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U.S. asserts support for Canada amid confrontation with India over Sikh activist's death

Dispute comes just as Western nations are trying to woo India's government, with some success​


https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-india-nijjar-sikh-trudeau-modi-1.6971670

The United States says it's asserting its support for Canada in the midst of a foreign-affairs crisis that places it in an uncomfortable quandary.

Late Tuesday, the U.S. vehemently denied the idea that it has been reluctant to speak publicly on Canada's behalf amid allegations by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the Indian government participated in the extrajudicial killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.

This was after a report in the Washington Post said Ottawa had tried and failed for weeks to get its allies to publicly condemn the murder.

A senior U.S. administration official reached out to CBC News to dispute that characterization.

WATCH | India allegation won't become huge global issue, says UN Ambassador Bob Rae:

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India allegation won't become a huge global issue, says Amb. Rae​

4 hours ago
Duration 10:27
"It would be a mistake to think that this is suddenly going to become a huge global issue when in reality it is an issue that affects us," Bob Rae, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, told Power & Politics Tuesday regarding the allegation that the India government was involved in the murder of a Canadian citizen.
"Reports that Canada asked the U.S. to publicly condemn the murder and that we refused are false and we would strongly push back on the rumours that we were reluctant to speak publicly about this," the official said.

"In fact, we very clearly and very publicly have done the opposite by expressing deep concern shortly after PM Trudeau made the announcement."

The official then pointed to a statement made Monday night by Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the White House national security council, which called on the Indian government to co-operate with the Canadian investigation.

But the allegation comes at a time when the United States is desperately courting India as an ally in the midst of Washington's increasingly intense rivalry with its neighbour, China. Just weeks ago, India's prime minister received a warm welcome at the White House.

Allies not keen to take sides​

Canada's other Five Eyes allies showed little inclination Tuesday to wade into an escalating row between Ottawa and New Delhi over allegations that Indian agents were involved in the assassination of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., on June 18.

Most opted to treat the allegation as a matter still to be investigated — in spite of the fact that the Trudeau government feels it has enough information to make an accusation in Parliament and expel a diplomat.

U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adm. John Kirby was perhaps the most supportive of Canada.

"They are certainly serious allegations," he said Tuesday, "and we believe in order to determine how credible they are, there needs to be a thorough investigation.

"Prime Minister Trudeau has called for that, and so we'll see how Canada moves forward on this. It's certainly well within their capacity to do this, and we urge India as well to participate and cooperate in that investigation."

"It is important to find out exactly what happened."

WATCH | RCMP'S ability to protect Canadians questioned in wake of India allegation:

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RCMP's ability to protect Canadians questioned in wake of India accusation​

9 hours ago
Duration 2:42
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he has 'confidence' in the RCMP's ability to protect Canadians after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India's government of being involved in the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.
Australian PM Anthony Albanese, who earlier this year hosted India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Australia, refused to comment on the matter at all.

"I don't talk about Five Eyes intelligence at a press conference, funnily enough," he said in response to a question about India's alleged role. "That's why it's called intelligence. It's because we don't speculate on what the intelligence is. So I don't intend to talk about Five Eyes intelligence here or anywhere else."

Two men chat while seated.

Trudeau speaks with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as they attend a plenary session at the G20 Summit in New Delhi, India on Sept. 9. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly put out a tweet that made no mention of India at all.

"All countries should respect sovereignty and the rule of law. We are in regular contact with our Canadian partners about serious allegations raised in the Canadian Parliament. Important that Canada's investigation runs its course and the perpetrators brought to justice."


On Sept. 12, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Canadian G20 delegation finally left India after an embarrassing extended stay caused by airplane issues, one member of the delegation was absent.

National Security Adviser Jody Thomas had quietly left India to fly to London, U.K. Her mission was to tell the U.K. government in person that Canada's relations with India were about to get a whole lot worse.

There was also a flurry of conversations between Prime Minister Trudeau and the leaders of the U.S., the U.K. and France.

The Canadian government was aware that requesting support from those allies was no small thing. Canada's explosive allegations against India come at a sensitive time for all nations involved.

For India, it stains the country's international image just as it celebrates its moment in the sun, weeks after sending a successful mission to the moon and then hosting the world's leaders in New Delhi. It now finds itself accused of rogue state behaviour similar to that of Saudi Arabia and Russia.

