The former head of Canada's intelligence service has issued a stark warning about China's "industrial-scale" efforts to steal sensitive Western technology, stating that hostile powers have shifted their focus from governments to universities and private companies.
Universities and Innovation in the Crosshairs
In his first interview since leaving the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), David Vigneault told the Guardian that the espionage frontline has fundamentally moved. The primary target is now private sector innovation and academic research, rather than traditional government secrets.
Vigneault, who led CSIS for seven years until July 2023, identified Beijing as the main actor. He described a systematic campaign using cyber-attacks, infiltrated agents, and the recruitment of university staff to acquire advanced technical knowledge. The ultimate goal, he asserted, is to strip out military applications from new innovations for use by the People's Liberation Army.
"The system is built to… in a very systematic way strip out the military applications of these new innovations to then put them into production," Vigneault said during an intelligence conference in The Hague.
A Long-Term Strategy and a Call for Vigilance
Vigneault traced this strategy back to 2003, when China's leadership was reportedly horrified by the speed of the US invasion of Iraq. This spurred a long-term programme of military modernisation, investing in "asymmetric capabilities" and the theft of Western technical knowledge. He noted that, unlike Western democracies, China's one-party system allows it to pursue such strategies over decades without electoral interruptions.
The former spy chief emphasised that combating this threat requires a whole-of-society response, not just action from politicians. He defended the need for national security evaluations of government-funded university programmes in sensitive areas, dismissing academic concerns about restrictive rules. "You cannot imagine that you work in isolation. You’re not living on an island and doing pure research for the good of humanity," he stated.
Risks of Racial Profiling and the Shift to Great Power Politics
Vigneault acknowledged a significant risk: that focusing on China could lead to racial profiling against students and faculty of Chinese heritage. "It’s an absolutely critical point – we are not far from potentially being accused, wrongly or rightly, of racism," he cautioned. He stressed the problem is the Chinese Communist Party's actions, not China or its people, noting that some espionage cases involved individuals with no Chinese background.
Reflecting on his tenure, Vigneault said it was marked by an "evolution from the focus on terrorism to big power politics." He revealed that in the weeks before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Canada had access to "exquisite" intelligence from US and UK agencies, leaving little doubt an attack was imminent. He suggested some European services failed to anticipate it partly due to economic dependence on Russian energy, which clouded their assessment.
Finally, Vigneault called for pragmatism in relations with the US, advocating for cooperation where crucial but also for building "sovereign capabilities"—particularly over data and cloud infrastructure—to protect citizens from the legal reach of foreign companies and governments.
