China and our Universities: Time to Wake Up?

No offense to little bunnies and innocents, it’s all about power struggles and balances of power in the international arena.

• Read more: Chinese ‘police stations’ intervene in election campaigns

Nations have interests and ambitions. Often, one person’s gain is another’s loss.

It may sound sad, but that’s how it is.

danger

China is not our friend.

Justin Trudeau, obsessed with the specter of latent racism against Canadians of Chinese descent, refuses to see it.

China today, aggressive and victorious, has nothing to do with the sleeping giant of a few years ago.

Every day brings new evidence of Chinese meddling in our elections.

Chinese industrial espionage has shifted into high gear on Canadian soil.

However, one important area goes under the radar: our universities, the main place where cutting-edge knowledge is produced.

I was a university professor for 20 years. I have seen the Chinese presence rise in this environment.

The increase in the number of Chinese students in our universities and the meteoric rise of research partnerships with China, especially in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, new materials, etc.

China is using its advances in these areas for military purposes, strengthening surveillance over its citizens and suppressing opponents of its political rule.

The leaders of our universities need to wake up.

Obviously, this is not without serious embarrassment.

All university life is based on the sacred principle of academic freedom: a professor is free to pursue what he likes and to collaborate practically with whom he likes.

Science knows no national boundaries and progress requires cooperation.

The production of knowledge is expensive, very expensive. So our universities are always looking for money.

To take just one example, at my institution, an international student enrolling for an MBA would pay $59,000, while a Quebecer would pay $9,300.

So there is a powerful financial incentive to keep increasing the number of international students, and the Chinese pool is truly inexplicable.

I said earlier that our university leaders should wake up from their slumber.

Indeed, many are aware of the extent of the Chinese influence, but prefer to keep a heavy lid on the pot.

Good luck to the journalist who wants to revive all the China-related funding that our universities are drinking.

Ethics

Another problem is that our researchers – and this is normal – are ambitious and want to enter a highly competitive environment, so they don’t care too much about where the money comes from for their groups and their labs.

Another problem is that closing or reducing the flow of Chinese funding means finding other sources of funding.

Ethics is talked about a lot in the university world, and that’s the problem: we’re often happy to talk about it.