China checks the US picket line

[The Asia Times Online yearender, which appeared on Dec. 22, 2012.  It can be reposted if ATOl is credited and a link provided.]

The passing year was the People's Republic of China's (PRC) first opportunity to get up close and personal with the United States' pivot back to Asia, the strategic rebalancing that looks a lot like containment.

The PRC spent a lot of 2012 wrestling with contentious neighbors emboldened by the US policy, like Vietnam and the Philippines; combating American efforts to nibble away at the corners of China's spheres of influence on the Korean peninsula and Southeast Asia; and engaging in a test of strength and will with the primary US proxy in the region, Japan.

This state affairs was misleadingly if predictably spun in the Western press as "assertive China exacerbates regional tensions", while a more accurate reading was probably "China's rivals exacerbate regional tensions in order to stoke fears of assertive China."

Whatever the framing, this was the year that the world - and in particular Japan - discovered that the PRC can and could kick back against the pivot.

The fat years for "rising China" were the presidencies of George W Bush. Preoccupied with cascading disasters in the Middle East, a burgeoning fiscal deficit that demanded a foreign partner with an insatiable appetite for US debt, and, later on, a meltdown in the US and world economies, Bush had no stomach for mixing it up with China.

The PRC took the ball and ran with it, emerging as an overpowering presence in East Asia, plowing into Africa, establishing itself as a crucial paymaster for the European Union, and hammering away at the final bastions of Western leadership of the post-World War II planet: the major multinational policy and financial institutions.

Rollback was inevitable, and it was pursued, purposefully, carefully, and incrementally under Barack Obama.

Also back is ineffable American self-regard. With the election and re-election of a black president from a modest background, the United States reclaimed as its assumed birthright the moral high ground, something that one might think the US had forfeited for a decade or two thanks to the Iraq War, American mismanagement of the global financial system, and the failure to face the existential issue of climate change.

It would have been amusing, in a grim sort of way, to see if the election of Mitt Romney as president would have elicited the same ecstatic neo-liberal squealing about the glories of American democracy that we saw with President Obama's re-election. In any case, the comically inept Romney was no match for the popularity, intelligence, and relentless organizational focus of Obama and American self-righteousness - or, as Evan Olnos of the New Yorker would approvingly characterize it, America's "moral charisma" - is back.

With the United States firmly back in the leadership saddle, at least as far as the foreign affairs commentariat is concerned, China has nothing to show the world except the flaws of an authoritarian political and economic system, nothing to teach except as an object lesson in how to avoid them, and no right to participate in any world leadership councils except by Western sufferance.

This attitude dovetails almost perfectly with Obama's apparent disdain for the PRC as an opaque, unfriendly, and unsavory regime that responds to engagement with overreach, one that must be stressed, pressured, and coerced in order to drive it toward humanity's preferred goals. Under the leadership of the Obama administration, the West has made the significant decision to restrain China instead of accommodate it.

China will be a welcome partner in the world order, at least defined by the West, only if it democratizes, dismantles its state-controlled economy, and adheres to the standards of liberal multinational institutions in seeking its place in the world order. These outcomes are so far off the radar as far as the current PRC leadership is concerned, the only near-term endgame on these terms is regime collapse.

That's a risky bet. If the regime doesn't collapse, a simmering, constitutional hostility between the PRC and its many antagonists is on the books for the foreseeable future.

China's response has been to avoid confronting the United States head-on, instead probing for weaknesses in the US chain of proxies and allies, while trying to shore up weaknesses in its own proxies and allies.

The only unalloyed win for the PRC in East Asia in 2012 was the re-election of the Kuomintang's Ma Ying-jeou as president of Taiwan. President Ma has a steady-as-she-goes policy of minimal friction with the PRC, in contrast to the fractious pro-independence and pro-Japanese Democratic Progressive Party. In 2012 he went a step further. In a move that was largely ignored in the Western press because it complicated the narrative of unilateral PRC thuggery, Ma dispatched a flotilla of official and unofficial vessels to give grief to the Japanese coastguard presence around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.

