Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Global Affairs, said he and other experts support Canada pursuing trade with China and other countries like India which were accused of foreign interference, but \u201cwe can’t be naive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re coping with states which have murdered Canadian residents, which have harassed Canadian residents, states which have stolen a few of our top mental property,\u201d Matthews said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have economic interests to expand. Nonetheless, we can’t be blind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan Stanton, a former official with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service who’s now the director of the national security program on the University of Ottawa, said the federal government must be transparent with Canadians \u2014 especially diaspora communities \u2014 that it still recognizes the chance of foreign interference.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanadians need to know that the federal government has not forgotten, one hopes, and the federal government remains to be going to carry countries to account for what they\u2019re doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\tReport focuses on covert influence campaigns\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n The report draws on open-source research and interviews to present case studies of Chinese interference in each G7 country: Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Germany, France and Japan.<\/p>\n
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Particular attention is paid to China\u2019s United Front Work Department, which the report says coordinates a broad ecosystem of political, business, academic, media and civil society groups in democratic countries.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\tMore on Canada<\/button>More videos<\/button>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nWhile those groups operate legally and infrequently pursue legitimate relationships, the report\u2019s authors say they’re pursuing long-term narrative influence that further China\u2019s interests abroad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s somewhat bit like the traditional Chinese game \u2018wei chi,’\u201d said Marie Lamensch, the director of worldwide affairs on the Montreal Institute for Global Security. \u201cIt takes space over a protracted time, it’s adaptive, and the federal government mainly takes its time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The report included examples in European nations of politicians being targeted with covert influence campaigns from the national to the local levels.<\/p>\n
In a single case study in Italy, the report describes the sister-city agreement between the small Italian municipality of Asti and Nanyang, a Chinese city of over a million people, which got here after increased business and trade exchanges between officials and trips to China by Asti authorities.<\/p>\n
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The report describes the connection as \u201csurprising\u201d given Asti\u2019s wine- and tourism-based economy, while Nanyang is concentrated on advanced industries like artificial intelligence. The agreement has since led to plans for a number one Chinese surveillance firm to explore future projects in Asti, in accordance with the report.<\/p>\n
Lamensch said G7 universities are also vulnerable to partnerships with Chinese academics and schools that, while legal and legit, are being pursued for ulterior motives. Britain is especially vulnerable, she noted, because it has come to rely more on foreign students since Brexit.<\/p>\n
The report also covers instances of transnational repression, including intimidation of Chinese diasporas through so-called \u201cpolice stations\u201d arrange in Canadian cities and other methods.<\/p>\n
The authors say intelligence sharing, foreign influence registries, and coordinated national strategies on managing foreign partnerships across society are needed to counter China\u2019s influence activities.<\/p>\n
Matthews said the report acknowledges that \u201cit\u2019s a tumultuous time for the G7\u201d given the \u201crupture\u201d created by the U.S. under President Donald Trump, in addition to the broader geopolitical climate.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, he added, \u201cWe still should stay the course with a few of our key economic and democratic allies to work to guard our democracies from Chinese foreign interference and influence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a serious problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014with files from the Canadian Press<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
\n\t\t© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canadian researchers are calling for a more coordinated response by G7 countries to counter \u201csystemic\u201d Chinese foreign interference, particularly as technology and tactics evolve and Beijing\u2019s agents embed themselves further into societies. Wednesday\u2019s report by the Montreal Institute for Global Security comes a day before Canada is about to welcome China\u2019s foreign minister to Ottawa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[6192,7531,4332,5610,1903,2185,548,10083],"class_list":["post-341759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-canada","tag-chinese","tag-interference","tag-minister","tag-national","tag-report","tag-returns","tag-systemic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341762,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341759\/revisions\/341762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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