Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: March 6, 2016 Edition

China has announced its draft budget for 2016 at the National People’s Congress, currently underway in Beijing. Despite the fact that it expands the fiscal deficit from 2016, this year’s budget is leaner and more targeted.

One of the biggest issues for China is that tax revenue will decline this year. As the government obtains most of its taxes from the sale of goods and services, fiscal revenues decline in step with the slowing economy. Further revenue decreases result from greater reduction in government taxes and fees, as well as from the transition from the business tax to the value-added tax in some sectors.

Expenditures are to be controlled, with a continuing emphasis on restricting spending on official travels, hospitality, and meetings. The number of special transfer payments are to be cut, and infrastructure investment by the central government will focus on basic public welfare projects instead of on smaller projects. Departments that had government funds left over after 2015 will receive a reduced allocation this year. Funding in the areas of education, science and technology, health care, poverty alleviation, and social security and employment will continue to be strong. This means that while ongoing social programs are to be protected, any “fat” in the budget is to be removed.

A Japan-India defense deal over the procurement of 12 ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious search-and-rescue aircraft for the Indian Navy is facing additional delays and an uncertain future, according to Japanese diplomatic sources interviewed by The Hindu newspaper.

Japan has no plan for “selling or delivering” the US-2 maritime surveillance aircraft in the immediate future and the issue was not discussed during recent Foreign Secretary-level talks between the two countries, Japanese officials in Tokyo said last Saturday.

“There is no decision about its delivery nor did the Foreign Secretaries discuss the timing of the delivery,” Yasuhisa Kawamura, Director General of Press and Public Diplomacy of Japan, said, according to The Hindu.

In a joint statement released by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2015, both leaders committed themselves to deepen defense cooperation between the two countries “including through two-way collaboration and technology cooperation, co-development and co-production.”

China’s “two sessions” – the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – are in full swing. The main event, the NPC meeting, begins tomorrow, and will see China’s 13th Five Year Plan officially approved. But one big announcement has already been made: NPC spokesperson Fu Ying told reporters that China’s defense budget will increase by 7-8 percent this year – marking the slowest growth rate since 2010. Last year, for example, military spending increased by 10.1 percent. The decreased growth rate is apparently due to China’s overall economic slowdown, but Fu emphasized that the budget increase is still “in line with China’s national defense need.”

A TV network headquarters that resembles a pair of pants. A newspaper headquarters that bears more than a passing similarity to an erect phallus. An arts center that has been described as a “group of space eggs.” These are just a few of the most famous examples of the many ridiculous looking buildings that have proliferated in China over the last decade. In new guidelines laid down this February, however, China’s State Council declared that “bizarre architecture” that isn’t “economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly” will be banned. While this decision will no doubt be welcomed by both defenders of good taste and Chinese citizens weary of official extravagance, it is also emblematic of a worrisome fixation on rectifying external appearances, while leaving underlying problems untouched that has marked Chinese President Xi Jinping’s highest profile imitative.

Five China Coast Guard vessels have taken over Jackson Shoal, a disputed feature in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea some 140 nautical miles west of the Philippines’ Palawan Island,according to a report by the Philippines Star.

Jackson Atoll is a popular fishing ground for Filipino fishermen, and is 33 nautical miles from Mischief Reef, a Spratly Island feature where China has carried out extensive land reclamation work and built an artificial island for possible military use.

The Philippines Star, citing sources, said that the Chinese vessels “chased” fishermen away as early as last week.

“These gray and white Chinese ships, around four of them inside the lagoon, prevented us from entering our traditional fishing ground,” one of the fisherman told the Star. If confirmed, this incident would represent an increase in Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.

From: What Is THAAD, What Does It Do, and Why Is China Mad About It?

