Authors of theCluster Munition Monitor 2021report say great progress toward the elimination of these lethal weapons has been made since the Cluster Ban Treaty came into force in 2010.The Monitor finds there has been no new use of cluster munitions by any of the 110 states that has joined the treaty, nor by the 13 states that have signed but not yet ratified it.  The report says the remaining problems lie with countries that remain outside the convention.The most notable use of cluster munitions last year was by non-member states Armenia and Azerbaijan during their war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Monitor records 107 casualties from cluster munition attacks in Azerbaijan, the most in any country last year.  Syria has continuously used cluster munitions since 2012.  Human Rights Watch arms advocacy director Mary Wareham says use of the weapons in 2020 was greatly reduced compared to previous years.She says another visible example of the treaty’s success is in the destruction of stockpiles.”We know that at least 1.5 million cluster munitions and more than 178 million submunitions have been destroyed from stocks today,” said Wareham. “That goes to show that this convention is truly lifesaving because every single one of those explosive submunitions could take a life or a limb.”   Globally, the monitor has recorded at least 360 new cluster munition casualties in 2020, caused either from attacks or explosive remnants. The editor of the Monitor, Loren Persi, says children are the main victims of these weapons, which kill and maim civilians indiscriminately.”Almost half of all casualties, 44 percent are children. About a quarter of casualties were women and girls,” said Persi. “But what we found in 2020 was that women and girls were far less likely to survive their incident with cluster munitions. This is something of concern that we will have to look into as more data becomes available.”   The report says many of the 16 countries outside the convention reserve the right to keep making cluster munitions, even though they currently are not doing so.Authors of the report say they are concerned that China and Russia are actively researching, testing, and developing new types of cluster munitions.  China, Russia and the United States have not joined the convention. The three countries are among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s Asia tour this month following visits to the same region by two U.S. officials will intensify a superpower tug-of-war. Analysts say smaller countries can get a bounty of assistance from both China and the United States as long as they avoid offending Beijing.Countries in Asia stand to get military equipment and training from Washington along with economic aid from Beijing, which is already building core infrastructure in much of Eurasia. Both nations are passing out COVID-19 vaccinations. Smaller, sometimes impoverished nations stand to be rewarded by both sides unless they get too cozy with Washington, scholars believe.“This soft power competition between the U.S. and China has some benefits to the smaller countries where they can be an object of courting in the soft power competition, but at the same time the room for maneuver for them is also increasingly narrowed,” said Alexander Vuving, professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, a U.S. Department of Defense institute.Wang on Friday reached Vietnam, his first of four stops, to discuss trade, economic ties and political trust. Vietnam said it is taking “its relations with China as a top priority in its foreign policy.” This may cause tension with the U.S. which, since 2017, has pushed for a stronger partnership with Hanoi.Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi walk into meeting room in Hanoi, Vietnam, Sep.11, 2021.The Chinese foreign minister’s visit coincided with a deal Vietnam signed with Japan to allow for exports of Japanese defense equipment and technology. Vietnam’s acquisition of these goods appears to be in response to China’s growing aggressiveness and influence in the region.The United States looks to Asia for allies in checking the expansion of China, though analysts say it is not known for punishing smaller countries that hew toward Beijing.Vaccine diplomacyWang pledged 3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses after the U.S. government offered 1 million new doses in August. The U.S. also agreed to set up a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regional office in Hanoi. Vietnam’s case shows “a competitive flavor” between superpowers, said Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington.Over the weekend Wang took another 3 million doses to Cambodia, which also accepted a $270 million grant from China, the VOA Khmer service reported. Cambodia already leans strongly toward China over the United States, Vuving said, and Wang hopes to lock in that preference.The Balancing actIn Singapore on Monday, Wang said on his ministry’s website that China hopes to “deepen practical cooperation.” Both China and the United States see Singapore as a neutral, sometimes analytical force in Asia, with China particularly happy when the city-state calls for calm, Sun said.Vietnam and Singapore have achieved a “balancing act” between superpowers, Vuving said. Earlier this month, China deepened bonds with the Philippines through an aid pledge after the Southeast Asian state agreed to restore a Visiting Forces Agreement with the U.S. government, an analyst told VOA. Why China Would Give More Aid, Investment to Leery PhilippinesManila vies with Beijing over access to disputed South China Sea and has warmed this year toward United States, Chinese Cold War rivalU.S. forces have helped train Filipino counterparts for any potential operations in the South China Sea, parts of which Manila and Beijing dispute.Consequences of US tiesSouth Korea, which Wang visited Tuesday and Wednesday, shows what China can do when a country veers too close to the United States, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo.After Seoul agreed with Washington to install a missile detection system that might see into China as well as its archrival North Korea, in March 2017, Beijing banned package tours to South Korea and caused a double-digit percentage decline in Chinese visits.China also has “engaged in economic coercion” against Australia and Taiwan when once friendly ties became strained, Nagy added.This month South Korea became one of the world’s few countries with the capability to fire ballistic missiles from “extremely quiet” submarines. This is part of a “strategic arsenal” that will cause concern in China given Seoul’s longstanding alliance with Washington, said Steven Kim, a visiting research fellow with the Jeju Peace Institute in South Korea.Wang will probably talk to Korean counterparts about health and economic cooperation “with stern implicit comment” that it should value its economic ties with China, Nagy forecast.