I think what you mean by a country-agnostic solution is the start of an anti-racist approach in addressing national security concerns when it comes to academia. As I said, there is also other regime security in academia that Beijing is interested in advancing.
I think that, for one thing, we need to look at the conduct of the companies, individuals and entities we collaborate with. For example, if an entity seeking to collaborate with a Canadian researcher is actively violating international human rights law, then that should be a signal that maybe we shouldn't collaborate with that individual. That's what I mean by looking at the conduct rather than the country of origin.
Another issue, when it comes to international collaboration, is that there are privacy laws and data laws that are different from Canada's, so we can collaborate with a Chinese actor who has obtained data legally in China, but the way they obtained the data may not be legal in Canada. That then creates this kind of moral grey area in which we have to ask whether it is ethical for Canadian researchers to continue to collaborate with this individual, who has obtained data possibly through means that are not legal in Canada but that would be elsewhere. How would that research data be stored? Is it stored in China or is it stored in Canada?
All of those factors come into play when we talk about how to balance that act of academic freedom to ensure there is free and transparent collaboration, in which researchers are empowered and acknowledge—