The Washington Post-Bidens efforts to court India challenged by assassination claim

2023-09-19T14:48:20.721Z

During the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi this month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi draped a shawl over President Biden’s shoulders before the two strolled amicably side by side at a memorial site for Mohandas K. Gandhi. Biden appeared frequently with Modi during the summit, which was viewed as a sort of coming-out moment for India, and the two men often exchanged warm gestures.

Those moments of bonhomie, following a rare state dinner for Modi hosted by Biden in June, reflect the president’s long-running effort to court Modi, a strategic partner key to countering China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. That effort is now complicated by Canada’s explosive allegation that Indian officials may have been behind the slaying of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia.

The White House’s approach since the allegations were made public Monday has been to walk a tightrope: Offering support for Canada’s investigation and urging India to cooperate, while avoiding any repudiation of India or Modi. Despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement to the Canadian House of Commons on Monday that authorities are pursuing “credible allegations” of links connecting India to the killing, the investigation is ongoing.

The White House has not issued a joint statement with Canada because it was a Canadian investigation, according to a senior administration official, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. The official said it would be unusual for the United States to stand with another country when it is announcing the results of an internal law enforcement investigation, adding that the United States would not expect another country to do the same.

The White House does not have any concerns about Canada’s investigation and did not take issue with how Trudeau chose to announce the results, the official said.

The White House is waiting for the formal investigation to conclude before weighing in, but it pushed back on criticism that the United States is trying to avoid antagonizing India because of its important strategic role. The senior official noted that the White House has expressed “deep concern” about the allegations and called for those who are responsible to be held to account.

The move has led to a rapid deterioration in relations between Canada and India, including the expulsion of an Indian diplomat in Ottawa. New Delhi responded by kicking out a Canadian diplomat.

'Brand India'--and Modi--take center stage at G-20 summit

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who had advocated for the creation of a separate Sikh state in the Punjab region of India, was fatally shot in his vehicle in June by two masked gunmen outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in Surrey, British Columbia. Nijjar, who was born in India but based in Canada, was president of the temple. Trudeau did not provide specifics in making the allegations.

That escalating spat puts Biden in a tricky position as he seeks to maintain strong relations with one of America’s closest allies, Canada, and a major strategic partner, India. Human rights activists have previously challenged Washington’s growing closeness with India, citing Modi’s crackdown on dissent and his persecution of religious minorities.

More broadly, Biden’s embrace of India highlights a broader tension in Biden’s foreign policy, as he talks of bolstering the world’s democracies and confronting its autocracies but also has allied with undemocratic regimes in hopes of building a global coalition to push back against China’s influence.

Against that backdrop, Trudeau’s allegations have put the White House in an especially tight spot. “The Biden administration has made extraordinary efforts to double down on the emerging strategic convergence between the United States and India, while downplaying any possible divergence on shared values,” said Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Now, Washington will need to walk a fine line between ostracizing a valued bulwark against Chinese expansionism and embracing the concerns of a major NATO ally,” Vaishnav added.

A White House statement Tuesday reflected that balancing act.

“We are deeply concerned about the allegations referenced by Prime Minister Trudeau. We remain in regular contact with our Canadian partners. It is critical that Canada’s investigation proceed and the perpetrators be brought to justice,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement. “We urge the Indian government to cooperate in the Canadian investigation and ensure that those responsible are held to account.”

In the weeks before the G-20 summit, senior officials from the United States and other countries privately raised the issue of Nijjar’s killing with Indian officials, according to a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Other attacks on allied soil in recent years have been followed by coordinated efforts to respond, sometimes through the expulsion of diplomats and intelligence agents. After the British government charged the Kremlin with a 2018 nerve agent attack on British soil, the United States, Canada and many European countries expelled Russian diplomats in solidarity.

Any Canadian push to mount a similar effort would be complicated by the fact that, unlike Russia, India does not have adversarial relations with Canada’s allies, many of whom have reason to curry favor with Modi’s government. India is among the world’s most populous countries, occupies a strategic location in the Asian subcontinent and is home to a growing technology sector.

The United States and India recently established a high-level initiative on defense and emerging technologies that will, among other things, promote joint production of defense equipment, including military jet engines, long-range artillery and armored infantry vehicles.

Biden has made grand overtures to court India in recent months. He invited Modi for a state dinner — only the third of his presidency — and has avoided publicly criticizing India’s slide into illiberalism and Modi’s persecution of religious minorities.

“The Biden administration is likely to downplay or perhaps ignore the issue, to avoid having to choose between NATO ally Canada and emerging security partner India, to ensure the latter’s continued assistance in countering China,” said Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp. and former U.S. intelligence officer.

“Much will depend on how the publicly revealed facts of Canada’s investigation shake out, but if true, these allegations pose the most serious threat to India’s international reputation perhaps in its history,” Grossman said.

With Washington and Delhi strengthening their security cooperation to counter China, the Biden administration has been willing to overlook its differences with India over Russia’s war in Ukraine, another top priority for the White House. “They’ve given up on trying to change India’s position on Russia to sustain cooperation on China,” said Lisa Curtis, director of Indo-Pacific Security at the Center for a New American Security.

U.S. diplomats said that Canadian counterparts briefed them about the allegations before Trudeau went public with them, and that they hoped for more clarity soon.

“We have been in close contact with our Canadian colleagues about this,” a senior State Department official said Tuesday, briefing reporters under ground rules of anonymity. “We’re quite concerned about the allegations. We think it’s important there is a full and open investigation, and we would urge the Indian government to cooperate with that investigation.”

Biden has often vowed to put human rights at the center of his foreign policy, and he has spoken in soaring terms about the existential challenge between democracy and autocracy worldwide. He has in some ways framed this approach as a contrast with his predecessor, Donald Trump, who appeared willing to forge links with autocrats while disrupting longtime U.S. alliances with European democracies.

White House officials say Biden prefers to raise his concerns about human rights with other leaders privately, which they say he did when Modi was in Washington for the state visit in June.

At the same time, the Biden administration has prioritized building relationships to push back against China and has said, despite Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, that China remains the most serious long-term challenge to the world order.

Biden recently visited Vietnam, for example, to strengthen relations with Hanoi despite the Communist Party of Vietnam’s treatment of its citizens. Human rights groups estimate the Vietnamese government is holding about 200 political prisoners.

Biden has faced similar challenges before. On the campaign trail, Biden vowed to make Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman a “pariah” after the CIA concluded he ordered the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Shortly after taking office, Biden declassified a U.S. intelligence report that found bin Salman responsible, but he stopped short of directly penalizing the Saudi royal.

Since then, Biden has worked to reestablish a relationship with Saudi Arabia, which is crucial to U.S. interests. Biden visited bin Salman in Jeddah and greeted him with a fist bump.

And at one point during the G-20, Modi came over as Biden shook hands with bin Salman, and put his hands over theirs as the trio smiled.

The Biden administration will impose no direct punishment on bin Salman for the 2018 killing of Khashoggi, despite the conclusion of a long-awaited intelligence report released Friday that he “approved” the operation, officials said.

Matt Viser and Michael Birnbaum contributed to this report.