Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: November 20, 2016 Edition

India and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement for the procurement of four (some sources say five) regiments of Russian-made S-400 Triumf advanced Air Defense Systems (NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler) on October 15 in Goa, India at the sidelines of the eight BRICS summit. The deal, along with 17 other cooperation agreements, was signed in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste have stood on the fringes of ASEAN with ambitions of joining the 10-nation trading bloc for more than a decade. Both are struggling democracies, nations with a least-developed tag beside their name, and a history of communal violence. And neither are the sort of ideal sovereign role model that the secretariat in Jakarta would welcome with open arms.

Supporters of their ASEAN applications, however, would argue the same was said about Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar when they joined the 600 million-strong bloc in the 1990s. But those three countries did boast much bigger populations and strategic position needed for the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community, launched at the start of this year.

This does nothing about the hundreds of thousands of fishing trawlers that already operate in the South and East China Seas. According to one study, fighting over fish in the South China Sea will underscore the Asian diplomatic problems of tomorrow. Currently, 55 percent of the world’s marine-fishing vessels are employed in the South China Sea, with the overwhelming majority belonging to the Chinese who heavily subsidize their industry.

The increase in China’s fishing fleets in this area has grown simultaneously with a decrease in overall fish stocks. A report from the University of Columbia Fisheries Economic Research Unit has calculated that the total volume of fish in parts of the South China Sea has declined by between 70 and 95 percent in the past 60 years.

Last Saturday upwards of one million Koreans poured into central Seoul to demand President Park Geun-hye’s resignation after it was revealed her longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, bestrides state affairs. This was the largest Korean demonstration in roughly three decades and organizers have planned two more on the Saturdays ahead.

To put that number in perspective, Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution in 2014 was one-tenth that size and was witness to almost 500 injuries and 955 arrests. Yet despite its immense proportions, Seoul’s protests have seen just 55 injuries and no arrests.

In fact, despite the volcanic outrage pouring across the country and the near unanimity of opinion on the matter — Park now has an approval rating of 5 percent overall, and zero percent among Koreans under 30 — the demonstrations have been host to a remarkably convivial crowd. In between full-throated diatribes by speakers who visibly tremble with anger, a placid voice tells participants, “Please remember to dispose of your rubbish in the appropriate receptacle. Thank you and have a nice day.”

Afghanistan is the world’s top producer of opium, producing 90 percent of global supply. The opium trade results in the generation of approximately $68 billion in annual revenue. In 2016, opium production increased by 43 percent mainly due to an increase in insurgency. In addition to this, more than 2.9 million Afghans are involved in opium production one way or another, which is more than 12 percent of the total population.

Earlier this week, the Korea Coast Guard (KCG) reported that it opened fire on a Chinese fishing vessel fishing illegally in Korean waters near Incheon. The incident marked the first time the KCG fired its deck-mounted machine guns to compel non-compliant Chinese fishing vessels to stop and occurred after Korean officials vowed more forceful measures against illegal Chinese fishing in Korean waters.

After six years of consultation, India and Japan inked a civil nuclear agreement on the sidelines of their annual summit, this year held in Tokyo. India is the first non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to have signed such a deal with Japan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, welcomed the agreement as a historic step forward to achieve a clean energy partnership.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has reportedly launched its 40th Type56/056A Jiangdao-class corvette on October 28 at the Huangpu shipyard in the southern port city of Guangzhou, IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly reports.

The PLAN is in the middle of a massive modernization push and is rapidly expanding its naval forces. Only a month ago, the PLAN launched its 39th Jiangdao-class corvette at the Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan. This was preceded by the launch of two other vessels of the class in September at the Liaonan shipyard in Lushun.

During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised to increase the size of the U.S. Navy to 350 ships. Since the election, senior campaign advisors Alexander Gray and Peter Navarro have laid out what they say his Asia-Pacific strategy will be, a cornerstone of which is the 350-ship fleet. The Navy’s current 30-year shipbuilding plan is designed to grow to a 308-ship fleet, though it doesn’t achieve this goal until the 2020’s and projects that fleet size will drop back below that level for the last 20 years of the plan. Further, even this current plan faces strong challenges, as I wrote about earlier this fall.

It’s settled: Kyrgyzstan will have a referendum to amend the constitution on December 11. This week the bill to hold the referendum passed in its third reading,with 89 parliamentarians voting “for” and, according to 24.kg, only 16 voting “against” (leaving 18 MPs unaccounted for).

Amusingly, Omurbek Tekebayev, the leader of the Ata-Meken faction and a staunch opponent of the referendum,accidentally voted “for” and asked for the record to corrected. “I beg you, put on a revote, [be]cause it will remain in the history.”