By Kyle Matthews

June 17, 2026

From the annual G7 leaders’ meeting in France this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney posted, among other updates on his X account, the following statement:

“In an increasingly uncertain world, the G7 remains a force for unity, purpose, and collective action. In Évian, we’re working together to confront major challenges — from AI to global conflicts — and build a more secure, more prosperous world for all.”

To say that the key grouping of the world’s leading democracies meets at a tumultuous time in history would be an understatement.

The greatest threat facing the G7 today, however, is not a disagreement over tariffs, burden-sharing, or even the latest diplomatic dispute between Washington and its allies. It is the growing challenge posed by authoritarian powers seeking to reshape the international order to their advantage.

That is why, despite President Donald Trump’s transactional and belligerent approach to foreign policy and his frequent criticism of America’s closest allies, the G7 cannot afford to fracture. At a moment marked by war in Europe, instability in the Middle East, economic uncertainty, and weakening global institutions, democratic unity remains a strategic imperative.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the challenge posed by China.

Earlier this year,  the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security warned that China poses the country’s most sophisticated and persistent cyberthreat. Chinese state-sponsored actors have repeatedly compromised Canadian government networks, targeting provincial, territorial, municipal, and Indigenous institutions to acquire sensitive information, personal data, and intelligence that advances Beijing’s strategic interests.

This threat context informed the recent report Guarding the G7: Countering Beijing’s Influence Operations, which I co-authored with a colleague at the Montreal Institute for Global Security.

The report examines how the Chinese Communist Party increasingly employs economic leverage, political influence operations, information manipulation, cyber activities, and transnational repression to advance its interests within democratic societies. We report that these activities have been going on for decades and reveal well-resourced, far-reaching plans that are systemic in nature, impacting all G7 countries.

History suggests that democracies are most vulnerable not when their adversaries are strong, but when they are divided.

Amid the widespread media coverage of the report since its release in late May, few critics have publicly denounced its findings or the policy proposals put forth to guard the G7 from foreign interference and influence operations. In Canada, Senator Yuen Pau Woo stepped out of the shadows to pen a rebuke in The Hill Times warning that our report was “unserious”.

Senator Woo made those remarks the same week that the Government of Canada and its partners in the Five Eyes network made public that Beijing has engaged in a long-running influence campaign on LinkedIn and other social media sites to target Canadian citizens.

This challenge is neither hypothetical nor distant. Documentation of China’s cyber intrusions, foreign interference activities, intimidation of diaspora communities, intellectual property theft, and efforts to undermine democratic institutions has emerged regularly for years. Recent investigations across Canada, Europe, the United States, and Australia demonstrate that Beijing’s influence activities are not isolated incidents but part of a broader, coordinated strategy designed to exploit the openness of democratic societies.

In grander, strategic terms, the real geopolitical challenge and direct security threat to Europe is China’s role in aiding Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. Reuters recently revealed that China secretly trained roughly 200 Russian soldiers in drone and electronic warfare before many returned to fight in Ukraine —further evidence that Beijing’s professed neutrality masks a growing strategic partnership with Moscow. This follows other reports and articles that confirm Beijing has been shipping drones and other equipment to aid Putin’s war.

Beyond Europe, geopolitical tensions continue to rise in Asia. Last month, a Dutch warship was pushed out of the South China Sea by China. Beijing’s relations with Manila are going from bad to worse, with the Philippines national defence secretary Gilberto Teodoro openly stating  his country’s maritime struggle with China is getting increasingly intense due to “expansionism”.

China’s escalating hostility with Japan over Taiwan and defence spending has added to a growing sense that the region could be the next tinderbox to ignite.

This was captured in the G7 Evian statement on geopolitical issues that called for continued support to Ukraine, among other declarations. “We highlight the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific based on the rule of law,” the statement reads. “We reaffirm our opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo, in particular by force or coercion, in the East and South China Seas and across the Taiwan Strait, which should only be resolved peacefully through dialogue.” This was a message to Beijing.

History suggests that democracies are most vulnerable not when their adversaries are strong, but when they are divided.

The authoritarian challenge confronting the G7 today is real, coordinated, and growing. Whether through cyberespionage, foreign interference, economic coercion, support for Russia’s war machine, or military intimidation in the Indo-Pacific, China is testing the resolve of democratic nations every day.

The response should be equally clear: despite disagreements, political personalities, and shifting domestic priorities, the G7 must remain united. The cost of division will be paid not in diplomatic embarrassment, but in diminished security, prosperity, freedom, and sovereignty for all.

Kyle Matthews is Executive Director of the Montreal Institute for Global Security and McConnell Professor of Practice at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.