Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: February 7, 2016 Edition

Cambodia was the most corrupt country in Southeast Asia in 2015, the latest iteration of an influential annual study has found.

According to corruption watchdog Transparency International’s 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released last week, Cambodia recorded the worst possible score among Southeast Asian countries, with a dismal 21 out of a possible 100 points. The index, which measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption, placed Cambodia at 150th worldwide in the study of 168 countries, tied with African nations Zimbabwe and Burundi.

While Cambodia’s score was the same as that recorded in 2014, the country’s ranking as the region’s most corrupt was the product of improvements in Myanmar, which saw a one-point bump to an overall score of 22.

China inaugurated five new theater commands of the People’s Liberation Army on Monday, with Chinese President Xi Jinping presenting flags to the new commanders during a ceremony in Beijing. The new theater commands – which replace the seven previously existing military regions – bring another piece of Xi’s ambitious plan for PLA reform into reality.

Most of the commanders of the new military regions previously commanded one of China’s seven military regions, based at Shenyang, Beijing, Jinan, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Lanzhou. However, many were given command of theaters far from their original base of power, ensuring no one commander can maintain a network of personal loyalty that supersedes Party authority. Liu Yuejun, formerly the commander of the Lanzhou Military Region (MR) in northwest China will now command the Eastern Theater. The former commander of the northern Shenyang MR, Wang Jiaocheng, will take over the Southern Theater Command, while Zhao Zongqi of the eastern Jinan MR move to commander of the Western Theater Command.

Malaysia’s Ministry of Defense has selected U.S.-based aircraft maker MD Helicopters to supply six MD 530G scout attack helicopters to the Army Aviation branch, Pasukan Udara Tentera Darat (PUTD), of the Malaysian Army, according to a MD Helicopters press release.

Delivery of the helicopters is slated to begin at the end of this year with the full fleet scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2017, the press release states. The contract is the biggest U.S.-Malaysian arms deal since Kuala Lumpur placed an order for eight F/A-18DS fighter aircraft in June 1993.

“We are honored that the MD 530G—our next generation light scout attack helicopter—was selected by the Malaysian prime minister, minister of defense and the chief of defense force (CDF) to be the newest addition to the Malaysian Armed Forces,” said Lynn Tilton, chief executive officer for MD Helicopters.

Current Taiwanese President President Ma Ying-jeou plans to visit a disputed island in the South China Sea tomorrow, a presidential spokesperson said on Wednesday. Ma will visit Taiping Island, also know as Itu Aba, the largest natural island in the Spratly group. Mainland China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam all have competing claims to the Spratlys. Taiwan has controlled Itu Aba, since 1956; today it houses around 200 personnel from Taiwan’s coast guard, navy, and air force.

Ma will be visiting the island ostensibly to greet the troops ahead of the Lunar New Year, according to Presidential Office spokesperson Charles Chen. Ma will be accompanied by “20 government officials, scholars, and experts,” according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. It will be Ma’s first visit to the island, although his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, also took a trip to Itu Aba in February 2008.

A Thai shipbuilder has inked a new contract with a British defense firm to build a second offshore patrol vessel (OPV) for the Royal Thai navy (RTN).

Under the agreement announced on January 29, BAE Systems will provide engineering support and advice during the construction of a second modified River-class OPV at Thai shipbuilder Bangkok Dock’s facilities at the Mahidol Adulyadej Naval Dockyard.

The 90-meter OPVs are highly versatile ships which can be employed for various functions including the management of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the provision of disaster relief. The RTN had accepted its first OPV, HTMS Krabi, back in 2013 which was also built in partnership with BAE Systems at Mahidol Adulyadej.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang promised that the country will allow its migrant workers to become urban residents in “an orderly way” over the next five years, according to Xinhua. In a letter he wrote to a ceremony honoring 981 migrant workers from around the country, Li said that China would improve the urban residence permit system in order to ensure the rights of migrant workers.

Under China’s hukou (or household registration) system, it’s incredibly difficult for migrant workers to officially change their place of residence to their new urban homes. As a result, many migrant workers were not allowed to access healthcare or even education for their children in the cities where they live and work.

With urbanization a key goal for the current leadership, solving the hukou problem – which acts as a de facto barrier to full urban integration for many Chinese — has been a recurring theme. In its article on Li’s comments,Xinhua called the hukou issue “a major barrier in China’s human-centered urbanization.”

Last year, China’s State Council announced that it would grant urban residence permits to 100 million permanent urban residents by 2020 – a huge number, but still less than half of the nearly 274 million migrant workers China had by 2014. That fits with the leadership’s gradual approach to reforming the registration system. Li’s remarks that the process would be “orderly” fits with the slow-and-steady tactics China has adopted so far.

