Benjamin Fung Says Federal Court Made ‘Right Decision’ on Dismissing Chinese Student’s Review Application Amid Espionage Concerns
McGill University professor Benjamin Fung said he “welcomes” the decision by Canada’s immigration office to raise the bar for visa applications, noting that professors rely on immigration officers to vet the potential security of foreign students.
Mr. Fung was commenting on a recent
Federal Court judge’s decision to dismiss the application brought by Yuekang Li, a Chinese student accepted into a Ph.D. program at the University of Waterloo. In December 2023, Chief Justice Paul Crampton
ruled that an immigration officer was right in denying Mr. Li a student permit due to his potential engagement in espionage activities.
In an interview with NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times, Mr. Fung applauded the court decision, stating, “As a professor, we can only evaluate the academic standards—whether [a student] has a good GPA [Grade Point Average] or a good research background. But we don’t have the authority, we don’t have the capability to evaluate the risk. We rely on the immigration officer to do the task.”
While the visa officer didn’t link Mr. Li to any specific nefarious activities, concerns were raised about his education, field of study, and research in Canada. Mr. Li studied at Beihang University, a Chinese institution
designated by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) as posing “very high” security risks due to its ties to the Chinese military.
The visa officer also cited open-source information reporting on China’s reliance on science and technology students as “non-traditional collectors” of information to advance the regime’s military and other interests, according to the court decision.
“I think the judge, in this particular case, made a correct decision. Otherwise, in the future, it will be very difficult for the visa application officer to make decisions,” Mr. Fung said. He added that the visa application standard doesn’t require proving an individual’s link to any specific criminal conduct, which differs from the standard for establishing guilt in criminal activities.
Aligning With Allies
The court’s decision in Mr. Li’s case aligns with the ongoing scrutiny by Canada and its allies concerning Beijing’s attempts to extract research data from universities, Mr. Fung said.He pointed to the rigorous evaluation process introduced by the U.S. government that has led to the restriction of some foreign students from studying in certain sensitive fields. In
July 2021, U.S. authorities rejected 500 Chinese student visa applications from individuals seeking to study at top American universities, specifically those majoring in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects.
“I think Canada is following that trend, even though we may not have an explicit policy for doing this yet,” Mr. Fung said. “But I think this is on the right path that we should consider defining or clearly defining some sensitive areas.”
Mr. Fung urged the Canadian government to raise awareness among scholars and universities, particularly those in sensitive domains like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. He said such efforts would help academics pay greater attention to potential risks when admitting foreign students.
Beijing’s threat to the intellectual property and development of innovation in Western countries took centre stage in a
rare public forum held last October at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault and his counterparts from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance raised the alarm about the issue during the event.
“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,” Mr. Vigneault 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.”
List of Entities
To enhance research security, the federal government introduced a
Named Research Organizations list on
Jan. 16 that currently comprises 85 Chinese universities, including those associated with the Chinese defence and security apparatus. This list also includes major civilian universities identified as having links to the apparatus.
The
Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern, expected to come into force in the coming months, will require Canadian researchers seeking federal funding to verify if their fields are considered “sensitive,” such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and life sciences. In these domains, projects will not receive funding if any researchers involved in activities supported by the grant are affiliated with, or receive funding from, a university, research institute, or laboratory linked to military, national defence, or state security entities that could pose a risk to Canada’s national security.
This announcement follows Ottawa’s decision
last February to strengthen Canada’s research security and intellectual property. The government had
imposed a ban on funding projects conducted in partnership with foreign entities involving sensitive technologies. This action comes after revelations in January 2023 that approximately
50 Canadian universities have a research partnership with the National University of Defence Technology, a Chinese military institution also identified as posing a “very high” risk by the ASPI.
Katherine Liu with NTD Television and Noé Chartier contributed to this report.
