Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: February 26, 2017 Edition

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.

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.

On Friday morning, Malaysian police confirmed that Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, was assassinated with the VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. North Korea is thought to possess the world’s third largest chemical weapons stockpile after the United States and Russia, with one estimate noting that it may possess 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical warfare agents. To date, while VX had thought to be an objective for North Korea’s chemical weapons program, there had been no evidence that Pyongyang possessed the highly dangerous nerve agent.

In the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament, an interesting Private Member’s bill has been proposed. The Marriages (Compulsory Registration and Prevention of Wasteful Expenditure) Bill, 2016, is reportedly likely to be taken up at the next session of parliament. It seeks to limit how much is spent on weddings in the country by capping the budget, the number of guests, and the dishes served on the menu. Further, weddings that exceed a budget of approximately $7,500 are required to contribute at least 10 percent of their cost to a welfare scheme to aid the weddings of girls from poorer families.

Talco — Tajikistan’s state-owned aluminum monopoly — is responsible for a considerable majority of the regime’s hard currency earnings and has been directly controlled by Rahmon’s family since 2004, remaining the primary vehicle through which the regime has pilfered the economy for its own enrichment. Tajikistan is currently facing a hard currency crisis, as the banking system has come under incredible strain from poor economic performance, low commodity prices, and a collapse in aluminum exports. Where aluminum accounted for roughly 60 percent of Tajikistan’s exports in 2012, that figure plummeted to 26 percent in 2014. Production remains low with projected increases likely a result of optimistic bureaucrats trying to minimize the depth of the country’s economic crisis as Tajikistan angles for loans from the EBRD, bailouts from the IMF, and financing from other international multilateral lenders to survive.

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.

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.

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.