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MONTREAL – A former researcher with Quebec’s hydro utility who is facing economic espionage charges said Thursday he was applying for work at universities in China as a contingency plan because he was unhappy at Hydro-Québec.

Yuesheng Wang, 38, maintained under cross-examination that there was nothing nefarious about his interest in moving back to China. He explained that it was tied to Hydro-Québec’s unwillingness to extend his work visa for more than year at a time and his experience at the institute around 2017 and 2018.

“At that time, my thinking was if I’m not happy at Hydro-Québec, going back to China to be a full professor was one of my options,” Wang testified.

The Crown argued that Wang, while he was working at Hydro-Québec, applied to work at Chinese universities under the framework of the Thousand Talents program, a recruitment tool used by the Chinese government to attract foreign-trained scientists to return to work in China.

The Crown alleges Wang used proprietary research at Hydro-Québec without permission, but he says he did not disclose any confidential secrets.

Wang said he included supporting documentation in job applications that was meant to provide “a general idea but not specifics about what I was doing.”

He added that the material was also meant to promote working for the Hydro-linked institute, but did not include any company secrets.

Wang said he only learned of the talents program around 2017 or 2018 and it did not influence his decision to seek employment abroad.

Wang applied four times to universities in China but was rebuffed and testified that additional documents drafted to go with those applications were never sent.

The information in one document included a graph derived from a Hydro-Québec patent application, but Wang described it as meaningless on its own.

No sensitive patent data or confidential information was included, Wang argued. He did admit to using a Hydro computer for some of the application work, but has said he was never told it was forbidden to use it for personal purposes.

Wang said the Chinese universities offered him unique opportunities such as a full professorship with considerable research resources and funding.

“If I was offered a full professor, that would be flattering for a young researcher,” Wang said.

Wang has pleaded not guilty to economic espionage under Canada’s Security of Information Act and to four other charges filed in 2022 and 2024 under the Criminal Code: fraudulently using a computer, breach of trust, committing preparatory acts on behalf of a foreign entity and informing that entity — the People’s Republic of China — of his intentions.

The Crown has said another charge of fraudulently obtaining a trade secret was withdrawn last year.

Wang told the court he applied for work in a number of countries outside of China for post-doctoral work.

That included applications to Qatar, Japan, Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom. He didn’t remember applying for work in China.

“I wanted to go overseas to see what the world is like,” Wang said.

In most of those locations, the work would have been primarily in English, however the proficiency level needed for research was not as high as that needed for teaching.

But Wang testified that he believed he was unsuccessful in most of his applications because his English wasn’t strong enough.

He also explained how he had a hard time at Hydro-Québec due to the language barrier.

Wang said he wasn’t given any explanation by his superiors before he was suspended in August 2022 and fired in November of that year.

Hydro officials launched an internal probe over a scientific publication by Wang that came to light in May 2022. The utility escalated the matter to the RCMP which arrested him two weeks after his firing.

Wang’s trial continues Friday with the Crown’s cross-examination.

The trial is scheduled to wrap this week before Quebec court Judge Jean-Philippe Marcoux at the Longueuil courthouse, with final arguments submitted in a written form.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.