Montreal prof denies parallel job in China
Affiliations described as limited
An esteemed engineering professor in Montreal says suggestions he has a parallel, full-time academic career in his native China are “absolute nonsense,” the product of misleading articles there that exaggerated his involvement in the country.
Ke Wu of Polytechnique Montreal said he has been at times a visiting professor at three universities in China and did a sabbatical at one of them, but said those are “very conventional” academic collaborations that “contribute to Canadian well-being.”
And he said his 2011 role as a delegate to Beijing's People's Political Consultative Conference was purely as an observer and to introduce “fresh air” to the Communist Party advisory body.
Wu said an October article in the National Post outlining his alleged China connections — quoting from some of those Chinese-language articles — had damaged him “physically, mentally, spiritually.”
In fact, he said in an interview Tuesday, that his limited affiliations with universities in China have helped bring top-notch students and research expertise to Canada.
“This is an important thing we need to do. If you don't have a relationship, you can't get good students,” said Wu. “It's the Chinese researchers who contribute to Canadians' well-being. This is very important. Through collaborations, they help us too. It is a two-way thing.”
He said he also brings students from universities in the U.S. and Europe, where he has ties.
As an expert in wireless communications, Wu has built a stellar career in Canada, publishing hundreds of scholarly papers and obtaining millions of dollars in government funding for his cutting-edge science.
The Post reported in October on reports by media and other Chinese websites that he also had professorships at three universities there, one of the articles describing the position as “full time.” The reports also suggested he had received millions in Chinese research funding and substantial laboratory space.
( Wu did not respond to repeated requests for comment at the time, while the university and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada both said they had no concerns about his foreign activities. He contacted the Post last week to respond)
Those alleged ties coincide with a mounting debate about China's recruitment of scientific talent from Western countries.
A U. S. Senate subcommittee's report last year, for instance, called aggressive Chinese recruiting efforts a serious threat to American security, citing cases where sensitive technology was spirited to China. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has also warned of foreign rivals using academic ties to obtain Canadian technology.
But a recent Foreign Policy magazine opinion piece argued most of the recruitment does not involve theft or security breaches, and that the best countermeasure is to lure more foreign scientists this way.
Regardless, Wu said the Chinese articles describing his ties there were rife with inaccuracies.
The research funding they described was for projects proposed by former doctoral and post-doctoral students of his who went on to work at the universities. Without high- profile reputations themselves, they invited him to participate in the research and used his established name to obtain funding, said the professor.
“They put my name as part of the team, they can get money,” he said.
Some of the articles that described his status were, in fact, designed to generate research grants. And it is a tradition when a prominent academic has a visiting position at a Chinese university to have articles written extolling — and exaggerating — the person's affiliation, he said.
The one that described him as a “full-time professor” at Ningbo University actually referred to the fact he was doing a sabbatical there in 2017-18. Wu said his previous sabbaticals have been in the U. S. and Europe.
He said he had no involvement in any of the articles.
The People's Political Consultative Conference, an organ of the party's United Front Work Department, is described as China's “top political advisory body” and “an important forum for promoting socialist democracy in the Chinese political system” by state-run Xinhua News Agency and other government sites.
One of the United Front's roles is to spearhead China's influence operations worldwide.
As a delegate to the conference in 2011, Wu said he was an observer along with other foreign dignitaries and took no ideological position.
“We are not participants, we do not have any right to vote … You are listening to see what's going on there,” he said. “This is very good for outside of China and good for inside. It's very good for the openness of China.”
Wu said he is not a political person, but hopes relations between Canada and China will thaw soon.
“I want to see the political fight be over,” he said. “I want to see everything back to normal. I want to see the release of the two Michaels. I want to see the release of Ms. Meng ( Wanzhou, Huawei CFO). I want to see business go back to normal with China.”