Cooper: Inviting Modi to the G7 Kananaskis Summit Is about Geopolitics

Analytical Studies > Analysis on the 2025 Kananaskis Summit
G7 Summits > 2025 Kananaskis Summit > Road to the 2025 Kananaskis Summit

Inviting Modi to the G7 Kananaskis Summit Is about Geopolitics

Andrew F. Cooper, Balsillie School of International Affairs
June 9, 2025

The decision to invite India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the June 15–17 G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, cannot simply be understood in the context of Canadian politics. As evident in the cascade of public criticism, especially in the context of the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, welcoming Modi to participate at the Kananaskis Summit is full of domestic political risk. And, notwithstanding the hopes of the Canadian business community attached to a strategy of diversification from the United Sates, any immediate commercial benefits are unlikely, as Canada-India relationships gradually resets.

From a geopolitical perspective, however, the invitation by Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi is based on a firm logic. India has become the standout straddler country in international relations, with one side of its global identity remaining with Russia, China and other core BRICS countries, and the other side of its identity pinned to a shift in engagement to the West.

There is a considerable incentive for a Western-aligned country such as Canada to reinforce Modi’s standing in the G7. Sideline conversations can be conducted above all on Russia and Ukraine. Here India’s claims to be the authentic champion of the Global South, in rivalry to China must be privileged, as it was when India hosted the G20 in 2023. In institutional terms, Modi’s presence – along with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese – means that all the members of the Quadrilateral Security Initiative (the United States, Japan, Australia and India) will be attendance. And there is also the prospect of a follow-up on the meeting of the core members of the Five Eyes (the primary Western intelligence sharing body) that took place at the Raisina Dialogue in March 2025, hosted by India’s Ministry of External Affairs and a leading Indian think tank, the Observer Research Foundation.

Equally, the invitation to Modi is significantly beneficial to India in geopolitical terms. Participation at the Kananaskis Summit consolidates images of India’s elevated status. This is especially important in the context of the India-China rivalry, for despite India’s claims to Global South leadership, India has been losing ground. Notably, India has forfeited leverage as the BRICS has been transformed into a BRICS Plus, with a dilution of influence. Moreover, notwithstanding the narrative of having strategic autonomy, India has not demonstrated a capacity to push an initiative equivalent to China’s Belt and Road.

To be sure, participation at the G7 poses a dilemma for India as well as Canada. Per se, the G7 is castigated by China as an exclusive “small circle” institution, with India’s straddling approach demeaned as reinforcing a strategy of divide and rule in the Global South. Above all, notions of some permanent move by India into the G7 – as suggested by US president Donald Trump during his first term of office – received special odium.

Modi’s investment of a good deal of his diplomatic reputational capital into engagement with the G7 is full of risk, as India (without full G7 membership status) must be invited each year, with this decision depending on the individual country and leader hosting the event.

Over recent years, nonetheless, this investment has paid off: with no embarrassment due to a non-invitation: with Modi attending the 2021 Cornwall Summit in the United Kingdom, the 2022 Elmau Summit in Germany, the 2023 Hiroshima Summit in Japan and the 2024 Apulia Summit in Italy.

In recent years, calls have been amplified that Canada needs to raise its game as the geopolitical context has been transformed. But as the invitation to Modi for the Kananaskis Summit attests, decisions to facilitate Canada’s standing as a central player in the evolving complex, fluid and increasingly informal environment of the G7 is not without costs, including some domestic reputational damage. But, given the high stakes – and potential opportunities – in geopolitical terms, the invitation to Modi is a required risk.

[back to top]

Andrew F. Cooper is holds the University Research Chair in the Department of Political Science at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the University of Waterloo. His recent publications include The Concertation Impulse in World Politics Contestation over Fundamental Institutions and the Constrictions of Institutionalist International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2024) and, co-edited with Marek Rewizorski, Global Governance and the Political South Continuity and Change In and Beyond the BRICS (Routledge, 2025).

[back to top]

—	This Information System is provided by the University of Toronto Libraries and the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto.
	Please send comments to: g7@utoronto.ca This page was last updated June 11, 2025.