Other than Taiwan, one of the brighter spots in the authoritarian firmament has been the gradual pro-China/pro-reform tilt of North Korea under Kim Jong-eun. The PRC is still making the Obama administration pay for its disastrous miscalculation in 2009, when the US thought that the PRC's overwhelming trade ties with South Korea would cause Beijing to abandon North Korea in the aftermath of the Cheonan outrage (the sinking of a South Korean frigate by forces unknown, but widely assumed to be North Korea) and join the United States in a multi-lateral diplomatic and sanctions-fueled beatdown of the Pyongyang regime.

Instead, the late Kim Jung-il realized that his long-standing opera-bouffe efforts at engagement with the United States were futile and got on his armored train to journey into China and fall into the welcoming arms of Hu Jintao.

On the other side of the ledger, Myanmar threatened to slide out of the PRC camp with the decision of the government to rebalance its foreign policy away from China toward the United States and reach an accommodation with domestic pro-democracy forces. The necessary demonstrations of pro-democracy and pro-Western enthusiasm by the Thein Sein government were 1) the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and her return to public life and 2) postponement of the Myitsone hydroelectric project.

The Myitsone project was unpopular domestically because it was PRC-funded and had been adopted as a symbol of the casual sell-out of Myanmar interests to China by corrupt generals. Postponing Myitsone was popular with the West because it raised the possibility it would block development of Myanmar's sizable hydroelectric potential by China and, instead, allow Western interests, shut out of the Myanmar economy for years because of sanctions, to reorient hydropower exports away from China and towards Thailand.

The PRC has responded cautiously to the Myanmar shift, apparently taking consolation in its dominant role in Myanmar's economy, foreign trade, and security policy thanks to the long and porous border the two countries share.

Myanmar's political elites, including Aung San Suu Kyi, apparently have decided that an anti-China economic jihad would be counter-productive and the PRC has good reason to hope that by upping its public relations game, spreading money around to deserving citizens both inside and outside politics (and perhaps discretely renegotiating some terms of some excessively favorable sweetheart deals with the Myanmar junta), it can successfully navigate the now dangerous shoals of Myanmar multi-party politics (in which a traditional strain of anti-Chinese populism has become an inevitable tool of political and popular mobilization).

In a sign that the United States also hoped to put Laos and Cambodia into play, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a rare visit to the Laotian capital of Vientiane before putting in an appearance at Phnom Penh for a get-together of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Results were mixed, as Cambodia loyally defended the PRC from an attempt to place an ASEAN united front versus China concerning a South China Sea mediation initiative on the agenda.

Cambodian and Laotian desires to distance themselves from the big bully of Asia, the PRC, are perhaps counterbalanced by their desire to keep the big bully of Southeast Asia, Vietnam, at bay. As for Vietnam, it has learned that, as far as the United States is concerned, China is not Iran and Vietnam is not Israel - at least for now, and quite possibly for always.

Even as the United States has vocally supported freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and a multilateral united front in dealing with the PRC, it has avoided "taking sides in territorial disputes" - the only kind of dispute that the nations surrounding the South China Sea care about, since "the PRC threat to freedom of navigation" in the area is little more than a nonsensical canard.

With the US Seventh Fleet unlikely to slide into the South China Sea and blast away at Chinese vessels as an adjunct to the Vietnamese navy, Vietnam appears to have drawn the lesson from the PRC's ferocious mugging of Japan that the disadvantages of auditioning for the role of frontline state in the anti-China alliance may outweigh the benefits.

The big story in East Asian security affairs this year was the PRC's decision to bully Japan, ostensibly over the idiotic fetish of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, but actually because of Tokyo's decision to give moral and material support to the US pivot by once again making an issue of the wretched (Taiwanese) islands.

