Czech President-Elect Defies Beijing with Phone Call to Taiwan's Tsai Ying-wen;Canadian universities are working with Chinese military scientists
Plus, India Collaborates with the U.S. on tech and defence to counter Beijing's Influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Dear China watchers, welcome to another middle-powers roundup. And to our new subscribers, good to have you here. Before we start our newsletter I have a few announcements to make.
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Today, we examine the challenges that Canada faces in protecting its research intelligence. Then, we delve into a high-level phone call that irked Beijing, between Czech Republic's president-elect and Taiwanese President Tsai Ying-wen. Finally, we look at India, a formidable competitor to Beijing in the Indo-Pacific region.
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Let’s get to the top China news from the middle powers now.
Canada
This might not come as a shocker to seasoned China watchers in Canada: Canadian universities have collaborated with a Chinese military research institution on hundreds of tech research projects, contributing to China's advanced defence industry.
According to this research conducted by U.S. intelligence company Strider, in the past five years, academics at Canada’s leading universities published more than 240 joint papers on topics including quantum cryptography, photonics and space science with Chinese military scientists at the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT).
Does the name, NUDT, ring a bell to you? The university was blacklisted by the U.S. under former president Barack Obama’s administration. In 2015, Washington blocked chipmaker Intel from selling its high-end Xeon chips to Chinese military research centers.
That is not to say that Canada, or any other middle powers, shouldn’t make its own decisions on the matter of national security. But it is disturbing to learn 50 Canadian universities, including the University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia and McGill University, have conducted joint research with NUDT researchers some of whom specialize in missile performance and guidance systems, mobile robotics and automated surveillance.
In our last edition, we discovered that Ottawa has put in place stricter guidelines to safeguard research achievements. In fact, the new guidelines even led to dozen of rejections of research grant applications to Canada’s national research councils.
But here’s the catch: The new regulations apply only to federal grants and not to individual academic research projects with China's military. And China, provides significant funding to Canadian researchers and universities for joint work, according to Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, former executive vice-president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
The fact that the Globe quoted McCuaig-Johnston, who worked there over a decade ago, reminds me of a good-old reporter tactic used when I was a daily reporter: former employees are often more willing to provide an accurate depiction of the situation.
In an interview with The Global and Mail–the only Canadian publication that has a China correspondent, Dennis Molinaro, a national-security analyst and professor at Ontario Tech University, said when it comes to university research with China there is a lot of blaming going on.
The universities say they need clarity from authorities on this. But a government body like Canadian Security Intelligence Service, for example, is barred from sharing specific details with Canadians unless it’s for a specific crime.
This classic democracy dilemma, of course, would prompt a classical democracy procedure: a debate in the parliament.
Indeed, within 24 hours of the publication of the Globe story, shadow foreign affairs minister and China hawk Michael Chong, was quoted in a follow-up story in the same newspaper calling on Ottawa to ban research collaborations with Chinese military scientists and issue a directive to provinces and universities urging them to follow suit.
I do think this is not going to be the end of the story, just to be clear. As we noted in our last issue of 2022, public opinions towards the Chinese government and sadly sometimes Chinese people, have deteriorated greatly over the past years. Like most middle powers, Canada, too, is struggling to hold its stance in the face of a more aggressive Beijing. It’s worth noting that Chong sits on the China-Canada Committee, which just had an in-camera(confidential) meeting. As long-time followers would know, the re-initiated committee is still yet to publish its report to the parliament.
I don’t want to be the pessimist in the room, but I, for one, am definitely not holding my breath.
Czech Republic
The newly elected President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, has become the first elected European head of state to have a phone call with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen.
Despite Beijing’s much-expected and immediate frustration about the call, it was not featured in state-owned Chinese media. The only Chinese article I found is a transcript from a routine briefing by China's Foreign Ministry with the headline: Foreign Ministry raises serious concern with Czech Republic’s newly elected president over phone call with Tsai Ing-wen.
The English-language media, on the other hand, has widely reported the phone call and made clear that the conversation was untraditional. Note this line from Politico: “European Union leaders traditionally refrain from direct political contact with Taiwanese authorities, limiting official exchanges to the level of civil servants, and often conducting dialogue under the radar.”
So, what did the two leaders talk about? Well, not much, really. But we can always check the source of information: Pavel's tweets. (I can’t believe I just wrote that lol)
According to Pavel’s tweets on the day of the call, he thanked Tsai for her congratulations on his win and assured her that Taiwan and the Czech Republic share values and will strengthen their relationship—-standard diplomatic language.
However, one tweet buried at the bottom of the thread caught my attention: "I also expressed hope to have the opportunity to meet President Tsai in person in the future."
Given the current tensions between China and Taiwan, it will be interesting to see if Pavel visits the self-governed island and meets with President Tsai.
After Reuter and other media outlets ran the story of China’s response to the phone call, Pavel made another unwavering tweet:
The translation is here: “I understand that China has reservations about my talk with Taiwan. But we are a sovereign country and we do what we think is right. Taiwan is a democratic country and we share values with it, as well as important trade relations, which is completely in line with the approved concept of foreign policy.”
India
Senior officials in the U.S. and India unveiled cooperation in a number of areas, including quantum computing, artificial intelligence, 5G wireless networks and semiconductors.
Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval met in Washington on Tuesday to launch the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies. They also created a mechanism to facilitate joint weapons production.
Interestingly, India is not known for following the U.S. on many subjects. In fact, India has declined to join the trade pillar negotiations of Biden’s signature Asian engagement project Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that the initiative holds great importance for U.S.-India relations. According to U.S. intel in this fantastic article by the Financial Times, the technology initiative, along with other actions, meant that 2023 would “probably be the most consequential year in US-India diplomacy”, adding that India was “the key” to US ambitions in the region.
The anonymous source in the FT article confirmed what MiddlePowers had predicted about the future of India-China relations last week. He said that India is moving closer to the US because of its strained relations with Beijing, particularly after the border clashes.
This quote is striking: “The Indians don’t advertise this . . . but it had a kind of 9/11, Pearl Harbor-style impact on the strategic thinking of their elites.”
As we pointed out last year, India is establishing itself as a new hub for trade and manufacturing as a result of the ongoing decoupling from China. Specifically, it is boosting its domestic chip industry and electric vehicles.
Last week, a group of 18 crucial Indian ministries reportedly held a meeting to finalize steps that are primarily aimed at reducing imports from China, which constitutes nearly one-third of India's trade deficit, according to anonymous sources cited by Reuters.
Worth-noting headlines from small-to-middle powers:
Australia: Australia and China trade ministers to hold virtual meeting next week
South Korea: S.Korea considers early easing of COVID visa curbs on travellers from China
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