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.

  • someguy3@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • trebuchet@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • rastilin@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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?

        • trailing9@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          if you know that someone is immortal, then why are you trusting that they’re going to care about your relationship with them?

          You meant immoral, didn’t you?

          Good question both ways.

    • killerinstinct101@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • reddit_sux@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          There is no proof of Indian involvement in the murder of Nijjar.

          He was accused of anti-national activity, terrorism for which he fled to Canada and applied for residency. It was rejected. He married a Canadian to get citizenship. Formal extradition requests for him were done many times.

          He was not a Canadian citizen by birth but was a criminal on the run.

          If India did murder him it was unfortunate because it was done in another nation, and it failed the fundamental reason for such act, i.e to reduce terrorism.

          Khalistani are not considered terrorists by the west since their activities are concentrated in a non western nation.