Let the paper dragon blow away already!:
The details of those steps were shared in greater detail on Tuesday, when the federal government released a list of sensitive research areas and the names of labs and institutions considered a risk to national security.
The newly announced restrictions means the federal government will withhold funding for scientific research in 11 strategically important fields — including artificial intelligence, aerospace and satellite systems — when affiliated with certain institutions linked to military, defence or state security organizations in counties deemed a risk to Canada.
The federal government is concerned that China, Russia and Iran are determined to acquire sensitive Canadian research and intellectual property by partnering on projects with academics in Canada.
More:
Canadian universities researching in some critical areas will be prohibited from working with certain Russian, Chinese and Iranian institutions if they want federal funds under a new policy the government unveiled Tuesday.
The government unveiled a list of research areas including advanced digital, energy and materials technologies, 3D printing, nano manufacturing, new nuclear technology, battery storage or cryptography. It also covers robotics and quantum computing.
It also includes any research into weapons, surveillance, aerospace, artificial intelligence and a wide variety of life sciences and medical research.
Any researcher looking for funding in any of those areas would have to attest that no one on their team has any ongoing link with a list of institutions. That list includes research institutions with ties to the Chinese and Russian military, as well as other facilities in those countries and institutions in Iran.
Anyone with ties to those institutions will be ineligible from receiving funding from Canada’s major research councils, which includes the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Every researcher on a project would have to be free of any connection with the banned institutions or be removed from the project. The government is promising to do spot checks on the submissions, but said they don’t want to slow down research applications.
And why is that, I wonder?
The RCMP are investigating whether two scientists dismissed from Canada’s top-security infectious-disease laboratory passed on Canadian intellectual property to China, including to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The investigation centres on the possibility that materials such as plasma DNA molecules, which could be used to recreate vaccines or viruses, were transferred to Chinese authorities without the approval of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
The Globe and Mail has also learned that the RCMP have been informed that Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, recently relocated to China after they were fired in January from the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg.
I believe the above two had help, but hey! Who is to say?
Why aren't people worried about this?:
Scientists in China, experimenting with a coronavirus closely related to the virus that causes COVID-19, found that it had a 100 percent kill rate in a small mouse study, according to the researchers’ announcement on Jan. 4.
The scientists, including a doctor trained by the Chinese military, cloned a pangolin coronavirus and infected modified mice to “assess its pathogenicity,” they said in a preprint paper published on bioRxiv.Of the four mice infected with the virus, all began to lose weight five days post-infection. Shortly thereafter, they exhibited symptoms including sluggishness and white eyes.
The four mice died within eight days of inoculation. Researchers described the results as “surprising.”
Researchers then infected eight additional mice, euthanized them, and selected organs from four to analyze. High levels of viral RNA were found in various organs, including the brain, lungs, and eyes. While the viral load in the lungs decreased by the sixth day, it increased in the brain.
“This finding suggested that severe brain infection during the later stages of infection may be the key cause of death in these mice,” the scientists said.
This is how it works - China barges in and tells Canada what it expects of it and Canada nods its head:
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi say they want to find common ground and maintain communication, despite tensions across the Pacific.
A real country would tell Wang where to go.
Chinese propagandists tell the CBC to hold their beers:
The CRTC yesterday dismissed a request from MPs that it ban state-run Chinese propaganda from its approved distribution list of cable and satellite programming in Canada. A parliamentary committee recommended a ban on all TV shows financed by “authoritarian state-controlled broadcasters.”
Japan will find a like-minded ally in Taiwan President-elect Lai Ching-te, who hopes to build even stronger ties with Tokyo as both look warily at China’s designs on the self-ruled island.
Lai described his win in Saturday’s election as a “victory for the community of democracies,” and signaled that his administration would look to deepen cooperation with Japan by meeting with Tokyo’s de facto ambassador and a Japanese lawmaker just a day after the poll in Taipei.
Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association chief Mitsuo Ohashi held talks with Lai and his running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan's former top envoy to the United States, at the headquarters of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, with the president-elect noting that the neighbors are both “concerned about regional peace and stability,” the DPP said.
China claims Taiwan as a renegade province that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. This policy has triggered concerns of a possible invasion by China, despite U.S. President Joe Biden hinting that the United States would help Taiwan militarily in the event of a conflict.
Lai on Monday told a visiting delegation of former top U.S. officials that he hoped the United States could continue to support Taiwan.
"I am grateful for the strong support from the United States for Taiwan's democracy, which demonstrates the close and solid partnership between Taiwan and the United States," local media quoted Lai as saying.
The election of Lai, who Beijing has called a “worker for Taiwan independence and destroyer of peace across the Taiwan Strait,” has stoked fears that tensions could surge to even higher levels.
On Monday, China lured away one of the handful of countries that formally recognize Taiwan, poaching the Pacific Island nation of Nauru, which said it would sever ties with Taipei. The move leaves Taiwan with just 12 diplomatic allies.
But unlike Nauru, Taipei's relationship with Tokyo is likely to grow under Lai, who has said that Chinese military exercises in the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere have shown that both Japan and Taiwan “directly face China’s threats.”
“If Taiwan is invaded by China and the Taiwan Strait becomes an inland sea of China’s, that would inevitably also pose a threat to Japan,” he said in an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun last October, hinting that he expected Japan would deepen security cooperation with Taiwan.
Tokyo views any conflict over the democratic island as an existential threat, and has beefed up defense spending and dispatched Self-Defense Force personnel and weapons to its far-flung southwestern islands near Taiwan while bolstering its military alliance with the U.S.
At the same time, Japan has repeatedly “stressed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and urged “a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues” — a stance reiterated Monday by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi.
“Taiwan is an extremely important partner for Japan, with whom we share fundamental values and close economic and personal relationships,” Hayashi told a news conference. “As an important friend, the government intends to further deepen cooperation and exchanges between Japan and Taiwan” in a nongovernmental format.
Hayashi’s remarks came after Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa on Saturday congratulated Lai on his victory, a move that prompted the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo to express "strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition" to the message, which it said "seriously interferes with China's internal affairs and violates the ‘One-China’ principle."
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