Keeping this feature set in mind, why is China so upset about a potential THAAD deployment? The answer, I think, has to do more with the monitoring capabilities that are part of the THAAD package. Beijing isn’t, for instance, worried that a THAAD deployment in South Korea would threaten any ballistic missiles it would plausibly fire at the United States–again, THAAD only works against ballistic missiles in the terminal phase and not against inter-continental ones anyway. Lyon evaluates China’s concerns:

China’s right to believe that THAAD surveillance data could be transferred to other BMD assets protecting [the continental United States (CONUS)]. Indeed, one of THAAD’s missions would be to strengthen U.S. defenses against the possibility of North Korean ballistic missile attack on CONUS. So it has to be able to transfer data to CONUS-based radars and interceptors. But the United States already has a THAAD battery deployed on Guam, two AN/TPY-2 radars deployed in Japan (at Shariki and Kyogamisaki), space-based assets, plus a range of ship-borne radars and larger land-based radars in other parts of the Pacific theatre. Would a THAAD deployment in South Korea change much? The short answer is that it could improve early tracking of some Chinese missiles, depending on their launch point. Still, that might not make actual interception of those missiles much easier. ICBM warheads move fast. And sophisticated penetration-aids help to confuse missile defenses.

Myanmar is entering unknown terrain these days. For the first time since the historic victory of the oppositional National League for Democracy (NLD) in the November 8 elections, party leader and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has met with her military counterpart, commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, to talk about the ongoing transition. The country’s parliament will probably start electing the new president on March 10 and many contentious issues remain to be solved before that.

Both parties have already met three times without reaching an agreement. The question now is whether both sides can hammer out an effective power-sharing deal, a pact built on trust for the coming years, or whether they remain opponents watching each other suspiciously in the years ahead.

Russia remains the largest supplier of military equipment to India, according to information supplied by India’s Ministry of Defense and quoted by TASS.

Over the past three years, Russian defense deals with India exceeded 340 billion rupees (over $5 billion), with the United States coming in at a close second with 300 billion rupees (around $4.4 billion) in deals. Over the last three fiscal years, Russia was also able to claim the majority of signed defense contracts, India’s defense ministry states:

From 2012-2013 to 2014-2015 fiscal years, 162 arms purchase contracts were signed, among them 67 with other countries, including Russia (18 agreements), the United States (13) and France (six).

Russian equipment made up around 75 percent of all of New Delhi’s weapons imports from 2004 to 2014. From 2009 to 2013, India and Russia signed defense deals worth an estimated $30 billion. (In comparison, France signed contracts worth $30 billion and the United States contracts worth $11 billion during the same time period.)

Japan and the Philippines signed an agreement that will significantly boost defense cooperation between the two countries, including a new framework for the supply of military hardware and technology as well as provisions for joint research and development projects, AP reports.

In addition, the new pact outlines joint military training and the donation of used military equipment to the Philippines. This is the first time that Japan has signed such an agreement with a Southeast Asian country. (Japan had so far only signed similar defense pacts with Australia and the United States.)

However, today’s hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, a former police officer who in 2011 assassinated Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, raises a question that even the most stubborn of skeptics must confront: Are narratives about extremism slowly starting to shift for the better in Pakistan?

Qadri killed Taseer because of the latter’s outspoken opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which hardliners exploit to persecute the country’s beleaguered religious minorities. Taseer, more broadly, was a strong supporter of minority rights—a position that put him in the cross-hairs of Pakistan’s religious extremists. After the assassination, Qadri was seemingly lionized as much as Taseer was mourned. He was infamously garlanded and showered with rose petals during his initial court appearance.

A troubling Harvard University analysis of social media’s response in Pakistan to the Taseer assassination documented how many new Facebook pages were created to champion Qadri’s act (one site registered over 2,000 likes early on). Many users urged each other to use Qadri’s face as their profile picture. An Islamist version of Facebook, MillatFacebook, became a popular venue for pro-Qadri commentary.

Qadri continued to enjoy the support of numerous religious conservatives as well as lawyers to the day he died. After word of his fate became known, spontaneous protests sprung up around Pakistan to condemn his execution.

In effect, the Pakistani state hanged a man who was revered by the radicalized elements of society. This is no small matter, by any measure.

Pakistan’s decision to execute Qadri, however, does not come in isolation. It comes on the heels of several other legal decisions that suggest the state is prepared to push back against religious extremists. In October, when Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld Qadri’s conviction, it also stated that blasphemy laws are not beyond criticism. This was huge, given how the blasphemy laws are largely regarded as sacrosanct—a status that only a brave few have been willing to challenge since Taseer’s assassination, which had a hushing effect on debate about the controversial law.