In 2010, China made the diplomatically disastrous decision to retaliate officially against a Japanese provocation - Seiji Maehara's insistence on trying a Chinese fishing trawler captain in Japanese courts for a maritime infraction near the Senkakus. A relatively limited and measured effort to send a message to Japan by a go-slow enforcement effort in the murky demimonde of rare earth exports became a China bashing cause celebre, an opportunity for Japan to raise the US profile in East Asian maritime security matters, and an invitation to China's other neighbors to fiddle with offshore islands and attempt to elicit a counterproductive overreaction from Beijing.

In 2012, the PRC was ready, probably even spoiling for a fight, seizing the opportunity even when the Yoshihiko Noda government clumsily tried to defuse/exploit the Senkaku issue by cutting in line in front of Tokyo governor and ultranationalist snake-oil peddler Shintaro Ishihara to purchase three of the islands.

This time, Chinese retaliation was clothed in the diplomatically and legally impervious cloak of populist attacks on Japanese economic interests inside China. The 2012 campaign did far more damage to Japan than the 2010 campaign, which was conceived as a symbolic shot across the bow of Japan Inc. The Japanese economy was not doing particularly well even before the 2012 Senkaku protests devastated Japanese auto sales and overall Japanese investment in China, raising the possibility that China might deliver a mortal blow, and not just a pointed message, to Japan.

The major US effort to refocus the economic priorities of Asia and offer material benefits to countries like Japan which line up against the PRC - the China-excluding Trans Pacific Partnership - is facing difficulties in its advance as economies hedge against the distinct possibility that China and not the United States (which is looking more like an exporting competitor than demand engine for Asian tigers) will be the 21st century driver of Asian growth.

It looks likely the US pivot into Asia will be a costly, grinding war of attrition fought on multiple fronts - with Japan suffering a majority of the damage - instead of a quick triumph for either side.

This year, let's call it a draw.

Call it a draw in most of the rest of the world as well.

The Indian government apparently feels that the Himalayas provide an adequate no-man's-land between the PRC and India and warily navigated a path between China and the United States.

With the re-election to president of Vladimir Putin and a return to a more in-your-face assertion of Russian prerogatives vis-a-vis the United States, Russia is less likely to curry favor with the US at Chinese expense than it was under Dmitry Medvedev.

On the other hand, the European Union, winner of the Nobel Prize for Pathetic Lurching Dysfunction, excuse me, the Nobel Peace Price, is desperately cleaving to the United States in most geopolitical matters, including a stated aversion to Chinese trade policies, security posture, and human rights abuses. It remains to be seen whether this resolve is rewarded by a recovery in the Western economies, or falls victim to Europe's need for a Chinese bailout.                                                                                                                                                                                                            The most interesting and revealing arena for US-China competition and cooperation is one of the most unlikely: the Middle East. The PRC has apparently been attempting a pivot of its own, attempting to leverage its dominant position as purchaser of Middle Eastern energy from both Saudi Arabia and Iran into a leadership role.

With the United States approaching national, or at least continental self-sufficiency through domestic fracking and consumption of Canadian tar sands - and ostentatiously pivoting into Asia - it might seem prudent and accommodating to welcome Chinese pretensions to leadership in the Middle East.

The PRC has a not-unreasonable portfolio of Middle East positions: lip service at least to Palestinian aspirations, acceptance of Israel's right to exist and thrive, a regional security regime based on economic development instead of total war between Sunni and Shi'ite blocs, grudging accommodation of Arab Spring regimes (as long as they want to do business), an emir-friendly preference for stability over democracy, and an end to the Iran nuclear idiocy.

As to the issue of the Syrian bloodletting, the PRC has consistently promoted a political solution involving a degree of power-sharing between Assad and his opponents. The United States, perhaps nostalgic for the 30 years of murder it has abetted in the Middle East and perversely unwilling to let go of the bloody mess, has refused to cast China for any role other than impotent bystander.

Syria, in particular, symbolizes America's middle-finger approach to Middle East security. Washington is perfectly happy to see the country torn to pieces, as long as it denies Iran, Russia, and China an ally in the region.

The message to China seems to be: the United States can "pivot" into Asia and threaten a security regime that has delivered unprecedented peace and prosperity, but the PRC has no role in the Middle East even though - make that because - that region is crucial to China's energy and economic security.

