by Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham
Why were Chinese virologists working in Canada shipping lethal viruses to China?
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| Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, photo via Twitter feed of Public Policy Forum |
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,429, January 29, 2020
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In
July 2019, a rare event occurred in Canada. Suspected of espionage for
China, a group of Chinese virologists was forcibly evicted from the
Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, where they
had been running parts of the Special Pathogen Program of Canada’s
public health agency. One of the procedures conducted by the team was
the infection of monkeys with the most lethal viruses found on Earth.
Four months prior to the Chinese team’s eviction, a shipment containing
two exceptionally virulent viruses—Ebola and Nipah—was sent from the NML
to China. When the shipment was traced, it was held to be improper and a
“possible policy breach.”
The scope of the 2019 incident involving the
discovery of a possibly serious security breach at Canada’s National
Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg is much broader than the group
of Chinese virologists who were summarily evicted from the lab. The
main culprit behind the breach seems to have been Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, an
outstanding Chinese scientist born in Tianjin.
Until recently the head of the Vaccine Development
and Antiviral Therapies section of the Special Pathogens Program, Qiu
received her MD degree from Hebei Medical University in China in 1985
and came to Canada for graduate studies in 1996. She was later
affiliated with the Institute of Cell Biology and the Department of
Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. She
was not engaged in the study of pathogens while at that institute.
But a shift took place in Qiu’s research work.
Ever since 2006, she has been studying powerful viruses—Ebola most of
all—at the NML. Both of the viruses that were surreptitiously shipped
from the NML to China were studied by Qiu in 2014 (as well as other
viruses, including Machupo, Junin, Rift Valley Fever, Crimean-Congo
Hemorrhagic Fever, and Hendra). But she paid greatest attention to Ebola
for the entirely legitimate aim of developing effective prophylaxis and
treatment for the infected.
Inevitably, Qiu’s work included a variety of Ebola
wild strains—among them the most virulent, which has an 80% lethality
rate—and relied heavily on experimental infection of monkeys, including
via the airways. She made remarkable strides, and was granted the
Governor General’s Innovation Award in 2018.
So far so good—or so it seems.
Qiu is married to Chinese scientist Keding Cheng, a
bacteriologist who shifted to virology and who is also affiliated with
the NML. Qiu maintains a close bond with China and visits frequently,
and many Chinese students from a notable range of Chinese scientific
facilities have joined her at the NML over the past decade.
Of those facilities, four are believed to be involved in Chinese biological weapons development. They are:
- Institute of Military Veterinary, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Changchun
- Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Chengdu Military Region
- Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hubei
- Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
All four facilities collaborated with Qiu on her
Ebola research. The Institute of Military Veterinary also joined a study
on the Rift Valley fever virus, while the Institute of Microbiology
joined a study on the Marburg virus. Notably, the drug used in the
latter study—Favipiravir—has been successfully tested by the Chinese
Academy of Military Medical Sciences against Ebola and other viruses.
(The drug has the designation JK-05; it is originally a Japanese patent
registered in China in 2006.)
The Chinese interest in Ebola, Nipah, Marburg, and
Rift Valley fever might possibly be beyond scientific and medical
needs. Significantly, only the Nipah virus is naturally found in China
or neighboring countries. That being the case, the interface between Qiu
and China is a priori highly suspicious.
The shipment of the two viruses from NML to China
is alarming unto itself, but it also raises the question of what other
shipments of viruses or other items might have been made to China
between 2006 and 2018.
Qiu made at least five trips over the academic
year 2017-18 alone to the above-mentioned Wuhan National Biosafety
Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which was certified for
BSL4 in January 2017. In August 2017, the National Health Commission of
China approved research activities involving the Ebola, Nipah, and
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever viruses at the Wuhan facility, and in
March 2019, the Chinese published their tour de force.
When the shipment from Canada was uncovered,
security access was revoked for Qiu, her husband, and the Chinese
students. IT specialists entered Qiu’s office after hours to gain access
to her computer, and her regular trips to China were halted.
Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of NATO,
said at a news conference that he can’t comment on the case, but
appeared to suggest the possibility of espionage. “What I can say in
general is that we have seen increased efforts by the nations to spy on
NATO allies in different ways,” he said.
Qiu’s research has not only been conducted on
behalf of Canada and China. In 2018, she collaborated with three
scientists from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases, Maryland, studying post-exposure immunotherapy for two Ebola
viruses and Marburg virus in monkeys. Those activities were part of a
study supported by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
The multiplicity of Chinese grants, all on the
national level, supporting the work done under Qiu’s lead at the NML is
impressive:
- National Key Program for Infectious Disease of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- National Natural Science Foundation of China International Cooperation and Exchange Program
- Special Foundation of President for Ebola virus research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- President’s International Fellowship Initiative from the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- China National Key Subject of Drug Innovation
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Natural Science Foundation Award, Ministry of Science and Technology
- National Science and Technology Major Projects
- Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structure Biology
- Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
It is still possible that Qiu and her husband will
return to work at the NML, but a good deal of intelligence analysis and
assessment will be required. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service
has a serious challenge on its hands.
This is an edited version of an article published in the July-December 2019 issue of the IDSA periodical CBW Magazine.
Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham, a
microbiologist and an expert on chemical and biological warfare in the
Middle East, is a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center
for Strategic Studies. He is a former senior intelligence analyst in the
IDF and the Israeli Defense Ministry.
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