🌍 Did India assassinate a Canadian in Canada?

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Today’s briefing is a 5 min read:

• 🇮🇳–🇨🇦 Did India assassinate a Canadian in Canada?

• 📱 Foxconn hedges its bets (again).

• ➕ Plus: Not mincing words on Ukraine, how the papers are covering US-China talks in Malta, and a new sport is trending in Botswana.

1. 🇹🇼 Taiwan: Authorities say they’ve detected a “recent record” of 100+ Chinese fighter jets in 24 hours. Around half the jets crossed the Taiwan Strait’s median line, which had served as the unofficial divide until China’s air force began crossing it regularly last year.

2. 🇱🇻 Latvia: Evika Siliņahas has become the new Latvian Prime Minister after the previous government collapsed less than a year into its mandate. Hailing from the same centre-right party as her predecessor, Siliņahas heads a broad coalition with a slight majority.

3. 🇲🇾 Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur is aiming to double its palm oil exports to China to mitigate the effects of new EU environmental restrictions on the product. Malaysia is the world’s second-largest palm oil producer after Indonesia.

4. 🇧🇷 Brazil: The Supreme Court has sentenced a defendant to 17 years in jail for his role in the storming of state institutions in Brasilia last January. The charges included armed criminal association, damage to historic buildings, and an attempted coup.

5. 🇨🇬 Congo: Brazzaville has refuted online claims about a military coup to remove long-serving President Denis Nguesso. The rumours emerged on social media while the president was in New York for the UN General Assembly.

🇨🇦–🇮🇳 Canada-India | Geopolitics

Did India assassinate a Canadian in Canada?

Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau told parliament yesterday (Monday) there were “credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.”

Nijjar was a prominent Sikh separatist who was shot dead outside a Vancouver-area temple in June. His killing remains unsolved, though Canadian authorities said last month they'd identified a getaway car.

Sikhism is a religious minority making up 58% of the Indian state of Punjab, where a violent Sikh separatist movement erupted in the 1980s. India quashed the movement and has long labelled it a national security threat, but some voices (particularly abroad) still call for a separate Sikh state.

The largest Sikh community outside Punjab is actually in Canada, a fact that’s long shaped India-Canada ties: India accuses Canada of not doing enough to quell Sikh separatism, while Canada accuses India of interference.

It all played out last week at the G20, where Prime Minister Modi reiterated India’s concerns, while Trudeau privately raised the allegation about Nijjar’s assassination. He’s now gone public with the claim, which India has rejected.

Intrigue’s take: It’s worth just repeating the allegation here: that the world’s largest democracy and 2023 G20 host was involved in an extrajudicial and extraterritorial assassination of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.

You’d want to be confident going public with an explosive claim like this. We’ve not seen any evidence yet and, given it’s reportedly intel-sourced, we may never see conclusive evidence.

In the meantime, Trudeau has already briefed his US, UK, and French counterparts, who’ll now be reflecting on their own approach to India: the West has increasingly courted it as a way to balance China, but these allegations, true or not, will bolster those who’ve been urging caution.

Also worth noting:

• The US and Australia have both said they’re “deeply concerned” by the allegations. The UK has said it’s in “close touch” with Canada.

• India designated Mr Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.

• Air India flight 182 from Canada to India blew up off the Irish coast in 1985, killing all 329 people on board. A Sikh man acquitted over the bombing was shot dead in the same Vancouver region last year.

📰 How newspapers covered…

US-China talks in Malta

Wang Yi is China’s foreign minister

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📱 Taiwan | Tech

Foxconn hedges its bets (again)

Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn has announced plans to double its investment in India over the next year. A Foxconn exec made the announcement on LinkedIn while wishing Prime Minister Modi a happy 73rd birthday.

What’s behind Foxconn’s move?

1. 🧲 Pull factors – India offers incentives and a large workforce

2. 🔙 Push factors – Foxconn is China’s largest private employer and Apple’s largest iPhone manufacturer, so there’s value in hedging against political risk amidst deteriorating US-China ties, and

3. 🕊️ Saving face – There’s probably also some damage control at play, after Foxconn ditched a $19.5B Indian joint venture in July.

Intrigue's take: As spooked governments take a more assertive approach to protecting their economies, business leaders are increasingly cosying-up to key decision-makers. And yes, sometimes that means swallowing your pride, logging onto LinkedIn, and sending a slightly cringe birthday message to a world leader (while promising billions in new investment).

Also worth noting:

• Apple is hoping to manufacture 18% of its iPhones in India by 2025, up from 7% in FY22-23.

• Foxconn’s founder is currently running for president in Taiwan.

🎧 Today on Intrigue Outloud

Why are so many world leaders missing from the UN?

➕ Extra Intrigue

Here’s what folks around the world are tweeting about:

• 🇧🇼 #SingaporeGP is trending in Botswana, after a particularly nail-biting Formula 1 race.

• 🇫🇮 Finns are tweeting about the ‘Kaivokatu’ area in Helsinki, which might be closed to private cars to improve the urban environment.

• 🇵🇰 The hashtag ‘#SupremeCourtOfPakistan’ is trending in Pakistan after the judicial body allowed the live streaming of its proceedings for the first time in history.

🗳️ Poll time!

💬 Quote of the day

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t mince her words last night (Monday) on a panel in the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

Want to keep up to date with our UNGA coverage? Sign up here!

Yesterday’s poll: Are you following the UN General Assembly this week?

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ❗ Yes, I'm attending! (5%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🔭 Yes, but from afar (36%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🥱 No, not really interested (54%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (5%)

Your two cents:

• ❗ F.T: “Despite the lack of specific objectives completed or likely to be completed, ongoing communication is better than none at all.”

• ✍️ R.L: “I live in NYC, so I am paying attention by force.”