Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: April 16, 2017 Edition

China and Cambodia are moving to tighten their diplomatic relationship further with Beijing expected to bestow sister city status on Phnom Penh and through a separate agreement struck with Shaanxi Province designed to bolster trade and tourism.

Neither deal is earth-shattering. But they do underline the strategic importance China has attached to its much smaller neighbor, which is currently being gripped by anxiety amid fears in some areas of the economy as well as in politics as elections approach.

In numerous international metrics systems, the states of Central Asia often trend together toward the lower rungs of the rankings. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, for instance, sees all five Central Asian states come in among the bottom third globally. Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index, meanwhile, sees only Kyrgyzstan land within the top 100 nations, and only North Korea and Eritrea scoring worse than Turkmenistan.

As such, for those looking for some silver linings from the region, last week’s release of the UN’s Human Development Report, ranking jurisdictions by Human Development Index (HDI), was a welcome round of (relatively) good news for Central Asia. Melding a HDI score from a handful of metrics — average life expectancy, mean years of schooling, etc. — the latest report, which looks at data from 2015, places Central Asian developments in a far less deleterious light than rankings elsewhere.

Leading the Central Asian contingent in the rankings, unsurprisingly, is Kazakhstan. For the second year in a row, the UN has tabbed Kazakhstan as a country with a High Human Development, with the country coming in at 56th, tying with EU-member Bulgaria and landing just ahead of the Bahamas and Malaysia.

Michael Fallon, the British defense secretary, is in India this week for a four-day-long official visit, where he will meet with his Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley. Jaitley has temporarily assumed charge of the Indian defense ministry portfolio, in addition to his duties as finance minister, following the departure of Manohar Parrikar to serve as the chief minister of Goa following recent state-level elections.

North Korea’s submarine force is one of the more capable wings of its generally decrepit military. The current force’s strength lies mostly in its numbers — North Korea possesses roughly 70 submarines in all, roughly 40 of which are its newest Shark-class vessels. (Though still dangerous to its adversaries, even the Shark-class reflects pretty dated technology.) With that number, the DPRK can and does crowd its coasts with torpedo-armed or mine-laying submarines, establishing a respectable anti-surface capability near its waters. Though most of its submarine force is old, loud, or both, still North Korea tinkers on, boldly determined to achieve a reliable sea-based nuclear deterrent.

To this effect, the DPRK is building the new Gorae-class submarine (or Sinpo-class) and testing Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) accordingly. Remarkably, most of this activity and materiel are headquartered within a few kilometers of each other in the city of Sinpo and the nearby Mayang-Do Naval Base. Shipyards for the new Gorae-class, SLBM research and development facilities, many or most of the DPRK’s east coast submarines, and the only known ground-based launch platforms for SLBM tests — all are located along the same 35 square kilometer stretch of the North Korean coast. A well-coordinated first strike on this facility would hamstring the North’s submarine fleet, its submarine building capacity, and its hopes of a credible naval nuclear deterrent all in one go.

On April 12, Radio Free Asia cited local government sources as confirming that Lao government orders to shut down environmentally destructive Chinese-owned banana farms, first reported in Bokeo province in January, are in fact also in force in six other provinces in the Southeast Asian state. New revelations of the China banana ban are yet another testament to the reality that Beijing’s economic influence is a mixed blessing for other Asian governments, and that has resulted in growing scrutiny about Chinese influence that can lead to policy change.

The Whanganui River on New Zealand’s North Island has long been considered sacred by the Maori people of the region. Now, a settlement that has ended a historic struggle and has sparked widespread celebrations has given the river an extremely unique status.

The river, which is considered to be an ancestor by the Maori people, has been granted legal status and can now be represented in court. It will be represented by two guardians on behalf of the tribe and the crown.

“I know the initial inclination of some people will say it’s pretty strange to give a natural resource a legal personality,” said New Zealand’s Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson.

“But it’s no stranger than family trusts, or companies or incorporated societies.”

In China’s larger cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Suzhou, city governments have implemented housing restrictions based on the hukou, a form of household registration. The hukou system has existed in some form for thousands of years in China. In the past, it was mostly used to keep track of patriarchal family records. But when the Communist Party came to power in the 1950s, the system became a convenient way to restrict movement and control the population.

Hukous limit housing and sometimes social benefits to those who are registered to live in a certain area. For example, the official registered population of Suzhou in Jiangsu province is approximately 6.5 million, with an approximately equal amount of migrant workers. Neighboring Shanghai is officially home to 13 million, with an additional 11 million migrant workers. These migrant workers are not automatically granted a hukou, which means these people, along with their children, are not entitled to the same privileges as their native Suzhou or Shanghai counterparts. They are often restricted as to where they can live and where their children can study, making them effectively second-class citizens.

And now migrant workers will also be restricted as to where they can be buried. Suzhou has become the country’s first city to ban the purchase of local grave sites by people without local hukou, according to Suzhou Daily.

The Indian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has concluded a near $2 billion deal with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for an advanced medium-range surface-to-air (MRSAM) missile system, according to an April 6 IAI press statement.

“In a mega-contract worth over $1.6 billion, considered to be the largest defense contract in Israel’s Defense Industries’ history, IAI will provide an advanced MRSAM air & missile defense systems to the Indian Army,” the statement reads. “The company will also supply additional LRSAM air & missile defense systems for the first build in India Indian aircraft carrier.”

On Saturday, North Korea staged a massive military parade to commemorate the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder and grandfather of current leader, Kim Jong-un. The day, also known in the country as the ‘Day of the Sun,’ is the most important public holiday in North Korea. It commemorates not only the driving force behind the country’s founding, but also the patriarch of the Kim dynasty, whose personality cult rules supreme over North Korea to this day. The parade took place amid hot speculation in the United States, Japan, and South Korea that Pyongyang would look to also potentially test a sixth nuclear device, which it did not do.