This is a dynamic that invites China to muscle up militarily, project power, and strengthen its ability to control its security destiny throughout the hemisphere.

The likely response is not going to be for threatened regional actors to lean on Uncle Sam, which has more of a sporting than existential interest in keeping a lid on things in Asia. Even today, the Obama administration has yet to come up with an effective riposte to China's playing cat and mouse with Japan - and chicken with the global economy. Sailing the Seventh Fleet around the western Pacific in search of tsunami and typhoon victims and dastardly pirates is not going to help Japan very much.

If Japan decides to seize control of its security destiny by turning its back on its pacifist constitution, staking out a position as an independent military power, and turning its full spectrum nuclear weapons capability into a declared nuclear arsenal - and South Korea nukes up in response - the famous pivot could turn into a death spiral for US credibility and influence in the region.

If this happens, 2012 will be remembered as the year it all began to unravel.

Burma Washes Its Hands of the Rohingyas

The piece reproduced below originally appeared at Asia Times Online on November 12, 2012 under the title Myanmar Fixates on Rohingya Calculation. Its thesis is perhaps better represented by the title of this blog post, Burma Washes Its Hands of the Rohingyas.  It can be re-posted if ATOl is credited and a link provided.  
 

ATOl has run some excellent stories on the Rohingya situation, including but not limited to Rohingya miss boat on development  by Syed Tashfin Chowdhury and Chris Stewart, and Nowhere to go for the Rohingya  by Phil Radford.

My ATOl piece tiptoes close to the TL:DR (too long didn’t read) danger zone since I wanted to go to considerable lengths to document the organized character of the anti-Rohingya pogrom and rebut the “ethnic strife” and “plague on both their houses” narrative that is being put out to Western audiences by almost every political and religious actor in Burma/Myanmar, up to and including Aung San Suu Kyi.

Anti-Rohingya racism has, to a certain extent, been ginned up by the military government; however, the government is building on a long-standing tradition of Buddhist/Burmese chauvinism—fueled in part by Burmese resentment at the Rohingyan role as an instrument of British political and economic penetration during the Raj times-- with communal violence between Rohingya and their local Rakhine/Arakan antagonists dating back to at least the 1930s.

The key factor in the current pogrom against the Rohingya appears to be the willingness of various key players in Burma, for a variety of sordid political and financial reasons described in the piece—a clutch of important votes in the national parliament and billions of dollars of expected revenue sharing to Rakhine state from its adjacent offshore natural gas fields-- to pander to the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party.

The RNDP controls Rakhine State (the home of the hapless Rohingya).  It has built its political fortune on Arakan chauvinism ( “Arakan” or “Rakhine” being alternative terms for the Buddhist but non-Burmese minority group on the shores of the Bay of Bengal) and its current campaign against the Rohingya may remind one of a ruthless and cynical campaign in the 1930s against a certain minority whose name begins with J by certain political party whose name began with N led by a certain guy whose name began with H in a certain European country whose name begins with G.  There!  Godwin’s Law safely evaded.

Arakans have also had a traditionally prickly relationship with the Burma nationality that dominates the Irrawaddy basin.  Arakan has a good case for calling itself the traditional Buddhist heartland of the region and is a reliable agitator for autonomy if not independence.  The historical Buddha allegedly paid a miraculous visit to  Arakan and personally breathed on a statue of himself cast at the order of the Arakan king, causing it to assume the Buddha’s physical form.  This priceless relic, the Mahamuni Buddha, was spirited away (actually sawn into pieces for convenient transport) by the Burmese to Mandalay in 1784 as war swag, where it was reassembled and resides to this day.  Every morning Buddhist faithful wash the statue’s face and brush its teeth.  The statue has been coated to a depth of 15 cm (6 inches) by donations of gold leaf.

 

Although the Arakans have to make do with a replica at the original temple site of Kyauktaw and probably harbor a grudge over the removal of their statue, it has not become a flashpoint for Arakan/Burmese conflict.  

