More Canadian Universities to End Research Partnerships With Huawei

A man is silhouetted outside a Huawei retail store in Beijing on Dec. 30, 2022. (AP-Ng Han Guan/The Canadian Press)

A number of Canadian universities are disassociating from Huawei amid concerns about the tech giant’s affiliation with the Chinese military.

The University of Waterloo said on May 4 that it will be terminating research collaboration with Huawei after their contract expires this year. The move is to “safeguard scientific research” at the school, according to the university’s vice president for research Charmaine Dean.

Several other top Canadian universities that are members of the Group of Canadian Research Universities (U15)—an association of 15 leading research universities across Canada—said they are following the trend of disengaging with Huawei.

The University of Montreal said it informed Huawei last February that it won’t be extending their partnership after it expires in December 2024. The company is currently providing $3.9 million in funding for one research collaboration with the university’s Department of Informatics and Operations Research, a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email statement.

“Importantly, the company has no say in the scientific findings,” the statement said. “The agreement contains no deliverables and no sharing of intellectual property.”

McGill University said it takes the matter “very seriously” and that it made “an important decision to not develop further contracts with Huawei” this past winter.

A spokesperson at McMaster University said it is “in the process of winding down the limited number of research projects with Huawei,” with most projects to be completed by early summer this year. The university “no longer approves new collaborations with the company,” said the spokesperson.

The University of Calgary said in a statement that the school “currently has three active research partnerships with Huawei, established in prior years, with each carrying end-dates in 2023 or 2024.” The university didn’t respond when asked whether it will pursue new partnerships with Huawei.

Meanwhile, the University of Toronto told the Toronto Star on May 4 that it made a decision in April to “stop any new research engagements with Huawei” in response to concerns about research security.

“This includes new agreements, new projects within existing agreements, renewals and funded extensions,” said Leah Cowen, vice-president of research and innovation and strategic initiatives. She also noted that the university hired a director of research security last September, and is in the process of establishing a research security office.

Guidelines

Some U15 members said they don’t have an existing partnership with Huawei, but are careful about research security.

The University of Manitoba said it currently doesn’t have a partnership with Huawei. A spokesperson pointed to an earlier statement, which said it doesn’t have “a ’restricted foreign universities’ list or blanket policies surrounding a single nation” so as to avoid “bias, racial profiling, or unfair targeting when assessing all partnerships and international collaborations.” The school added that it is committed to aligning with guidelines on protecting research security issued by federal cabinet ministers in a Feb. 14 joint statement.

The statement required Canada’s federal research granting councils to ramp up scrutiny when granting funds to research sensitive topics, particularly projects that are “affiliated with a university, research institute or laboratory connected to military, national defence or state security entities of foreign state actors that pose a risk to our national security.”

The University of Saskatchewan said it has “no record of formal partnerships with the Chinese company,” though records show that one research paper was published in conjunction with Huawei France in 2017. Associate vice president of research Darcy Marciniuk said the university has no “active connection to Huawei” and is not pursuing partnerships or projects with the company.

Some U15 universities declined to comment, including Queen’s University, while others didn’t respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times.

The University of Alberta also declined to comment, with a spokesperson saying the reason is due to the ongoing provincial election. He didn’t respond when asked to clarify the connection between concerns about research security and the election.

Warnings

The federal government banned Huawei from participating in Canada’s 5G telecommunication network over security concerns, including the company’s alleged ties to the Chinese military. The company has denied the accusation, though China’s national intelligence law requires Chinese entities to help the state collect intelligence.

Multiple reports have shown that Huawei is closely affiliated with the Chinese military. A 2021 report, published by the French Military School Strategic Research Institute, detailed how Huawei and other Chinese state-owned telecom companies are heavily subsidized by Beijing. The regime has also planted Huawei’s technology in a wide array of infrastructure around the world, raising concerns about illicit data collection.

In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been tightening control over private high-tech giants by acquiring voting shares or installing party branches within the companies as the military’s intelligence assistant—a move that has alarmed the United States and European countries, according to a report that cited recent bans by these countries of the Chinese social media app TikTok.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has warned academic institutions that research partnerships can be vehicles for espionage, and that intellectual property might fall into the hands of foreign agents from malign states like China or Russia.

In February, the federal government tightened its policies on bankrolling research with foreign entities, announcing that Canada’s federal research granting councils would reject funding for projects with institutions that had ties to foreign governments posing a risk to national security.

That announcement did not mention specific countries, but security officials have warned for years that China and Russia are among foreign states with interest in Canada’s advanced technologies.

Tara MacIsaac and The Canadian Press contributed to this report.