Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: February 19, 2017 Edition

As January 2017 wound to a close, the state of Tamil Nadu in India fell victim to another environmental disaster, just as it was recovering from Cyclone Vardah in December 2016. However, this one was entirely man-made and left in its wake a series of questions about the need for a more proactive response mechanism.

Two ships collided off the coast of Chennai, causing a massive oil spill that was both underestimated and underreported in its early stages. Oil rapidly spread, threatening aquatic biodiversity and the safety of those dependent on the seas for both their livelihoods and nutrition. Meanwhile, the port authorities released a statement that no environmental damage along the lines of oil pollution had occurred and the union minister for shipping concurred. The estimates of the amount of oil leaked have since been rising at a frightening pace.

While Tamil Nadu Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar initially reported that the situation was under control and only one ton of oil had leaked, subsequent estimates by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) indicate that over 60 tons of oil as sludge or mixture had been removed in just the early days of the subsequent week. The spill covered a 13 kilometer area in just the first couple of days and the delay in receiving credible information has been blamed by activists who have been an integral part of the recovery process.

The answer can be found in Japan, where approximately 30 percent of the members of the House of Representatives are nisei (second-generation Diet members) and 40 percent of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) diet members are nisei. Among the 30 post-war prime ministers, only three PMs had no politicians among their family members, while most of the others were children or grandchildren of former PMs and ministers. The number of nisei in the House of Congress increased until the 1980s to then stabilize around 25 percent. This figure, however, is not entirely representative of hereditary politics because it does not take into account diet members with relatives that have political roles outside the House of Representatives.

On Saturday, China’s Commerce Ministry announced that it would suspend imports of North Korean coal for the rest of 2017. Beijing’s precise intentions are not fully clear, but one can surmise that there are several: to punish North Korea for its missile test on February 11, and to send a signal to the new Trump administration about China’s willingness to engage in talks on the North Korean nuclear issue with all parties involved. One might suspect it is also a signal to Pyongyang after the killing of Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s half brother, who had strong ties to China and reportedly lived under Chinese protection.

The Pakistani government has placed Hafiz Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the political arm of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was banned and blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, under house arrest in Lahore. However, this is not the first time that Saeed has been held under preventive detention: in 2001, immediately following an attack on India’s parliament, Saeed was put under house arrest, and again in 2008 after the Mumbai attacks.

The Pakistan military has reportedly conducted the first successful flight test of a new medium range ballistic missile (MRBM), according to the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media arm of the Pakistan Armed Forces.

The test involved the successful launch of the surface-to-surface MRBM Ababeel, reportedly capable of carrying multiple warheads using Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle technology (MIRV). The new missile purportedly has a maximum range of 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles).

The January 24 test of the Ababeel MRBM follows the first-ever test of a nuclear-capable Babur-3 submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) from a submerged platform off the Pakistani coast in early January.

“The test flight was aimed at validating various design and technical parameters of the weapon system,” the ISPS statement reads. “Ababeel is capable of carrying nuclear warheads and has the capability to engage multiple targets with high precision, defeating the enemy’s hostile radars.”

Of the Asian security alliances, the one with the Philippines was actually the earliest one to be forged. The U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty was signed on August 30, 1951; a few days before the one with Australia and New Zealand (ANZUS) was inked on September 1, 1951 (New Zealand was suspended in 1986); and years before the U.S.-ROK alliance was inked on October 1, 1953 and the U.S.-Japan alliance on January 19, 1960.

Indeed, in terms of security treaty commitments, Thailand is the odd one out among these countries since there was no initial bilateral foundational treaty between Washington and Bangkok. Rather, both countries were signatories of the 1954 Manila Pact of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), and even though SEATO itself was dissolved back in 1977, the Manila Pact itself remained in force and, along with other bilateral understandings like the Thanat-Rusk communique of 1962 and the 2012 Joint Vision Statement for the U.S.-Thailand Defense Alliance, is considered the wider basis for U.S. security commitments to Thailand.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) held a promotion ceremony for senior officers promoted to the rank of rear admiral at its Beijing headquarters on January 20, 2017. The ceremony was presided over by Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong, who was newly appointed as commander of the PLAN. This confirmed the much-speculated rumor about a major personnel reshuffle in the PLAN: former PLAN Commander Admiral Wu Shengli was replaced by former South Sea Fleet Commander Shen.

After almost two decades as the man at the center of Cambodian opposition politics, Sam Rainsy resigned this weekend as president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). This came as the Cambodian government under Prime Minister Hun Sen makes plan to introduce a new law that would dissolve political parties if their leaders are convicted of domestic crimes. Sam Rainsy has numerous defamation lawsuits to his name, and many still pending trial. He has been in exile in France since late 2015.

“They are attempting to dissolve our party, and if our party is dissolved, we cannot join the election and the election will have no meaning, and we will lose an historic opportunity to bring change to the Khmer people,” he told colleagues via Skype on Sunday. “We have to dare to sacrifice everything to reach our goal… What do we want? We want the elections, because we want change through elections.”

The CNRP will now be led by Kem Sokha, its formal vice-president, as it heads into June’s commune election and next year’s general election. The party announced on the weekend that it would decide a new leadership at its next congress, which is slated to take place early next year but might be held sooner.