Instead, the Mahamuni Buddha sparked  anti-Muslim riots in 1997, in an incident that looks like regime incitement to cover up a particularly egregious incident  of greed-driven Burmese junta sacrilege against the Arakanese artwork.  

I will outsource this story to the lengthy Wikipedia entry on Persecution of Muslims in Burma , written by an aggrieved Burmese Muslim.  Note that the ignition spark was provided by the alleged rape of a Buddhist girl by Muslims, just as the current violence in Rakhine State is traced to the alleged rape of a Buddhist girl by three men, two of whom were supposedly Rohingya :

The bronze Buddha statue in the Maha Myatmuni pagoda, originally from the Arakan, brought to Mandalay by King Bodawpaya in 1784 AD was renovated by the authorities. The Mahamyat Muni statue was broken open, leaving a gaping hole in the statue, and it was generally presumed that the regime was searching for the Padamya Myetshin, a legendary ruby that ensures victory in war to those who possess it.^[37]

On 16 March 1997 beginning at about 3:30 p.m., a mob of 1,000-1,500 Buddhist monks and others shouted anti-Muslim slogans.^{[citation needed]} They targeted the mosques first for attack, followed by Muslim shop-houses and transportation vehicles in the vicinity of mosques, damaging, destroying, looting, and trampling, burning religious books, committing acts of sacrilege. The area where the acts of damage, destruction, and lootings were committed was Kaingdan, Mandalay.^[38] The unrest in Mandalay began after reports of an attempted rape of a girl by Muslim men, although this was later disproved and led to speculation that the regime may have orchestrated the incident to deflect anger from the damaged statue. At least three people were killed and around 100 monks arrested.^[39]

In my piece I make a reference to "Burma's Buddhist Taliban" while comparing the remarkably similar trajectory of "fundamentalist" Theravada Buddhism in South Asia and the Taliban in Central Asia as expressions of chauvinist/nationalist/cultural/religious resistance to the challenge of British imperial assimiliation. As another passage from the Wikipedia entry indicates, the Taliban parallel is not just facile phrasemongering.  When challenged by Taliban Islamic extremism—in Afghanistan!—Burmese Buddhists, at least those egged on by the government, were keen to make sure they gave as good as they got in the destruction of heathen monuments department:

 

2001 Anti-Muslim Riots in Taungoo

In 2001,Myo Pyauk Hmar Soe Kyauk Sa Yar (or) The Fear of Losing One's Race and many other anti-Muslim pamphlets were widely distributed by monks. Many Muslims feel that this exacerbated the anti-Muslim feelings that had been provoked by the destruction in Bamiyan, Afghanistan.^[40] On May 15, 2001, anti-Muslim riots broke out in Taungoo, Pegu division, resulting in the deaths of about 200 Muslims, in the destruction of 11 mosques and the setting ablaze of over 400 houses. On May 15, the first day of the anti-Muslim uprisings, about 20 Muslims who were praying in the Han Tha mosque were killed and some were beaten to death by the pro-junta forces. On May 17, Lt. General Win Myint, Secretary No.3 of the SPDC and deputy Home and Religious minister, arrived in Taungoo and curfew was imposed there until July 12, 2001.^[41] Buddhist monks demanded that the ancient Hantha Mosque in Taungoo be destroyed in retaliation for the destruction in Bamiyan.^[42] On May 18, however, Han Tha mosque and Taungoo Railway station mosque were razed to the ground by bulldozers owned by the SPDC junta.^[43] The mosques in Taungoo remained closed as of May 2002. Muslims have been forced to worship in their homes. Local Muslim leaders complain that they are still harassed. After the violence, many local Muslims moved away from Taungoo to nearby towns and to as far away as Yangon. After two days of violence the military stepped in and the violence immediately ended.^[44]

Emphasis added.  To round out this post on outrages against various religious monuments, I hoped to include a picture of the Han Tha Mosque, but was unable to locate one.

A few points of interest. 

