Quebec Professor a Recruit of Chinese Talent Program Deemed Security Risk by CSIS

The Université du Québec à Montréal downtown campus is seen in Montreal in a file photo. (Derek Robbins/Shutterstock)

A Quebec professor is a participant of a Chinese talent recruitment program deemed by Canada’s intelligence service as a “serious threat” to Canadian research and intellectual property.

Changhui Peng, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) since 2003, joined China’s Thousand Talents Plan in 2010. His participation in the Chinese talents recruitment plan was highlighted on his online profile at the Northwest A&F University, a school in China’s Shaanxi Province, which specializes in agriculture and forestry.

The Thousand Talents Plan, launched in 2008 by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the most well-known among the regime’s over 200 global talents recruitment initiatives. The programs aim to attract leading scientists worldwide to bolster Beijing’s economic and military development.

“Service information reveals that these [Chinese talent recruitment] programs aim to boost China’s national technological capabilities and may pose a serious threat to research institutions, including government research facilities, by incentivizing economic espionage and theft of intellectual property,” the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) says.

This statement was part of recently released documents, dated June 30, 2020, related to two Chinese scientists dismissed from Canada’s top-security National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg for lying about their ties to China. In the United States, a Harvard professor was convicted in 2023 for having lied about his participation in the Thousand Talents program.

Mr. Peng was lauded for his close ties with China and contributions to his “motherland” in an article by his alma mater, the Central South University of Forestry and Technology, located in China’s Hunan Province. He graduated from the school in the 1980s.

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“The rising star Peng Changhui has not forgotten the nurturing [he received] from his homeland. He continues to give back to his motherland by sharing the advanced scientific knowledge and research methods he has mastered. He also undertakes cooperative engagements and exchanges at multiple levels and in multiple areas with many related bodies in his homeland,” the article says in Chinese.

Mr. Peng’s profile at the UQAM did not mention his affiliations in China, including his involvement with the Chinese Northwest A&F University, where he has led research since 2011.

The Epoch Times reached out to Mr. Peng for comment but didn’t hear back. The UQAM, where Mr. Peng is employed, also didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did the Department of Biological Sciences, where Mr. Peng teaches.

Mr. Peng was awarded funding by Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) every year from 2003 to 2023. His career in Canada began in 1995 as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Alberta, doing work associated with the Canadian Forest Service. He was also NSERC’s Canada Research Chair in Environmental Modelling from 2003 to 2009. 

Chairman of School Recognized by CCP Agency

Additionally, Mr. Peng is chairman of the board of the Montreal Confucius School, whose website’s Chinese version notes that the school is designated as an “Overseas Chinese Language Education Model School“ by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO).

The OCAO is part of the United Front Work Department, the CCP’s primary agency responsible for coordinating influence operations both inside China and overseas, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Despite the similarity of its name, the school does not appear on the list of China’s Confucius Institutes in Canada.

The Montreal Confucius School also says on its Chinese website that it received support from both the Chinese Embassy in Canada and the Canadian government in its establishment. These details about the school’s connections to the OCAO and the Chinese Embassy are not mentioned on the English version of its website.

The Montreal Confucius School, which offers camps and after-school and weekend programs for children as well as adult classes in different subjects, has a record of collaborating with the Chinese regime through cultural exchange activities. It has co-hosted a “Chinese Culture Wonderland” summer camp in Montreal in partnership with a provincial-level foreign affairs committee under the CCP in Hunan Province since 2012, according to a 2017 press release of the Hunan provincial government.

Mr. Peng’s wife, Xiaoqin Li, is the principal of the Montreal Confucius School. Ms. Li didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

Thousand Talents

As more details emerge about the dismissal of the two Winnipeg lab scientists, MPs are seeking confirmation that no additional Thousand Talents recruits are employed by the Canadian government.

Conservative MP Stephen Ellis sought confirmation from Health Minister Mark Holland during an April 8 meeting of the House of Commons special committee on the Canada-China relationship.

“Are there other Thousand Talents Program scientists working in other Canadian labs run by the Canadian government?” Mr. Ellis asked.

“None that we are aware of, no,” Mr. Holland replied.

A week later, Conservative MP Michael Cooper asked Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc the same question at the April 15 meeting of the same committee.

“Mark Holland testified that there were no scientists working in the Government of Canada’s labs who were part of the Beijing Thousand Talents program. Can you confirm that?” Mr. Cooper asked.

“I don’t know those details,” Mr. LeBlanc replied. He then directed the question to CSIS Director David Vigneault, who was also testifying at that meeting.

“CSIS has been working with PHAC [Public Health Agency of Canada] on these issues for a few years now,” Mr. Vigneault said.

“If there were any individuals engaged in any way who represented national security issues, I would be working with PHAC to make sure they have the information to take the proper measures. I cannot confirm the specifics of our investigation, but I understand the concern raised by Mr. Cooper.”

Mr. Vigneault voiced concerns last October about China’s threat to Canadian academia during a public forum alongside his counterparts from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. The senior intelligence officials highlighted the imperative to counter Beijing’s threats to Western innovation, intellectual property, and academic institutions.

“We see the PRC [People’s Republic of China], the Chinese Communist Party, passing legislation to force any person of Chinese origin anywhere in the world to support their intelligence service,” he said at the event held by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Oct. 17, 2023.

“That means they have ways of [coercing] people here, in each of our countries, anywhere, to essentially tell them and give them the secrets that they are working on.”

Kathy Han contributed to this report.