2y ago

US fears Canada-India row over Sikh activist's killing could upend strategy for countering China

The Biden administration is nervously watching a dispute between Canada and India, with some officials concerned it could upend the U.S. strategy toward the Indo-Pacific that is directed at blunting China’s influence there and elsewhere.

Publicly, the administration has maintained that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations that the Indian government may have been involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist near Vancouver are a matter between the two countries.

But U.S. officials have also repeatedly urged India to cooperate in the investigation. Those calls have been ignored thus far by India, which denies the allegations.

Behind the scenes, U.S. officials say they believe Trudeau’s claims are true. And they are worried that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may be adopting tactics to silence opposition figures on foreign soil akin to those used by Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, all of which have faced similar accusations.

26 comments

But like seriously India needs to stop fucking around. Russia does this sort of shit. Don’t be like Russia.
- Every country can and will go to great lengths to stop people from trying to infringe on their sovereignty. Dirty tactics (convert killings are honestly not even close to the worst these guys do) are the name of the game.
  I'd be very surprised if the us will just let some revolt in Alaska allow it to become an independent nation for example.
  
  Are you comparing a person speaking and maybe even organizing with an actual (presumably armed) revolt?
  Because that's ALSO what Russia does (and China). And what most authoritarians do, too.
  Unless I missed the part where the Canadian citizen India assassinated in Canada was somehow engaged in active violent resistance in India.
  There's international agreements to deal with actual criminal activity, and if there was actual criminal activity that India could prove they should have come after the guy they diplomacy not extrajudicial, sovereignty violating murder.
As long as India keeps electing fascists, I wouldn't expect much.
They should be happy that India didn't assassinate a US citizen first. Now all the dirty laundry can come out, Canada gets the blame, and India can be told to knock it off while the US gets to play middleman.
- It kinda reminds me of when Saudi Arabia killed the Washington Post writer. Trump blew it off and Biden basically continued the Trump foreign policy.
  Seems like normally consequences for acts at the global level are more based on geopolitical considerations than moral considerations. I could imagine if India assassinated a US citizen the intelligence would have just been buried and nobody would have ever heard about it so the US could contribute building up the India relationship to use against China.
  
  Seems like normally consequences for acts at the global level are more based on geopolitical considerations than moral considerations. I could imagine if India assassinated a US citizen the intelligence would have just been buried and nobody would have ever heard about it so the US could contribute building up the India relationship to use against China.
  Which I've always had trouble with, because if you know that someone is immoral, then why are you trusting that they're going to care about your relationship with them?
Honestly I could see this being a strategy a country might try (in fact I'm sure that the US and USSR probably tried stuff like this during the Cold War). Break up partners by sowing distrust. China doesn't have to win, they just have to make sure we lose.
- This might just be an ploy by US to make sure that India toes its line in condemning Russia, which it should do inspite of everything else, and stop buying Russian oil. Canada is being made a scapegoat in this without getting its own hand dirty.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is nervously watching a dispute between Canada and India, with some officials concerned it could upend the U.S. strategy toward the Indo-Pacific that is directed at blunting China’s influence there and elsewhere.
Publicly, the administration has maintained that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations that the Indian government may have been involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist near Vancouver are a matter between the two countries.
And they are worried that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may be adopting tactics to silence opposition figures on foreign soil akin to those used by Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, all of which have faced similar accusations.
Perhaps of more concern, though, is that the Canada-India dispute could have major implications for one of the administration’s main foreign policy priorities: the Indo-Pacific strategy, which seeks to counter China’s increasing assertiveness in the region, according to numerous U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the extreme sensitivity of the matter.
To that end it has boosted its diplomatic efforts in the Indo-Pacific, including by creating a leaders group that brings together Australia, Japan, India and the United States.
The fear — albeit a worst-case scenario envisioned by U.S. policymakers — is that the dispute will escalate in the same way that Britain’s row with Russia did over the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, in 2018.
The original article contains 743 words, the summary contains 242 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

26 comments