For Canada's allies, the accusation presents the risk of alienating the world's most populous country just when they least want to do so.

Courted by the world​

Nuclear power India is the world's most powerful non-aligned country at a time when the world is increasingly dividing into two blocs. The Modi government has resisted taking sides on the Ukrainian war that has turbocharged those antagonisms.

The West has worked to pull India to its side and has had reasons to hope that was happening.

The United States has finally succeeded in drawing India into something that resembles a formal alliance: the "Quad" of the U.S., India, Australia and Japan.

After a false start in 2007 that petered out just a year later, the Quad was re-established in 2017 but really only began to act cohesively in 2021.

A navy ship cuts in front of the bow of a large ship. A wake trails the boat.

In this photo provided by the U.S. Navy, the USS Chung-Hoon observes a Chinese navy ship conduct what it called an 'unsafe' Chinese manoeuvre in the Taiwan Strait on June 3, in which the Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of the American destroyer, forcing the U.S. ship to slow to avoid a collision. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Andre T. Richard/U.S. Navy/The Associated Press)
China's escalating sabre-rattling against Taiwan has lent urgency to the U.S. effort to unite Asia against China's military threats and its extreme claims over the South China Sea.

India's chief of defence staff Gen. Anil Chauhan traveled to California in May 2023 for talks on deepening military cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

The U.S. will be very reluctant to endanger the progress it has made in wooing India into what looks more and more like an alliance.

India leans to the West​

India's westward drift is being powered by both military and commercial currents.

It is involved in a sometimes-violent border conflict with China that has been much sharper since the Doklam standoff in 2017.

Troops came to blows again last December.

India's military ties to the West are deepening. The Soviet Union historically was India's biggest arms supplier and the Russian Federation stepped into that role after 1991. But lately, Russia has needed all the arms it can make for its own forces in Ukraine, and India has begun to make more purchases from the U.S., France and other western countries.

U.S. President Joe Biden, center, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and other G20 leaders arrive to pay their tributes at the Rajghat, a Mahatma Gandhi memorial, in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023.

U.S. President Joe Biden, centre, Modi and other G20 leaders arrive to pay their tributes at the Rajghat, a Mahatma Gandhi memorial, in New Delhi, India on Sept. 10. (Kenny Holston/AP)
Arms sales are often the dowry of international matchmaking. Governments buy from countries they expect to be friendly with — especially in the case of sophisticated arms purchases that need long-term maintenance arrangements. Once those purchases are made, they become an incentive to stay friendly.

The West's tensions with China have also benefited India commercially. India's economy is now growing faster than China's for the first time in decades, partly thanks to the "friend-shoring" trend which sees Western companies shift manufacturing away from China to more friendly, democratic countries.

The suggestion that India has been acting as a rogue state, deploying assassins in a G7 nation, imperils that process.

Few reasons to rock the boat​

All of Canada's closest allies have reasons not to want to alienate India.

U.S. President Joe Biden told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that the U.S. is strengthening its Quad arrangements with India and praised it as a force for good.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is of Indian heritage and who was warmly welcomed by Modi this month, is the son-in-law of Sudha Murthy, the founder of Indian multinational Infosys and one of Modi's most influential admirers.

The U.K. is in the home stretch of free trade talks with the Asian giant. The U.K. badly needs such deals after the self-inflicted trade wound of Brexit.

Australia has had such a deal since the end of last year and now has a larger volume of trade with India than with the U.S. or its close neighbour New Zealand. Its prime minister welcomed the Indian PM to Australia in May, telling one crowd, "Modi is the boss."

France recently concluded a multi-billion-dollar agreement to sell India Rafale fighter planes and submarines. Modi was France's guest of honour at this year's Bastille Day parade.

None of those allies are keen to pick a fight with India at this time.

India number one source of immigrants​

India's initial reaction to Canada's allegation — the tit-for-tat expulsion of a Canadian diplomat — is unlikely to be the end of this story.

The BJP government of India has successfully fomented a jingoistic nationalism that has its own momentum. It's currently playing out on Indian media and social media, where Modi supporters are demanding that India make an example of Canada.

This dispute already led to the interruption of free trade talks between India and Canada on September 1. Should the diplomatic conflict escalate, it could affect other aspects of the relationship.

