US fears Canada-India row could upend strategy for countering China
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.
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.
Both Canada, a Pacific country and key NATO ally that shares with the United States the longest undefended border in the world, and India are critical to U.S.-led efforts to present a united and democratic front against growing Chinese assertiveness.
Aside from countering Russia’s war in Ukraine, the administration has been most focused on dealing with China as a competitor and the potential international threat it poses. To that end it has boosted its
