This article originally appeared in the National Post.
By Joe Varner, January 20, 2026
Prime Minister Mark Carney did not misspeak in Beijing. He chose his words carefully, and therein lies a severe problem.
When a Canadian prime minister praises the idea of a “new world order” while sitting in China, he is not engaging in neutral diplomacy. He is endorsing language that carries an extremely specific meaning in Beijing and an unmistakable warning signal in Washington. For a country whose security and prosperity depend on solidarity with the United States, with whom it has had a historically challenging relationship, Carney’s comments carry significant risk, if not real damage.
In Chinese strategic doctrine, a “new world order” is not about reforming globalization. Its real objective is displacing U.S. power, weakening Western alliances, and replacing liberal norms with a hierarchical system built on state control and non-interference that shields authoritarian rule. Beijing enforces this model at home through mass surveillance, censorship, arbitrary detention, and the repression of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, and pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong. Abroad, it destabilizes the Indo-Pacific region through military pressure on Taiwan, coercion of Japan and the Philippines, border aggression against India, and the militarization of the South China Sea in defiance of international law.
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Joe Varner is the deputy director of the Conference of Defence Associations, and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa and the Center for North American Prosperity and Security in Washington, D.C.
