Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: January 15, 2017 Edition

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s trip to Singapore in December marks his eighth visit to a fellow Southeast Asian country since coming to office in June this year. So far, Duterte has toured Laos, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia. This series of visits has preceded the Philippines commencing its chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2017. ASEAN will mark a significant milestone as it celebrates the 50th anniversary since its establishment in 1967.

Anticipating a growing threat from North Korea, Japan plans to hold its first-ever evacuation drills for an incoming ballistic missile attack this year.

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, specific Japanese municipalities “will be selected in January for participation in the drills, which are to take place as early as March.”

Japan plans to use its nationwide J-Alert warning system to implement procedures for evacuation in the event of an incoming ballistic missile.

According to Nikkei, the government will derive procedures to guide residents in the area under threat in the event of an attack, telling them “what to do in the 10 to 15 minutes it would take for a missile to hit Japan.”

North Korea conducted an unprecedented 24 ballistic missile tests in 2016, in addition to two nuclear tests it claimed involved a thermonuclear bomb.

On Tuesday, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) commissioned its fifth improved Dongdiao class (Type 815A) electronic reconnaissance, or auxiliary general intelligence (AGI), ship. The ship will join China’s North Sea Fleet.

The PLAN Kaiyangxing was commissioned at a ceremony at the northern Chinese port of Qingdao. The vessel was built at Shanghai’s Zhonghua Shipyard, according to IHS Jane’s 360.

The PLAN to date has commissioned six Dongdiao-class vessels, five of the improved Type 815A variety and an older Type 815 vessel, the PLAN Beijixing, which was commissioned in 1999. Between the one Type 815 and the four Type 815A, China’s AGI fleet currently stands at 5 commissioned vessels.

The PLAN Tianwangxing was commissioned in December 2010 and entered service with the PLAN’s East Sea Fleet. Three more vessels were commissioned in 2015, with two entering service with the South Sea Fleet and one with the North Sea Fleet. With the commissioning of the Kaiyangxing, the PLAN’s North Sea Fleet will possess two AGIs.

The vessels provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support to other PLAN vessels. The Type 815A variant is reported to be capable of tracking ballistic missiles as well.

On Monday, Pakistan announced that it had successfully carried out the first-ever test of its nuclear-capable Babur-3 submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) from a submerged platform. The test took place at an unspecified location in the Indian Ocean off the Pakistani coast. Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations released limited footage of the test on Twitter that shows the missile’s ejection, launch, and strike on a target with reasonable accuracy. The Babur-3 SLCM is officially rated for a range of 450 kilometers.

Pakistan’s Babur-3 SLCM is ultimately designed for use with its Agosta 90B diesel-electric submarines, which have reportedly been modified to enable SLCM launches, but remain untested in this regard. Per the Pakistani military’s statement regarding the test, the Babur-3 “is a sea-based variant of Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) Babur-2, which was successfully tested earlier in December, last year.”

After negotiations at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the governments of Australia and Timor-Leste have come to an agreement to terminate the current treaty over their disputed maritime border. The treaty, known as the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), signed in 2006, established a temporary maritime border in the Timor Sea after Timor-Leste received its independence from Indonesia and became a sovereign state in 2002.

Azerbaijan and Pakistan have a unique political relationship that has surpassed territorial boundaries and geographical distances. Pakistan was among the first states to recognize Azerbaijan’s independence following the 1991 Soviet collapse. Today, Pakistan is the only country that has not established diplomatic relations with Baku’s main foe, Armenia. The bilateral strategic cooperation between these two countries embraces the economic, cultural, political, and especially defense fields. Taking into account their close ties, the current level of military cooperation between Azerbaijan and Pakistan needs to be emphasized. While Azerbaijan’s defense industry has strategic relations with various countries, Baku has been seeking ways of expanding military cooperation with Pakistan in particular over the last years.

Vietnam’s Professor Vo Quy has passed away in Hanoi at age 87. The well-known and well-loved zoologist had a storied career that spanned decades and, even in his 80s, he was still working and busy, as passionate as ever.

I met Professor Vo Quy in Hanoi late last decade, when he was in his late 70s. It was the middle of a bitter North Vietnamese winter and his office was so cold our breath came out in clouds. He worked in an old building, part of the Hanoi National University, with tiled floors and heavy wooden furniture.

Bundled up in an enormous padded black parka, like a Michelin man using rubbish bags, he was as cheery as anything, offering me tea and a surprisingly long and comprehensive interview.

India’s 68th Republic Day celebrations on January 26 will feature His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, UAE as the chief guest. The visit of the Crown Prince, also the deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces, will give a much needed boost to the cordial and stable relationship shared by India and UAE.

The India-UAE political relationship got a fresh start in August 2015, when India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Abu Dhabi, becoming the first Indian PM to do so in 34 years. The renewed friendship comes against the backdrop of Modi’s aggressive courting of foreign investments and Abu Dhabi’s new oil diplomacy, underlining economic diversification. In the fast changing global economic and political landscape, strategic bilateral cooperation is the answer to growth and security.

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The last time a suspension occurred was back in 2013 under then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono following revelations that Australia had been tapping the phones of Indonesian officials including Yudhoyono and his wife. At the time, Indonesia immediately recalled its ambassador to Australia. But relations have been on the uptick of late, however, especially since the emergence of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last September.

The suspension this time appears to be both less clear and more limited. Australian Defense Minister Marisa Payne eventually confirmed Indonesian media reports that the suspension had to do with concerns raised by a TNI official about some teaching materials at an Army language training facility in Australia. But she also indicated that the Australian military had already been investigating the incident and had made this clear to Indonesia privately. That raised the prospect that the incident was more about the lingering grievances of certain individuals, most notably TNI chief Gatot Nurmantyo, rather than a deep diplomatic dispute between the two countries.