“I think that the overall diplomacy is one that would be characterized by trying to produce constructive engagement, but of course, telling states that Wang Yi will be visiting that they need to proceed carefully in terms of the kind of relationships they’re building with the United States,” he said.Experts: China Renewing Effort to Squelch US Influence in Southeast AsiaChinese defense head Wei Fenghe visited peers in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines last week. He suggested that maritime disputes be settled among Asian leadersBack-to-back diplomacyWang’s visit follows trips by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in July to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines  as well as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip to Vietnam and Singapore last month. US Vice President Raises Rights Issues During Visit to VietnamVietnam has been the target of global criticism for limiting free speech, a free press and clamping down on those it considers political dissidentsU.S. and Chinese officials have done back-to-back diplomacy in the past, including the Chinese defense minister’s whirlwind Asia tour a year ago this month following anti-China statements by then-U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.The recent flurry of visits shows a growing Sino-U.S. “rivalry,” Sun said. For smaller countries “to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks, that’s going to be hard because with great power competition in mind, neither Beijing nor Washington is leaving stones unturned to push for their own agenda,” she said.  
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North Korea test-fired two ballistic missiles Wednesday, its second launch in less than a week and latest apparent attempt to increase diplomatic pressure on the United States. The missiles were launched from a central inland area in North Korea and splashed into the sea off the country’s east coast, according to a text message from South Korea’s military.   Few other details were immediately available, including what kind of missiles were launched or how far they flew. Japan’s defense ministry said the projectiles did not enter Japanese territory and fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. In a statement, the U.S. military said it is aware of the launch and has assessed it does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel, territory, or allies. However, the launch “highlights the destabilizing impact” of North Korea’s illicit weapons program, the statement issued by the Indo-Pacific Command said.  The launch comes two days after North Korea claimed to have test-fired a new long-range cruise missile. It was Pyongyang’s first known missile test in about six months.N. Korea Tests Long Range Cruise Missile Designed to Evade Defenses It’s the first North Korean missile test in six months Late last month, United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea appears to have recently restarted a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear site. The moves suggest North Korea is trying to increase its bargaining leverage with the United States, amid stalled nuclear talks, some analysts say. The North has often engaged in diplomacy after raising tensions via verbal threats or weapons tests.  The North’s latest launch coincided with a visit to Tokyo by Sung Kim, the U.S. special envoy to North Korea, who is meeting with his counterparts from South Korea and Japan.  On Tuesday, the U.S. envoy repeated Washington’s offer to restart talks without preconditions, saying the United States is ready to work with North Korea on humanitarian issues “regardless of progress on denuclearization.”  While U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed a willingness to resume talks with North Korea, much of its focus has been elsewhere, such as the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and efforts to fight COVID-19. “North Korea is expressing its discontent toward the Biden administration which has remained in a very passive policy toward North Korea in the name of a cautious and collaborative North Korea policy,” said Bong Young-shik, a research fellow at Yonsei University’s Institute for North Korean Studies in Seoul.  Another possible factor, Bong says, is South Korea’s upcoming presidential election. So far, the campaign has featured very little discussion about North Korea; instead, candidates have focused on the economy and COVID-19 policy. “North Korean leadership must have decided to increase the levels of the provocations as a way of getting more attention from all the relevant parties,” he added. In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country is preparing for “both dialogue and confrontation” with the United States.  A few months later, North Korea briefly reopened several lines of communication with the South, raising hopes that Pyongyang would enter a new phase of diplomacy. But the North cut the hotlines just days later, after South Korea and the United States went ahead with joint military drills that Pyongyang sees as a provocation. For most of this year, North Korea has focused on domestic problems, including natural disasters, pandemic prevention, and a food shortage. Because those crises still exist, some analysts expect North Korea may refrain from major provocations that would risk bringing further economic and diplomatic isolation.  
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