Canadian Woman of Chinese Descent Faces NATO Espionage Charges as Ex-Official Admits Vetting Skipped Open-Source Checks
OTTAWA — Canada's House of Commons public safety committee this week held hearings into the federal security screening system. David Morrison, now senior diplomatic and international affairs adviser to Prime Minister Mark Carney and formerly the deputy minister of Global Affairs Canada, testified on October 21 that when his department granted a security clearance to a woman who later interned at a NATO headquarters, the vetting process did not include searching for the applicant on a search engine or checking other open sources. He added that, according to his colleagues at Global Affairs, that gap has now been rectified.
The intern is a Canadian woman of Chinese descent who came to Canada from China. Belgian authorities charged her in late July with suspected espionage on behalf of a third country and membership in a criminal organization; bail was denied in August and she remains in custody in Belgium. She had been interning at NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium. Canadian media have identified the suspect as 33-year-old Biwei Zhang, also known as Claire Zhang, but Belgian and Canadian officials have neither confirmed nor denied her identity, and none of the charges has been tested in court. Reuters has reported, citing a security source, that she is accused of spying for China; the Belgian prosecutors' formal charge refers only to a "third country."
The hearing focused on how she obtained clearance. A public Federal Court decision in early 2024 had already revealed that the Canada Border Services Agency turned her down for a job after discovering fraud in her application; Canada's Public Service Commission found she had committed fraud in the appointment process, and the Federal Court dismissed her bid to overturn that finding. Nevertheless, Global Affairs Canada issued her a security clearance of at least the "secret" level, allowing her to intern at SHAPE — and Morrison was the department's deputy minister when the clearance was granted.
Morrison offered four recommendations, including a government-wide repository of security-clearance information, consistent use of open-source checks at all clearance levels, bringing personnel information that speaks to an employee's integrity into the system, and continuously assessing clearance holders rather than treating approval as a one-time event. "If Global Affairs had been aware of anyone that has derogatory information that would speak to that person's suitability and reliability to protect Canada's secrets or NATO's secrets, I have every confidence that they would have acted on that information," he said. Conservative MP Frank Caputo noted that an intern in his office found the Federal Court decision within two weeks: "When the information is publicly available, and we nonetheless give a security clearance — and a high one at that — that is a failure in intelligence."
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree admitted last month that there were gaps in the government's security clearance process that are being addressed. The public safety committee's study of the screening system is continuing; officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have previously testified on the same issue.
Source: GSM · America
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于比利时 Mons 的北约欧洲盟军最高司令部（SHAPE）总部大楼。Ex13 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，维基共享资源。 / The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) building in Mons, Belgium. Photo by Ex13, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
