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academiac t1_j6l8wxe wrote

I'm curios, joint research with the military alone isn't a bad thing. Joint research with China ain't a bad thing either. But joint research with the "Chinese Military" is, however, problematic to say the least. Since it's behind a paywall, I have no idea what to expect. Can someone elaborate?

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Rexia2022 t1_j6l9do0 wrote

Everyone has been working with China for years. It was the right thing to do when China was opening up and giving more rights to it's citizens. Unfortunately Xi came along and put a stop to all that and now it's hard to divest from China.

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elshankar t1_j6l9i3z wrote

Replying to pinetreesgreen (#1,639,579)

It really depends on who you ask, people who would get in trouble for funding gain of function research say no, but many independent virologists say that we did indeed fund gain of function research in China.

The link you provided is talking about funding the pandemic virus, which isn't what the OP stated. Here's another article from factcheck.org that states we very likely did fund gain of function research:

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/05/the-wuhan-lab-and-the-gain-of-function-disagreement/

Go to the last 2 sections on gain of function and the ecohealth grant.

2

Cloudboy9001 t1_j6l9jus wrote

"Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, former executive vice-president of NSERC and now senior fellow at the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at the University of Ottawa, noted that the new security guidelines only cover federal grants and not individual academic research with China’s military. China offers a lot of money to Canadian researchers and universities to work with them, she said.

“The People’s Liberation Army is not our friend and we should not be partnering with them,” she said. “Any collaboration with the National University of Defence Technology is clearly going to a military purpose and Canadian researchers should be using their own personal ethical lens to decide not to move forward with that research.”

...

Dennis Molinaro, a national-security analyst and professor at Ontario Tech University, said “there is a lot of passing the buck” taking place on the subject of university research with China.

The universities say they need clarity from government on risks posed by their joint research. But CSIS, for instance, which gathers intelligence on foreign threats, is prevented from sharing specific details with Canadians – even with law enforcement unless it’s specifically for prosecution and regarding a criminal offence.

“Each are relying on the other to do the right thing, meaning the university wants to know what specific threat exists so it doesn’t curb academic freedom, and the intelligence sector wants the university to act on the basis of, in essence, ethics, that partnering with this kind of institution in the PRC is unethical,” Mr. Molinaro said.

He said the federal and provincial governments need clearer guidelines for academic partnerships and legislative reform to the CSIS Act that enables the spy service to talk more openly about threats that exist."

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1buzer t1_j6lacxu wrote

So we can also blame them for Covid?

−8

Current-Band569 t1_j6ladqz wrote

Wait, so what’s the problem with your neighbor working closely in a weapons related field with your adversary?

0

Liesthroughisteeth t1_j6lak0c wrote

>China offers a lot of money to Canadian researchers and universities to work with them, she said.

Came here to say this. It's pretty grim when everything is for sale in your country. Political influence, your land and housing, corporations and their IP and your natural resources.

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krectus t1_j6lance wrote

Ms. Fletcher said UBC recognizes the “global political landscape” has changed and the university is now aware “some research collaborations may pose potential national-security risks.

Oopsie.

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AlexJamesCook t1_j6lblcr wrote

Replying to Ric_FIair (#1,642,065)

If you think Canada is alone on this, I invite you to read up about the Confucius Institute, and how many universities in OECD countries have a Confucius Institute within their premises. You'll be disgusted by it.

EVERY developed nation was sold out to China by hedgies, capitalists and industrialists. Australia, USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, I could go on. China has been sending its students to universities around the world to gain military and non-military information.

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CrieDeCoeur t1_j6lfpet wrote

Anyone surprised by this should also look up Chinese money laundering via real estate, how we were so very late in shutting down the Huawei 5G deal, and so on. Trudeau has only very recently started to openly admonish the CCP, but that’s only because it’s been politically expedient for him to do so. Yes, other countries are entwined with the CCP but at least they’ve been actively extricating / divorcing themselves from those partnerships. Canada? Not as much and not nearly as quick.

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Y8ser t1_j6lg3nx wrote

Ya that bullshit needs to stop! They are not our ally in any way shape or form. There are ways to build a political relationship that don't open us up to possible national security breaches.

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JonA3531 t1_j6lik2z wrote

I think Canadians are the one gaining knowledge here.

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magnumopus44 t1_j6lipvv wrote

Replying to Rexia2022 (#1,641,582)

It was never the right thing to do and every one knew it. But everyone did it because of the money and cost savings were too good. But every one knew and they all muttered "this one will eventually come back and bite us but hopefully that is the next guys problem.

