CSIS Chief Joins Five Eyes’ Warning of Beijing’s Threats to Universities, IP Theft

David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), prepares to appear before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC), studying the intimidation campaign against Members of Parliament, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on June 13, 2023. The Canadian Press/Justin Tang

During a rare public forum with fellow Five Eyes intelligence chiefs, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director David Vigneault discussed China’s threats to innovation, intellectual property, and foreign academic institutions.

Addressing an audience at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Oct. 17, leaders of the five-nation intelligence alliance highlighted the exceptional challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in terms of innovation and technology theft.

Mr. Vigneault said that the openness and collaborative nature of Western democracies has driven the development of innovative technologies. But these attributes have also been exploited by the Chinese regime to further its competitive and geopolitical objectives.

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

Mr. Vigneault noted that Beijing has been transparent about its activities, highlighting Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s direct leadership of the regime’s Central Commission for Military-Civil Fusion Development.

According to the U.S. State Department, military-civil fusion is an aggressive Chinese national strategy aimed at developing the most technologically advanced military in the world. It does so by eliminating the barriers between China’s civilian research and commercial sectors, and its military and defence industrial sectors.

“Everything that they’re doing in our universities and in new technology, it’s going back into a system very organized to create dual-use applications for the military,” he said.

Mr. Vigneault said CSIS has been trying to engage and inform Canadian universities about China’s intentions. This effort includes the establishment of a research security centre to provide direct guidance to related institutions.

“We’re not telling people who they should hire or not hire. But we tell them if you’re working for one of those seven universities in the PRC associated with the People’s Liberation Army, you know it’s probably not a good idea, [particularly] if you’re working in cutting-edge technology in the university,” he said.

According to a Hoover Institution study, seven key Chinese universities, dubbed the “Seven Sons of National Defence,” actively support the regime’s defence research. They also serve as primary conduits for harvesting U.S. research and redirecting it toward military applications.

While it is common for nations to pursue strategic advantages, the Chinese regime has been engaged in “the most sustained scaled and sophisticated theft of intellectual property and acquisition of expertise,” said Mike Burgess, Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

He agrees that the CCP exploits democracies’ “open and collaborative DNA.”

“When that expertise is linked with the stolen intellectual property, the harm is amplified. That threat really does need to be drawn out, and awareness raised so that together, we can all do something about it,” said Mr. Burgess.

Transnational Repression

Alongside concerns regarding China’s intellectual property theft, FBI Director Christopher Wray also raised issues about the CCP’s transnational repression. These operations also exploit the openness of Western democracies and target dissidents of the regime, including international Chinese students.

He referred to the case of a Chinese-American student who protested the CCP’s crackdown during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations in a major U.S. university. As a result, his family members in China faced threats from the regime’s security services.

Mr. Wray emphasized the importance of distinguishing between the Chinese population and the communist leadership. “The Chinese Communist Party is not the Chinese people, and it sure as heck is not Chinese Americans,” he said.

Mr. Vigneault echoed this sentiment, stating, “It is indeed the policies and the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party... that is the real problem.”

Other speakers who attended the event included Ken McCallum, director-general of the British Security Service, MI5, and Andrew Hampton, director-general of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. The event was hosted by Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of State.