The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba on June 17, 2021, where Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng are alleged to have worked on behalf of China.Shannon VanRaes/The Globe and Mail
A U.S. congressional committee has summoned the country’s Director of National Intelligence for a briefing on the firing of two Canadian scientists from Ottawa’s high-security infectious-disease laboratory in Winnipeg.
The House of Representatives committee on energy and commerce, which is investigating the origins of COVID-19, want to know about the activities of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, at the National Microbiology Laboratory.
Dr. Qiu had a role in approving the transfer of deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV] in the fall of 2018.
“Of particular concern is that Dr. Qiu covertly and without authorization provided the Ebola genetic sequence, intellectual property related to research of Ebola, and possibly other pathogens to China,” the committee wrote in a May 24 letter to National Intelligence Director Avril Haines.
The committee characterized the two scientists as Chinese spies who infiltrated the Winnipeg lab, and quoted the Canadian Security Intelligence Service as saying they were committed to building China’s biosecurity platform for new and potent infectious-disease research.
“The CSIS investigation found Dr. Qiu led a project at WIV that would assess cross-species infection and pathogenic risks of filoviruses, work that CSIS suggests ‘gain-of-function studies were possibly to take place,’” the letter states.
“In light of these concerns, please provide a briefing to the committee on what the U.S. intelligence community knows about the CSIS report, and the communications between WIV scientists and Dr. Qiu and Mr. Cheng while they were at the National Microbiology Laboratory.”
The two scientists were escorted out of the Winnipeg lab in July, 2019, and later had their security clearances revoked. They were fired in January, 2021. They have been under an RCMP national-security investigation since May, 2019.
The Globe and Mail revealed in March that the pair are now working in China and that Dr. Qiu is collaborating with researchers from the People’s Liberation Army. The couple are using the pseudonyms Sandra Chiu and Kaiting Cheng, conducting research at prestigious institutions in China and alongside some of that country’s most noted scientists.
MPs on the House of Commons special committee on Canada-China relations have also been investigating how the two scientists managed to escape scrutiny while doing work for China and allowing Chinese military scientists and students access to the Winnipeg lab.
Conservative MP Michael Cooper said the fact that a U.S. congressional committee is now looking into the matter shows our allies have deep concerns about poor security safeguards at Canada’s only Level 4 infectious-disease facility.
“Beijing’s infiltration of Canada’s highest security lab was a major national-security failure. The scrutiny that it is now receiving by the U.S. Congress underscores the damage that it has done to Canada’s reputation,” he said. “Allies are increasingly questioning Canada’s reliability as a security partner.”
Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong added that the Trudeau government repeatedly “downplay and cover-up” what he called one of the biggest national-security breaches in Canadian history.
“Now our allies are taking note. The letter from the U.S. Congress to the Director of National Intelligence shows the damage that Trudeau’s incompetence and cover-up have done,” Mr. Chong said.
Declassified documents tabled in the Commons in late February showed that Dr. Qiu and Mr. Keding provided confidential scientific information to China and that CSIS found Dr. Qiu was associated with multiple talent-recruitment programs run by Chinese authorities.
The two scientists were fired after a probe found that they engaged in clandestine meetings with Chinese officials. Dr. Qiu posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security,” investigators said, while Mr. Cheng posed “a very serious and credible security danger to the government of Canada.”
Documents reviewed by The Globe in March show that Dr. Qiu is now in China and most closely aligned with the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in the city of Hefei. In March, 2023, a document posted by a Chinese pharmaceutical company listed Dr. Qiu as working on a study related to a therapeutic antibody to the Ebola.
USTC was founded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences decades ago and initially established to build up Chinese scientific expertise useful to the military, which at the time was pursuing technology to build satellites, intercontinental ballistic missiles and atomic bombs. The university has continued to maintain close military ties.
Dr. Qiu is a medical doctor from Tianjin, China, who came to Canada for graduate studies in 1996. She started at the University of Manitoba, but began working at the national lab as a research scientist in 2006, working her way up to become head of the vaccine development and antiviral therapies section.
She was also part of the team that helped develop ZMapp, a treatment for the deadly Ebola virus, which killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa between 2014 and 2016.
Over a period of 13 months, though, the Chinese-Canadian microbiologist and her biologist husband’s lives were turned upside down.
She went from being feted at Ottawa’s Rideau Hall with a Governor-General’s Award in May, 2018, to being locked out of the Winnipeg lab in July, 2019.
By the time Canadian officials intervened in 2018 and began investigating, documents show, Dr. Qiu was running 44 separate projects at the Winnipeg lab, an uncommonly large workload.
CSIS found multiple unfinalized applications on her computers to enroll Dr. Qiu in Chinese talent-recruitment programs. She had been approved by Public Health Agency of Canada to provide training at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the fall of 2017, but it appears her Canadian managers were unaware of her interest in signing onto lucrative Chinese recruitment programs.
CSIS also found an unfinalized employment agreement for Dr. Qiu to work with Hebei Medical University that would include $1.2-million in research funding and $15,000 a month in compensation as well as $30,000 per year for leading laboratory operations remotely.