A small Canadian flag is held by someone sitting among a row of people.

India is a leading source of immigration to Canada. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
India is by far the biggest source of immigrants to Canada, with nearly four times as many arrivals last year as the runner-up, China.

More than 35,000 Indian nationals took the citizenship oath in the first six months of this year.

About half of all international students in Canada are Indian citizens. There were more than 300,000 of them studying in Canada at the end of 2022.

If the dispute between India and Canada continues to escalate, it could affect all of that.

During a dispute in 2018, Saudi Arabia ordered all its international students to leave Canada, suspended medical treatment programs, halted flights to Canada by its national carrier and stopped the purchase of Canadian grains.

Modi faces risks as well​

Canada's allies know that Beijing will never condemn India for its alleged transgressions in this case. They also know that one of Beijing's selling points is that it doesn't lecture other countries about issues of human rights or rule of law.

Their reluctance to be seen as diplomatic scolds favours New Delhi.

But while India holds many cards in this dispute, it also faces reputational risks.

The Indian government may be tempted to play to nationalist sentiment at home, explicitly or tacitly acknowledging its role and trying to cast it in the same light as the U.S. assassination of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

But Nijjar is not bin Laden and Canada is not Pakistan (despite comparisons in India's nationalist media).

And so India has chosen the path of denial — which might be a hard one to sustain if more facts emerge.

Narendra Modi need only look at Mohammed bin Salman for an example of the difficulty involved in living down the reputation of international assassin.

In November 2022, four years after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Biden administration argued in court that as Saudi prime minister, bin Salman should enjoy immunity in the legal proceedings against him.

But he is far from being truly rehabilitated.

The image of modernizer and reformer bin Salman worked so hard to cultivate is in tatters. The world is more aware than ever of his country's horrible human rights record.

Narendra Modi is at the zenith of his international power and prestige. This incident casts a shadow over those achievements.
 
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Yup.

USA knows every country makes a lot of mistakes.

But to bring it to the news and make it big, there's a political motive behind it.
Absolutely. If this is making big headlines, that means there is an agenda behind it. Canada doesn’t have an independent foreign policy, it is being used as a proxy to remind India to keep in line.

I believe this will eventually blow over but there will be some damage here to India’s ties to the west unless India fully complies with US demands to fully support its foreign policy agenda. This incident is basically meant to be a reminder to India that if it continues trying to straddle the fence, it will suffer major consequences.
 
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@Meengla sb

The reliance on the Indian IT is probably already at a point where India can blackmail America, and by extension the West.

Disagreed. The Indian IT work is too low tech to be of any serious concern to USA. In the hypothetical event of such a blackmail, West has far more leverage:

1. They can shut off Indian access to net, GPS, SWIFT and such more critical systems
2. India needs Western dollars far more desperately than they need us.

We are not in the same league. We are pretty much minnows

Regards

I generally like your balanced posts and in this post you again showing humbleness and reality. However, I tend to agree with other Indian posters here: The reliance on the Indian IT is impossible to remove without incurring painful losses to the American economy. Yes, India would suffer much more but the electoral costs to any American President will be high--too high-- due to the damage to the American economy.
As in case of manufacturing where all the eggs were placed in China's basket, in case of the IT, all the eggs are placed in India's basket. Okay, not strictly 'all' the eggs but it will be mighty more difficult to lessen the reliance on the Indian IT then on the Chinese manufacturing. Jobs involving high tech/brain are much harder to move to different countries once systems are entrenched.

Of course this is all a hypothetical debate but certainly not out of the realm of possibility--the same China which was a darling during the Cold War has become the Number #1 target for the Americans.

believe this will eventually blow over but there will be some damage here to India’s ties to the west unless India fully complies with US demands to fully support its foreign policy agenda. This incident is basically meant to be a reminder to India that if it continues trying to straddle the fence, it will suffer major consequences.
Prophetic words!!
Indians know that by merely using Pakistan by giving a few billion $$, Indian economy can be greatly damaged. It is not for no reason that Pakistan, despite obviously supporting the Afghan Taliban for two decades against Americans, is kept in America's non-enemies.
 
