BIOSECURITYCanada’s Biosecurity Scandal: The Risks of Foreign Interference in Life Sciences
In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML). The original allegation against them was that Qiu had authorized a shipment to China of some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola and Nipah. Then the story seemed to go away—until now.
In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML). The original allegation against them was that Qiu had authorized a shipment to China of some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola and Nipah.
Qiu and Cheng, a married couple, subsequently lost their security clearances and were then fired by the NML in January 2021. At the time, both were subject to investigations by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). The NML said both had lost their positions for ‘breaches of policy’; it did not say what those breaches or policies had been.
Then the story seemed to go away—until now.
On 28 February 2024, after a legal battle in which the attorney-general of Canada took the speaker of the country’s House of Commons to court, the government finally released a trove of heavily redacted documents.
One document makes for stark reading. In a report dated 30 June 2020, the CSIS recommended that Qiu and Cheng lose their security clearances because of Qiu’s ‘… close and clandestine relationships with a variety of entities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which is a known security threat to Canada; … complete lack of candor regarding her relationship with those institutions; and her reckless judgement regarding decisions that could have impacted public safety and the interests of Canada’.
The CSIS found that Qiu, whilst employed by the Canadian government, had:
—Signed on to China’s Thousand Talents recruitment program (under which she stood to be paid up to C$1 million) and had prepared applications for other talent programs in China;
—Travelled several times, with NML’s blessing, to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to train staff on biosecurity; and
—Published a peer-reviewed paper with a major-general in the People’s Liberation Army who held a position at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and was ‘China’s chief biological weapons defense expert engaged in research related to biosafety, bio-defense and bio-terrorism’.
Perhaps the most concerning allegation was that in March 2019 Qiu had arranged for a shipment of 15 virus strains, including Ebola and Nipah, to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the act that ultimately led to her and Cheng’s suspension.