−1

Supercilious-420 t1_j6livn7 wrote

Replying to RonyTheTiger (#1,643,696)

Of course, but there is a difference between severing diplomatic ties and allowing problematic collaboration such as the example described in this article. That’s just the tip of the iceberg here in Canada when you look at the level of interference in Canadian business and politics, not to mention the police stations they have been running in violation of our sovereignty.

I am not anti-immigration by any means, and I do not have any bad feelings towards the Chinese people themselves, but the Chinese government is and has been awful for many decades.

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di11deux t1_j6lnds1 wrote

Replying to Cloudboy9001 (#1,641,631)

Universities are thirsty for big dollar research initiatives because it helps them boost their international rankings. On top of that, Deans have an inordinate amount of say in the direction their departments go, and with budget models that often incentivize departments to enroll more students and churn out more papers, the money speaks louder than the strategic plan the administrators laid out with no teeth. Administrators get to make the line go up, and Deans get the big ticket items for their departments.

Until there’s a specific government policy prohibiting research activity with certain actors, this behavior will continue.

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Torifyme12 t1_j6lom2y wrote

We really have the worst fucking allies. JFC canada.

−1

perkeleaf t1_j6lr2ke wrote

Replying to Cloudboy9001 (#1,641,631)

Relying on anyone to do anything because "ethics" is absolutely laughable. "Muh ethics" is what you resort to bleating when you have literally nothing else. As always, Canada is a fucking joke about national security.

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perkeleaf t1_j6lraxf wrote

Replying to Liesthroughisteeth (#1,641,943)

Our entire country and all its peoples are just pay-pigs for a number of very small cliques. Groceries, energy, telecomms, media, and more. Protectionism, they call it, as if putting a maple-flavoured condom on before fucking us all makes it any better.

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LickNipMcSkip t1_j6lt0wp wrote

Replying to Rexia2022 (#1,641,582)

Not that Jiang Zemin was any better 30 years ago, being the architect of mass organ harvesting among other atrocities . It's just that citizens of the West have become more aware of China since Xi's rise.

−2

cesiuum t1_j6lwqs3 wrote

You would think security and intelligence agencies within Canada would actually stay close to this. I mean, these sort of "joint research" obviously will leak important results to China, right?

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Zestyclose-Soup-9578 t1_j6lyr7u wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#1,643,778)

>(less regulations).

>Yes less regulations and I know for a fact

Then you should know the regulations of the country of origin doesn't matter. If they want to sell to the US, Japan, or EU they'll need to meet regulatory standards. It's pretty tough for a pharmaceutical to be profitable if it's not available to ICH compliant countries.

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SuperRedShrimplet t1_j6m2gsp wrote

Replying to di11deux (#1,646,094)

At the risk of being branded a commie, this is what happens when countries progressively privatise higher education. The institutions stray more away from what's best for students and just chase the $$. My father was a university professor before he retired and he lamented that this even applied to research which were increasingly becoming less theoretical and more designed to achieve short term practical application, which is short sighted because it's the more theoretical research that churns out the bigger leaps in scientific understanding in the long term.

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Lawjarp2 t1_j6m2r9k wrote

They were on the brink of finding a Hammer and sickle shaped maple leaf.

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Hungry_Bat_2230 t1_j6m2rbi wrote

Replying to Professional-Ebb4970 (#1,642,739)

Things created by DARPA - the R&D branch of the US military:

  • the building blocks of GPS
  • the 1st computer mouse and Graphical user interface (GUI)
  • the protocols that underpin the modern Internet
  • Onion routing / Tor network - used by dissidents and journalists to circumvent censorship
  • The mRNA platform used in the world's leading Covid-19 vaccines (and potentially 1st vaccines against Cancer)
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Norseviking4 t1_j6m7vbq wrote

Probably a good idea to not cooperate with authoritarian dictatorships as a country in the west?

China wants to replace the US as Hegemon, how do we think that will go for global peace and stability...

Fuck China, fuck Russia, Iran, North Korea and all of the places that align with them The liberal world needs to understand we are in an ideological war vs autocracy/authoritarianism.

−4

MagosBiologis t1_j6m7yhq wrote

Replying to SuperRedShrimplet (#1,650,425)

> At the risk of being branded a commie, this is what happens when countries progressively privatise higher education.

Lol on the contrary, this short-sighted privatisation is how Canada ended up with actually communist police stations and military researchers.

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BishopFarnsworth t1_j6mbpcv wrote

oh yeah...because canada has so many good secrets,i mean god forbid their secret recipes to poutine or maple syrup leaked!!!

1

Gluske t1_j6mcltm wrote

Buy them out with your own grants then. The modern academic model is clear in the absence of funding: publish or perish. If you can't get money you can't publish. If someone else provides it then researchers will take it.