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Only time will tell.
Some 'nobody' can become 'well known' in no time and even attain global celebrity status. Perceptions are formed rapidly and already the blogspace is full of sayings that India is an ingrate 'ally' for not condemning the the Russian invasion of Ukraine, buying Russian oil, and doing things like the assassination of the Sikh activist.

Lol. They have killed Homi Baba and LB sastri. Who they are going to preach?

Absolutely. If this is making big headlines, that means there is an agenda behind it. Canada doesn’t have an independent foreign policy, it is being used as a proxy to remind India to keep in line.

I believe this will eventually blow over but there will be some damage here to India’s ties to the west unless India fully complies with US demands to fully support its foreign policy agenda. This incident is basically meant to be a reminder to India that if it continues trying to straddle the fence, it will suffer major consequences.
Oh my, I can already see the consequences. This was today at UN.

 
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Lol. They have killed Homi Baba and LB sastri. Who they are going to preach?
Americans had no reason to kill Indian politicians. In fact, Americans wanted to court India from 1947 onwards but your political class, especially Nehru, was too stupid and ideological to see the 'winning side' of the then emerging Cold War. Pakistanis were far smarter and chose the winning side and greatly reaped the benefits, especially under Ayub Khan, by allying with the West.
Oh my, I can already see the consequences. This was today at UN.

@tower9 has said that there are no immediate consequences for India.
But in my opinion, this is India's Jamal Khassoggi Moment and can and probably will be used against India should India not follow the American diktat in appreciable manner. Americans had humbled the Germans and the French for their deviances over the 2003 Iraq War--a country far way-- to the point that those two countries have to very reluctantly accept yet another America-sponsored war in Europe itself--the war Russia-Ukraine war.
India can't even handle Pakistan, let alone a China-Pakistan combine. The best course of action for India is to follow the Israel path: Grab the American political system by the balls and do so as soon as possible. Otherwise, an America-China 'understanding' leaves India high and dry in geopolitics. White Christians won't care for the brown Hindus. You can already see the growing overtures to China from Americans in last few weeks.
 
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no usa wont. usa and canada playing this game together. you will see. something to do with indians keep buying russian oil i suspect.
Russia has refused to sell the oil in Indian rupees. that took care of that

I generally like your balanced posts and in this post you again showing humbleness and reality. However, I tend to agree with other Indian posters here: The reliance on the Indian IT is impossible to remove without incurring painful losses to the American economy. Yes, India would suffer much more but the electoral costs to any American President will be high--too high-- due to the damage to the American economy.
As in case of manufacturing where all the eggs were placed in China's basket, in case of the IT, all the eggs are placed in India's basket. Okay, not strictly 'all' the eggs but it will be mighty more difficult to lessen the reliance on the Indian IT then on the Chinese manufacturing. Jobs involving high tech/brain are much harder to move to different countries once systems are entrenched.

Only 50% of IT outsourcing goes to India. The remaining 50% is distributed around the world. It is little consolation to the firms who rely on India 100%. The short term damage can be catastrophic.

America has a trump card there. They can offer green card to the folks in India working on American IT projects. That is another can of worms we would rather not touch
 
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Russia has refused to sell the oil in Indian rupees. that took care of that



Only 50% of IT outsourcing goes to India. The remaining 50% is distributed around the world. It is little consolation to the firms who rely on India 100%. The short term damage can be catastrophic.

America has a trump card there. They can offer green card to the folks in India working on American IT projects. That is another can of worms we would rather not touch
But india still supports Russian genocide. Even during g20 Indians and bunch of shit countries didn’t condemn Russia.

Indians have russsian fetish lol. Well maybe most third world shit holes have same Russian fetish as Indians.
 
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Only 50% of IT outsourcing goes to India. The remaining 50% is distributed around the world. It is little consolation to the firms who rely on India 100%. The short term damage can be catastrophic.

America has a trump card there. They can offer green card to the folks in India working on American IT projects. That is another can of worms we would rather not touch

We are getting off-topic and I am guilty of that myself.
But I still think India has a major tool to damage Americans should it come to that; one can't just say 'Only 50%' when talking about the IT jobs. Even 10% is a significant number when it comes to IT jobs. I am in my second IT job working at a Fortune 500 company and I can say that those who choose to be agents of foreign govt can do a lot of damage and get away with that for a long time. Blog posts can be modified. Accounts can be hacked. Secret info sent overseas. YouTube videos downgraded. Personal data leaked. Heck, in a previous job, I had seen references to subpoenas against a former US President--I didn't bother to even look there. Imagine hundreds of thousands of foreign workers--of them many working from off-shore offices--with access to all kind of data.

