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.
They should be happy that India didn’t assassinate a US citizen first. Now all the dirty laundry can come out 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.