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netflixissodry t1_j6mhn30 wrote

Guarantee Canada elects a CCP stooge who curiously speaks fluent mandarin within the next 20 years.

0

harder_said_hodor t1_j6mhp5s wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#1,653,106)

>They never ask themselves that if Deng was such a genuine reformist, then how the hell did things become so much more conservative with Xi?

Are you suggesting Hu wasn't a genuine reformist?

All of the leaders have some kind of blood on their hands, but the run from Deng to Hu was promising. It's a massive shame what has happened in China

2

AlpaKabam t1_j6mhpmb wrote

Well, Justin made it clear that he admires China's government, so I'm not surprised they have connections in uni too. How low have you fallen Canada, I used to think it was such a nice place...

0

Saewelo1 t1_j6mndll wrote

Lovely. The CCP with the eyes and ears inside our beat university labs.

1

Eaglejelly t1_j6mnsgo wrote

I did a lot of joint research when I was in college. I just couldn't get much done because I was stoned all the time

0

bananafor t1_j6mqr8h wrote

Canadian research was offered to China for a joint project on a Chinese vaccine. Then the results were never sent back to Canada for testing as agreed.

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Yooklid t1_j6mqt6h wrote

In 1997 my lab supervisor in Dublin was approached by friendly Chinese people interested in his research and were offering to fund it. This has been going on a long time and is not limited to Canada

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YeetTheeFetus t1_j6ms1fs wrote

Replying to SuperRedShrimplet (#1,650,425)

DARPA money is no joke. You can go from using a 30 year old instrument that only takes zip drives and floppy disks for data transfers to brand new everything. I don't agree with taking money from military sources, but I get why people do it. There would be fewer people willing to work with any military if research as a whole wasn't so underfunded.

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seinera t1_j6mtdd0 wrote

Replying to SuperRedShrimplet (#1,650,425)

> At the risk of being branded a commie, this is what happens when countries progressively privatise higher education.

Private higher education is still better in every way. It's only that just like every other application of free market, there needs to be some amount of government regulation.

The main problem is that the western nations have been sleeping at the wheel for a while now, embracing oikophobia as a moral good, they have forgotten enemies exist and how to deal with them. Some countries just need to be blanket banned from having access to anything western, no matter how "xenophobic" it might make academics feel.

−5

CatProgrammer t1_j6mttnz wrote

Replying to YeetTheeFetus (#1,657,605)

There's a lot of money you can get that doesn't even have to be spent on actual military or classified stuff, too. The US military funds a ton of basic, public research. Personally I think if you're able to get the military to give you money for that sort of stuff, more power to you.

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DrSeuss19 t1_j6n3o3a wrote

Canada what exactly is your purpose?

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lilaprilshowers t1_j6n52m7 wrote

Replying to YeetTheeFetus (#1,657,605)

People really think DARPA is all about the money at is thrown at it, but they overlook how DARPA technology actually gets integrated into the civilian market. You've all heard, "technology X can do anything except leave the laboratory." But manufacturers can sell technology to the military at much higher prices then they can to civilians. So manufacturers work out the kinks in their processes while selling to the military then they have a product they can actually sell at a scale to make a profit. The UK's biotech industry works a lot of the same way, with the NHS being pipeline for cutting edge technology to be supplied to the masses.

4

Bhxtwy t1_j6n70w5 wrote

Replying to krectus (#1,641,973)

That’s just a lie to control negative press. Anyone with a brain has known China was a national security threat to western countries for well over a decade. Only now is it becoming impossible to look the other way.

0

Minoltah t1_j6n72a3 wrote

Replying to harder_said_hodor (#1,654,445)

Promising for what? Hu is regarded as a soft negotiator/messenger in global diplomacy - a strategy which Xi strongly rejected with unfriendly countries but which really backfired or failed to achieve full wconomic effect. Hu was very popular among non-political people because he was quiet.

He however was even more economically conservative than Deng and also orchestrated the violent repression of Tibet and legislated the threat to attack an independent Taiwan.

What is there to suggest to you that either of these people were nice or good people?

A 'reform' in China is not a progressive policy and everything is done in the framework of having a viable and more importantly, stable and secure socialist dictatorship.

Their 'reforms' are things like "perfect goal, poor execution. We'll torture people differently this time to achieve a better result".

China has been winning the global propaganda war that puts China in a very fair, free and positive light especially among developing countries and in Africa.

I really can't recall any instance of Hu being seen as a particularly strong leader and certainly nothing as an economic/social reformist that hoped to radically change his society. He reformed things in order to reduce corruption and party fighting. I'm not really sure what kind of reforms you are hinting at that are not anything outside of the norm of all Chinese leaders. Hu was an administrative reformist but socially repressive and economically concervative and was just in general a very cautious leader. If he has a reputation as an economic and social progressive reformist now - which I don't believe he does - then that is nothing but a new propaganda. I suppose it helps when a leader is long-gone from the role that the party paints them in a more positive light so people don't become bitter, but learn to remember that every leader was actually good for them in the end.