Last week, the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of Russia’s bicameral parliament, ratified a government-to-government agreement between Russia and Mongolia that would result in a settlement of the vast majority of Mongolia’s outstanding debt to Russia. On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ratified the legislation to put the debt forgiveness into effect.

According to Russia’s state-run Tass news agency, Mongolia’s unsettled debt with Russia came to a total of $174.2 million.  The Russian law forgives 97 percent of Mongolia’s outstanding debt to Russia.  “It should be noted that the sum involves the debt denominated in the non-existing currency. Actually, the debtor always has a possibility to formulate the issue like this: no currency, no obligations. In this case, we agreed on recalculating the amount into the really existing monetary unit,” remarked Russia’s deputy finance minister, Sergei Storchak, referring to the difficulties of negotiating a debt agreement after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the conversion of the rouble in 2006.

The debt forgiveness has been a long time coming and has roots in the bilateral relationship between the two neighbors dating back to the early 1990s. Mongolia had borrowed heavily from the Soviet Union. In the early 2000s, its debt burden stood at around $10 billion, as estimated by Standard and Poor’s. In 2004, Russia and Mongolia had worked out a deal that would allow Ulanbataar to pay off 11.4 billion in convertible rubles of debt from the Soviet era for a payment of “less than $300 million.”

U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing is in talks with the Indian government to manufacture its F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters in India, according to comments by the company’s chief executive officer, Dennis Muilenberg. Muilenberg, who is visiting India for the first time, said that Boeing is in “conversation” with India to manufacture the F/A-18, a multirole fighter, in India. Muilenberg’s remarks come after Boeing’s chairman, James McNerney, said in October that the company would be happy to manufacture the F/A-18 in India provided the Indian Air Force would express interest in purchasing and operating the jets.

“We are taking a hard look at the opportunity for the F18 fighter jet as an area where we can build industrial capacity, supply chain partnerships, technical depth, design and manufacturing capability in India, providing an operational capability that is useful for Indian defence forces,” Muilenberg said in New Delhi earlier this week. ”Make in India is an enabler aligned with that strategy,” he added, referencing the Indian government’s program to encourage indigenous manufacturing.

The F/A-18 was considered as part of India’s now-dead medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) tender, losing out to France’s Dassault Aviation’s Rafale fighter. Having left the MMRCA tender behind officially, New Delhi has chosen to still stick with the Rafale, opting to conclude the deal through a government-to-government deal with no domestic manufacturing component. (Instead, talks on the Rafale deal are hung up on the issue of offset spending clauses, which would require France to reinvest part of the revenue from the deal in India.) The final deal is for 36 fighters—far short of the 126 envisaged under the MMRCA.

Two separate stories, both based on interviews with anonymous U.S. officials, claim that a high-profile Chinese defector has turned into an intelligence windfall for the United States. The whereabouts of Ling Wancheng have been a mystery since his brother, Ling Jihua, was detained under allegations of corruption last year. Ling Jihua was once the top aide to former President Hu Jintao; his brother – who has long been rumored to have fled to the United States – would have had some juicy secrets to reveal about the Chinese government in return for safe haven.

This week, Bill Gertz of Free Beacon claimed that Ling Wancheng is, as rumored, in the United States, and “has been undergoing a debrief by FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies” – all while supposedly being targeted by “covert Chinese agents seeking to capture or kill him.” One senior official Gertz spoke to – all his sources remain anonymous – called Ling’s information “an intelligence windfall”; he has supposedly provided information on China’s leaders, their compound at Zhongnanhai, and even the details of China’s nuclear command and control system.

North Korea has made good on its promise to launch a long-range missile. The launch, Pyongyang’s sixth, came just before 9 am local time on February 7 (9:30 am in South Korea, thanks to North Korea’s decision to shift its time zone last summer). According to U.S. Strategic Command, the missile “was tracked on a southerly launch over the Yellow Sea” after launching from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station. The launch comes just over a month after North Korea conducted its latest nuclear test.

North Korea said that the purpose of the launch was to carry an earth observation satellite, Kwangmyongsong-4, to orbit. According to North Korea’s KCNA, the attempt was successful – the news agency reported that the satellite entered orbit just under 10 minutes after lift-off. However, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency claimed that the rocket “burn[ed] up” and fell into the ocean to the southwest of Jeju Island, off the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. You can watch KCNA‘s broadcast of the launch on YouTube.

Despite North Korea’s claim that it was “legitimately exercising the right to use space for independent and peaceful purposes,” South Korea and the United States moved quickly to condemn the launch. Both countries consider the move little more than an excuse to test out a ballistic missile. South Korean President Park Geun-hye called the launch “an unacceptable provocation” and her deputy chief of national security, Cho Tae-yong, promised that “the government will continue to put necessary pressure on North Korea so that North Korea has no other choice but to change.”