“”The Chinese Communist regime, often with the aid of other governments, is systematically hunting down its political and religious exiles, no matter where in the world they seek refuge,” Nate Schenkkan and Sarah Cook reported in 2021 for The Diplomat.
“Fox Hunt is a sweeping bid by General Secretary Xi [Jinping] to target Chinese nationals whom he sees as threats and who live outside China, across the world,” FBI Director Christopher Wray charged in a 2020 speech. “We’re talking about political rivals, dissidents, and critics seeking to expose China’s extensive human rights violations. Hundreds of the Fox Hunt victims that they target live right here in the United States, and many are American citizens or green card holders.”
In April of this year, authorities arrested two men accused of helping establish a secret Chinese “police station” in New York’s Chinatown. “The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” according to U.S. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen.”
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“Turkey’s government, it should be noted, cooperates with Beijing to silence Muslim Uyghur refugees who fled to Turkey, and it has sought assistance in muzzling its own dissidents. “Uzbekistani security services helped abduct a man from his apartment in Tashkent and return him to Turkey,” notes Freedom House.”
“The easiest way to understand what Modi has done to India is to see it as kind of a mutually reinforcing cycle of two different agendas.
The first is using the powers of the premiership to spread Hindutva ideology and polarize the electorate along Hindu-versus-Muslim lines. The second is consolidating power in his hands and weakening countervailing authorities — including the judiciary, oversight commissions, the free press, and opposition parties.
The more the Hindu public is converted to his ideology, the more popular Modi becomes, providing him political cover to pursue attacks on judges, bureaucrats, and reporters. The more he controls India’s government and the press, the easier it is for him to spread Hindutva propaganda.”
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“Under Modi, the party has managed to significantly expand its demographic base among both lower-caste and poor Hindus (two groups that overlap to some degree but not fully) without losing its base. By 2019, poor Hindu voters were as likely as rich ones to vote for the BJP.”
“Jets, drones, cyber capabilities, and more.
It’s a significant list, and builds on an expanding military partnership. The US has partnered with India more and more in response to China’s rise, seeing New Delhi as a valuable counterweight. This is happening as India advances grievous human rights abuses against minorities, against journalists, and against political critics — all in contradiction of America’s stated values.
And yet this week, the White House is promoting a “next generation defense partnership” with India. This includes the co-production of cutting-edge technologies like jet engines and semiconductors, the prospect of new arms sales, and agreements that would allow the US to have its navy ships repaired in India. The country will also purchase 31 advanced drones from General Atomics in a deal that will cost some $3 billion. And the Pentagon and the Indian Ministry of Defense have established a new military-tech incubator called INDUS-X.
Experts point out that India under Modi increasingly does not share American values, and some of the advanced military technologies that the US is providing the country could be used against dissidents or journalists.
“If we’re just going to go full-on countering China with India as a realist approach to things, that can come back and bite us,” says Derek Grossman, a defense analyst at the RAND Corporation. “Because, as we saw during the Cold War, a lot of the dictators or semi-authoritarian regimes that we cozied up with, they were not our friends in the long run.””
“India’s railway system was constructed in the 19th century, when the country was a British colony, and serves millions of people each day. Though it’s an important part of the country’s transit system, it has long suffered from underinvestment, and deadly, destructive accidents are not uncommon.”
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“Modi’s government has recently announced major spending on the transit and railway systems, including high-speed, indigenously produced trains between major transit corridors. But many such upgrades are years away, require mountains of outside investment, and must wind through a labyrinthine government bureaucracy to take effect.”
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“India’s railway system is in some ways a marvel, in that it connects a massive country together, is an affordable mode of transportation that serves 13 million people each day according to state-run Indian Railways, and connects India’s large rural population to its urban areas.
The railway system also spurred economic growth after it was first introduced in 1853, because it could move commodities both internally and internationally far more quickly than traditional transportation. The economy still depends on rail transportation, to an extent, though increased roadways and a large auto industry have increased Indians’ auto-ownership from 115 million in 2009 to 295.8 million in 2019, according to a report from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway Transport.
Still, people all over the country depend on old, overcrowded trains for all aspects of life, despite the massive number of accidents and deaths that occur on India’s more than 40,000 miles of railway.”