We are talking hypothetical here but any country which employs a large number of foreign workers in IT is taking a grave risk. And in time, India can blackmail Americans/West just as much as the Israeli Lobby does in America, if not more. There is even a video where a prominent Indian analyst is boasting in such words '... we run your [American] IT' as not so veiled threat and he was correct.
 
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We are getting off-topic and I am guilty of that myself.
But I still think India has a major tool to damage Americans should it come to that; one can't just say 'Only 50%' when talking about the IT jobs. Even 10% is a significant number when it comes to IT jobs. I am in my second IT job working at a Fortune 500 company and I can say that those who choose to be agents of foreign govt can do a lot of damage and get away with that for a long time. Blog posts can be modified. Accounts can be hacked. Secret info sent overseas. YouTube videos downgraded. Personal data leaked. Heck, in a previous job, I had seen references to subpoenas against a former US President--I didn't bother to even look there. Imagine hundreds of thousands of foreign workers--of them many working from off-shore offices--with access to all kind of data.

We are talking hypothetical here but any country which employs a large number of foreign workers in IT is taking a grave risk. And in time, India can blackmail Americans/West just as much as the Israeli Lobby does in America, if not more. There is even a video where a prominent Indian analyst is boasting in such words '... we run your [American] IT' as not so veiled threat and he was correct.
We dont have any problem with US , low IQ trudeau started trouble for love of few low IQ terrorists . He will pay the price of taking India equal to pakistan and bangladesh , we are not going back down on bossing and bullying of a fool PM of canada who thinks white skin can do anything . He will finally go down in the history as a humiliated fool with bloody nose .
 
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We are getting off-topic and I am guilty of that myself.
But I still think India has a major tool to damage Americans should it come to that; one can't just say 'Only 50%' when talking about the IT jobs. Even 10% is a significant number when it comes to IT jobs. I am in my second IT job working at a Fortune 500 company and I can say that those who choose to be agents of foreign govt can do a lot of damage and get away with that for a long time. Blog posts can be modified. Accounts can be hacked. Secret info sent overseas. YouTube videos downgraded. Personal data leaked. Heck, in a previous job, I had seen references to subpoenas against a former US President--I didn't bother to even look there. Imagine hundreds of thousands of foreign workers--of them many working from off-shore offices--with access to all kind of data.

We are talking hypothetical here but any country which employs a large number of foreign workers in IT is taking a grave risk. And in time, India can blackmail Americans/West just as much as the Israeli Lobby does in America, if not more. There is even a video where a prominent Indian analyst is boasting in such words '... we run your [American] IT' as not so veiled threat and he was correct.
I do not think the Indian workers have any loyalty to the Indian state. They are vulnerable to coercion from Indian authorities. They will be happy to take a green card and flee to United States. In any case the Indian state has no interest in killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
 
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I do not think the Indian workers have any loyalty to the Indian state. They are vulnerable to coercion from Indian authorities. They will be happy to take a green card and flee to United States. In any case the Indian state has no interest in killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

I have been talking past you, apparently.
We are speaking about a hypothetical situation here. And I am absolutely certain that, should it ever come to that, Indian govt. can coerce India-based IT companies to stop supporting operations in America/West. No doubt it will hurt India more but it WILL be very very painful to America too. Manufacturing can be exported from China to other countries in short order-- 5 years, tops. But not intellectually heavy jobs.

Some Indians here have correctly identified the American dependence on Indian IT as already reached a point of no return. I am not sure about that but I think it is either almost there or getting there.
I work in the IT myself. You don't know how much damage a compromised IT workforce can do to a country!!! Even if 1% of a million strong IT workers are compromised, they can do a lot of damage which would remain hidden for a long time.
 
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I do not think the Indian workers have any loyalty to the Indian state. They are vulnerable to coercion from Indian authorities. They will be happy to take a green card and flee to United States. In any case the Indian state has no interest in killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
Indians are very intelligent , they will take green card first then they will show patriotic sentiments .
 
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