threat to Canada, its ingenuity, or its technological potential, nor is China threatening to impede Canada in these areas, and Canada knows it.

“Patents in China are often very inconsequential. But many Universities give bonuses for every patent. So they apply for a lot of patents. You know, patents are public. If it’s secret military stuff, you don’t patent it.”

Dr. Francois Ouellette, PhD Physics, Université Laval

“Great Democratic” Dishonesty

“Sharing this, is it intellectual property? Really? Are you breaching the intellectual property because you are saying ‘Well you know on our side the way we decontaminate this material is ABCD. How do you do it on your side?’”

Professor Gary Kobinger, Director, Galveston National Laboratory, University of Texas, during an interview in June 2021 with CBC (1:50-2:06)

After ruining the lives of two accomplished scientists, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and Dr. Keding Cheng, by racially and politically persecuting them, CSIS, in conspiracy with the House of Commons and PHAC, added insult to injury by smearing them publicly with this nonsense 600-page report. Naturally, the toxic political environment forced them to flee to China, and even that was used against them by the colonial press.

When it comes to international scientific cooperation with China, particularly in the field of biomedical sciences, the well has been irreparably poisoned. Nevermind that Canada’s foreign policy has ensured it’s impossible to cooperate with Russian and Iranian scientists, despite Russia and Iran’s remarkable feats in science, which Canada could benefit from if the colonial mentality was simply abandoned. The toxic and racist treatment towards Chinese Canadian scientists, will now close possibilities there as well.

Editor’s note: The Canada Files is the country's only news outlet focused on Canadian foreign policy. We've provided critical investigations & hard-hitting analysis on Canadian foreign policy since 2019, and need your support.

Please consider joining 86 consistent financial supporters, in setting up a monthly or annual donation through Donorbox.

Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba (formerly referred to as Christian Shingiro) is a Rwandan-born naturalized Canadian expat. He is known for his participation in Communist/anti-imperialist national and international politics and is the radio show host of The Socially Radical Guitarist.

He is also a freelance web developer in Hong Kong, China, striving to provide “Socially Radical Web Design at a socially reasonable price”.

More Articles

Featured