The G20 summit in New Delhi earlier this month was a triumph for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the entire world has been able to gauge the importance that the United States and its allies attach to harmonious relations with India, notably through the eagerness of the American president , Joe Biden, and other Western leaders to allow Mr. Modi to reign as king and master over this summit bringing together the greatest world powers.
Their desire to spare the Indian leader was also manifested through the adoption of a joint declaration on the war in Ukraine which knowingly omitted to directly condemn Russian aggression. This was the price Mr. Biden and others were willing to pay in order to stay in Mr. Modi’s good graces. This is because his country is considered by everyone as an essential counterweight to a China which aims to impose itself on the geopolitical scene.
For Justin Trudeau, however, this G20 summit was a test, and not just because his plane broke down. The abrupt welcome given by the Indian Prime Minister to his Canadian counterpart said a lot about the state of relations between the two men. Mr. Trudeau’s trip to India in 2018 was a disaster on several fronts. His traditional costumes were mocked and he was reprimanded by Indian diplomats for inviting a Sikh extremist to an official reception at the Canadian High Commission.
This time, Mr. Trudeau had to endure public reprimands from Mr. Modi. The latter criticized him for his lax approach towards Sikh activists present in Canada, who, according to a statement from the Indian government, “promote separatism and incite violence against Indian diplomats” in addition to “threatening the Indian community and its places of worship.
However, it is only after Justin Trudeau’s return to Canada that we will have understood to what extent the conversations between the two leaders in New Delhi have plunged Indo-Canadian relations into an impasse from which they will not escape. so early. Mr. Trudeau’s allegations Monday of a “potential link” between Indian government agents and the assassination of a Sikh activist in a Vancouver suburb last June are likely to attract worldwide attention and to put our allies in a position that could not be more uncomfortable.
Spokespersons for the Canadian and American governments rushed to deny an article in the Washington Post according to which Canada asked Washington to publicly condemn the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The article was later corrected, saying instead that Canada had “pressed its closest allies, including Washington, to take joint action” to respond to the assassination of this Canadian citizen whom India had identified as a terrorist in 2020.
Regardless, Washington’s reaction to Mr. Trudeau’s exit was much more mixed than the Trudeau government would have liked. At most, the Biden administration said it was “deeply concerned” by the allegations. She said she supported Canada in continuing the investigation into Mr. Nijjar’s death. But the American petticoat especially exceeded when the spokesperson for the American National Security Council, John Kirby, declared on Wednesday that “our relations with India remain of paramount importance not only to the South Asian region , but of course for that of the Indo-Pacific.
His boss, Jake Sullivan, had tried to minimize the existence of divisions between Canada and the United States on this issue, Washington’s reluctance to compromise its relations with India in order to come to the rescue of its ally Canadian was evident. The US strategy to strengthen the Indo-US axis to counterbalance China trumps all. Whether it is realpolitik or hypocrisy on his part, the fact remains that the issues of American national security take precedence over the values that Washington continues to promote in the public arena.
After all, Mr. Biden quickly buried his promise, made during his 2020 presidential campaign, to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state because of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s role in the journalist’s assassination. and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi at the Riyadh consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Eager to lower pump prices in the United States and counter Iranian influence in the Middle East, Mr. Biden has since put his democratic principles in his pocket by getting closer to Mr. Ben Salman.
It is now the same in the case of Narendra Modi. Justin Trudeau may have felt pressured to publicly reveal the allegations against India in order to preempt leaks to the media. He probably also wanted to avoid being accused of having failed again in a case of foreign interference. Not to mention the anger of the hundreds of thousands of Sikhs living in Canada who are demanding justice for Mr. Nijjar. But by embarrassing Mr. Modi so publicly, Mr. Trudeau risks finding himself even more isolated on the international stage than at the G20 summit.
Based in Montreal, Konrad Yakabuski is a columnist at Globe and Mail.