Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: August 30, 2015 Edition

Japan launched its second Izumo-class helicopter carrier, the largest warship built by the country since World War II, media sources reported August 27.

The 24,000-ton ship, named Kaga, was unveiled at Japan Marine United shipyard in Yokohama. The name Kaga, derived from former Kaga province in present-day Ishikawa Perfecture, originally belonged to a WWII aircraft carrier that took part in the Pearl Harbor attacks and was lost at the Battle of Midway. The ship is expected to be commissioned in March 2017.

Kaga is the second Izumo-class carrier to be launched, with the first being JS Izumo which was launched in August 2013 and commissioned in March 2015. According to IHS Jane’s, both vessels are nearly identical. Details provided by Japan Marine United suggest the only differences are a draught of 7.1 m rather than 7.3 m, and a complement of 520 rather than 470. Both vessels displace 19,500 tons (24,000 tons at full load), andKaga will likely also be armed with two Raytheon Sea RAM RIM-116 systems and two Mk 15 Vulcan Phalanx close in weapons systems.

At first glance, the Izumo-class helicopter carrier – officially designated a “helicopter destroyer” – resembles an aircraft carrier. The ships can carry up to 14 helicopters designed for anti-submarine warfare or mine countermeasures. Some have also noted that it is capable of accommodating vertical takeoff platforms such as the F-35B and V-22 Osprey given the large size of the ships, relative to the smaller 18,300-ton Hyuga-class helicopter carriers already in operation. Its features have led some to conclude that it is meant singularly or primarily for direction against China, specifically for anti-submarine warfare.

Gujarat, long a mostly loyal bastion of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been facing a series of strikes and protests by members of the Patidar (Patel) community, a caste of prosperous landowners, farmers, traders and merchants. The aim of the unrest is to secure reservations–a quota–of spots for members of the caste in business, government, and education. Currently, spots are reserved for many of India’s lower and disadvantaged castes, but the Patels do not fit in this category and are quite well off; in fact, Gujarat’s Chief Minister is one. About 14 percent of Gujarat’s population is Patel. The main Patel grievance is that because of reservations for certain castes, they are missing out on certain benefits.

The agitation’s structure and timing are strange. Its main leader is Hardik Patel, a 22-year-old who was previously a poor student and has, by all accounts, led an unremarkable life. There are allegations that his family has bad blood with a BJP official. Perhaps he just wanted a successful career despite his lack of accomplishment. In any case, the ferocity and organization of his agitation suggest possible support by rival parties of the BJP, especially the Congress Party and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Some of the tactics used by the Patidar agitation are part of a disturbing pattern of Indian protestors using blackmail in an attempt to achieve their goals. These tactics include blocking roads and withholding the sale and distribution of basic goods.

Almost immediately after the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics released its second quarter GDP growth estimate of 7 percent in mid-July, a group of China watchers were crying foul. China officially targeted full-year growth of around 7 percent in 2015, a number matched exactly by its reported GDP figures for the first half of the year.

This past Monday, stock markets around the world fell on fears of an economic slowdown in China and worries that the Chinese government was taking a less active position in shoring up its own stock market. The FTSE 100 lost ₤74 billion ($115.4 billion), while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by more than 1,000 points during the trading day. China’s stock market lost 8.5 percent in a dramatic decline, wiping out its 2015 gains. While global stock markets recovered Tuesday, China’s stock market continued to fall. On Wednesday, the Shanghai Composite index gyrated wildly before finishing another 1.3 percent down.

After months of anticipation, China has released the guest list for its September 3 military parade, the highlight of a series of events commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II. Vice Minister Zhang Ming of China’s Foreign Ministry revealed the list at a press conference on August 25.

There will be 30 heads of state at the parade, Zhang said, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, South Korea President Park Geun-hye, Pakistan’s President Mamnoon Hussain, Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, and Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. China’s guests will also include the heads of state of each member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, in addition to China itself).

As Nepal’s Constituent Assembly readies to vote on a draft of a new constitution over the next few weeks, a Hindu right-wing party is demanding that the term “secularism” be dropped from the draft. The nationalist party wants Nepal to be reinstated as a “Hindu nation,” a status the country had until the monarchy’s fall in 2006. The country’s four major political parties are yet to decide on the issue, but the draft they have agreed on doesn’t promise full religious freedom. In this video, The Diplomat speaks with leaders of the concerned parities and a constitutional expert to learn more about the issue confronting the nation.

On July 29, 2015, a South Korean intelligence official announced that Yemeni rebels had purchased 20 Scud missiles from North Korea. These missiles were subsequently fired into Saudi Arabia, in response to Saudi aggression in Yemen. While Saudi Arabia initially believed that the missiles came from Iran, a former North Korean security official confirmed South Korean intelligence claims in an interview with the Seoul-based news agency Yonhap.

North Korea’s history of missile shipments to the Middle East is well known, with Iran, Syria and Palestine among its clients. Nevertheless, the longevity and relative consistency of the DPRK’s relationship with Yemen is striking. The Yemen-North Korea partnership is based on a combination of the DPRK’s desperate need for foreign capital and Yemen’s insatiable thirst for arms to combat instability at home.

This week, Russia and China have begun a naval exercise – dubbed Joint Sea II- in international territorial waters in the Sea of Japan and off the coast of Russia’s Primorsky territory – approximately 250 miles away from Japan. The exercise for the first time includes a joint Sino-Russian amphibious assault drill.

The war games, which are scheduled to conclude on August 28, include 22 vessels, 20 aircraft, 40 armored vehicles and 500 marines, according to RT.

“During the active phase of the maritime maneuvers to last till August 27, the sailors work out the issues of join anti-sabotage, anti-submarine, anti-vessel and anti-aircraft defense. Besides that there’ll be gunnery drills with different types of surface, underwater and aerial targets,” Roman Martov, Russia’s Eastern Military District spokesman, told TASS.

Bangladesh has launched a raid against Myanmar separatists following a gun battle between local forces and the Arakan Army, local media sources reported August 27.

The remote hills on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border have been home to a range of separatist groups from neighboring Myanmar for decades. The groups – including the Arakan Army which was formed in 2009 and fights for the independence of Arakan state – have long posed a problem for Bangladesh’s security forces along a poorly-policed border.

This particular raid comes after an attack by the Arakan Army on Bangladesh border forces in Thanchi in Bandarban. On Wednesday (August 26) morning at around 9:30am local time, members of the Arakan Army opened fire on a team of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) when they were on patrol with army members on a vessel. The incident came just a day after Bangladesh forces had seized 10 Arabian horses from Arakan Army men.

The United States maintains approximately 800 military installations around the world manned by over 230,000 military personnel. Around 80,000 troops are currently stationed in East Asia and the Pacific region including 50,000 troops in 109 bases in Japan and 28,000 in 85 bases in South Korea. Europe still hosts 65,000 American G.I.’s with 58 U.S. bases in Italy and 179 U.S. bases in Germany alone.