China doesn't want to "open up" economically. They want to get rich quick and capitalism is the way to do it. Many industries overproduced so why shouldn't they be exporting their surplus product? It's also useful for promoting new technologies which allows creative people access to reverse engineer them and think about domestic innovation.

Many industries have timeframes to become independent of reliance on other countries. The long, long-term goal is Autarky because trade is one area where the U.S has them by the balls if they go starting a conflict with Taiwan or India.

The USSR was more or less closed to trade and look at the quality of their industry and domestic products as a result - the quality is even lower than what it was in the 1970s. If it wasn't for all the technology and people stolen from the DDR, modern Russia would be even worse off. Of course China doesn't want to remain that isolated. It wasn't working for them. They promote trade and international education and suddenly their technology and quality of life greatly leaps forward at a rapid pace. Xi is trying to reign that in so that these advanced products don't need to be imported, otherwise they lose all of their educated talent and just back to square 1 because importing is the path of least resistance but it can also be an economic opium.

1

silverandcopperman t1_j6n7pij wrote

Strange there's no boycott of Chinese intellectuals despite their government putting Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps, or seizing islands belonging to Philippines or Vietnam

−1

RushingTech t1_j6nfnv1 wrote

Replying to Acromegalic (#1,650,223)

I don't understand why they are called police stations. It's not like the Chinese agents operating in them have any authority in the country they're stationed in. They are spies plain and simple.

3

water1111 t1_j6ng3nq wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#1,649,231)

The West should have fucked off from the China the moment the USSR collapsed, but instead the put investments and money in a problem that's going to hundred times worse to deal with then the USSR.

−1

GreenNatureR t1_j6ngv24 wrote

Replying to grapehelium (#1,646,720)

Detailed article in Jan 2021

>It’s been 2½ years since Qiu and Cheng were removed from the lab. It’s been a year since they were actually fired, in January 2021. And yet they have yet to be formally accused of anything, and it’s not known if they have retained legal counsel.

It's 3 and a half years now.

another article by BBC in 2020

>A tweet with more than 12,000 retweets and 13,000 likes - claimed without evidence that Dr Qiu and her husband were a "spy team", had sent "pathogens to the Wuhan facility", and that her husband "specialised in coronavirus research".
>
>None of the three claims in the tweet can be found in the two CBC reports and the terms "coronavirus" and "spy" do not appear even once in either.
>
>CBC has since reported that these claims are baseless.

7

Acromegalic t1_j6nk9t4 wrote

Replying to RushingTech (#1,665,196)

Ho-leee shit! That's fucking CRAZY that any country would allow that on their soil. Do they not know about the CCP campaign to infiltrate the world's governments and steal information and gain influence‽

I mean... every country on the planet has some spies, but to be that brash and not get arrested or detained? That's a HUGE failure on the part of the state.

That really makes me question my previous assumption that Canada was a secure neighbor.

That's crazy...

0

cryolongman t1_j6nqwuj wrote

money rules and given the size of chinas economy a lot of countries are acting like sattelites around it.

1

Mystiic_Madness t1_j6o0hot wrote

Canadian company Nortel used to be a major manufacturer in telecommunications equipment until their downfall in the early 2000's with allegation's of corporate espionage coupled with being hacked.

A former security advisor had this to say about the events that happend:

> Shields alleged that the hacking may have benefited Chinese competitors such as Huawei. While unable to offer conclusive proof Shields stated that "When 2000 came along, then it was a downward slide. And that coincidentally is the year when Huawei started selling on the international market. How coincidental." - Nortel Wikipedia

20 years later the Government of Canada turned down a major deal for a 5G network built by Huawei due to national security concerns.

1

HardlyW0rkingHard t1_j6o0m1q wrote

Replying to Rexia2022 (#1,641,582)

>more rights

You mean more rights to those making money. Slave workers stayed slaving. The same issue has been going on in China since the beginning. Let's be real. Only difference is that a lot of people got really rich. If you were making pennies per day before you didn't get any more rights

2

Ok_Morning3588 t1_j6oivg4 wrote

That's nothing. I've been doing joint research for decades, man!

0

DreadpirateBG t1_j6p4qbh wrote

Not sure the issue here. The USA also does the same thing and in the same way will try to influence papers and research direction. I see no difference

0

Conorredd7 t1_j6p8kyy wrote

I definitely didn't think they were researching joints or anything

1