Parliamentary Report Warns of China’s Tech Theft to Upgrade Military, Asks for Government to Protect Academia

MPs are calling for government countermeasures against China’s efforts to target Canadian innovation and interfere in the country’s universities in an attempt to gain an edge for its own military and technological development. The May 2 report from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research compiles expert testimonies from nine committee meetings held between June and November 2023. The experts focused on threats from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including the mixed use of technologies for military and civilian purposes and intellectual property theft. “Tax dollars, public research funding and public universities have for years been leveraged systematically to support and enable research and to use technology that benefits hostile authoritarian states that seem to undermine Canada’s democratic institutions, electoral processes, economic prosperity, national security and fundamental values, as well as international multilateral institutions and so forth,” Christian Leuprecht, professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, stated during his testimony before the committee on June 20, 2023....