First, the two colossal Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan, one 55 meters tall and the other 38 meters tall, which the Taliban obliterated at great effort and expense amid international execration, were already missing their faces in 2001.  That particular act of vandalism was committed by Abdur Rahman Khan, the “Iron Amir” of Afghanistan during his campaign to subjugate the Hazara minority, whose homeland is around the town of Bamiyan, in the late 19^th century.  Abdur Rahman Khan’s job was to preserve Afghanistan’s role as an independent buffer state against Russia for his own benefit and for the sake of his British backers.  When the Hazara rebelled, he subdued them with supreme violence to prevent Britain from perceiving a dangerous power vacuum and intervening, and used his artillery to deface the statues.

The Hazara could be termed the Rohingya of Afghanistan.  They are Turkic, Persian-speaking Shi’ites whose name apparently derives from the Persian word for a force of 1,000 men, perhaps a reference to a Mongol military unit.  According to the study of the notoriously ubiquitous Central Asian "star cluster" Y chromosome identified with male line descendants of Genghis Khan, the population with the highest percentage of this gene (even higher than Mongolia and Inner Mongolia!) is the Hazara.  

 

The Hazara are treated as outcasts and face disenfranchisement and savage repression  from the Pashtun (both Abdur Rahman Khan in the 19^th century and the Taliban in the 20^th/21^st declared jihad on the Hazara).  It appears that whenever the Pashtun gain the upper hand in Bamiyan they took a knock at the Buddhist statues in order to advertise the subjugation of the Hazara, even though the Hazara are not Buddhists and the statues predate their arrival in central Afghanistan by several centuries.    

There is nothing to take a knock at now.  Only two hollow niches remain (though the destruction serendipitously revealed a treasure trove of Buddhist grottos hidden at the back of the statues) and UNESCO has decided it is impractical to try to rebuild the statues from the remaining rubble.  Ironically, I suppose, the largest statue represented Vairocano, the Buddha of Emptiness (the other was Buddha Sakyamuni).

Second, that hotbed of Theravada Buddhist fundamentalism, Sri Lanka, made considerable efforts to save the Bamiyan statues and subsequently to buy the rubble.  Sri Lanka then declared it would duplicate the destroyed statues in Sri Lanka. (Heroic efforts to preserve Buddhist relics are a hallmark of Theravada kingship and government legitimacy to this day, and Sri Lanka is no exception.  Another notable example is the king of Burma's attempt to rescue Ceylon's precious Buddha’s tooth from destruction by the Portugese Inquisition in Goa in 1561.)

Eventually, a one-third replica of the larger Bamiyan statue was erected in the coastal town of Peraliya in 2006, with Japanese financial support.  Instead of serving as an as a monument to Sri Lanka’s Theravada Buddhist assertiveness, it became a moving commemoration of the thousands of victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami who perished in Peraliya and the vicinity.  

Apparently in response to the destruction of the Bamiyan statues, China erected a 128-meter statue of Vairocana, now the largest statue in the world, in Henan Province.  The “pedestal” beneath the colossus in the photograph to the left is a four-story Buddhist monastery.

In China, a replica of the smaller Bamiyan statue of Sakyamuni Buddha is being carved into a mountainside near the monumental Buddha sculpture at Leshan. 

Somewhat unexpectedly, at least to the Western observer, it is possible to push the modern South Asian Buddhist’s hot buttons with invocations of “jihad” and “the Muslim threat to Buddhism” and, in Burma at least, this hot button is pushed with dismaying frequency.

 Unfortunately, recent events have shown that anti-Rohingya bigotry is far from a monopoly of what Westerners would term “anti-progressive and anti-democratic forces” a.k.a. the regime and its goons.  It happens to be part and parcel of deeply-felt Burmese Buddhism chauvinism, chauvinism that was supercharged by the challenge of British imperialism, is now directed against the People’s Republic of China, but may be redirected at a later date against Burma’s would be benefactors/exploiters in the West.

Photo credits:

Photo of devotees applying gold leaf to Mahamuni Buddha by mrolin 

Photo of Bamiyan Vairocano Buddha from phenomenalplace.com

Photo of empty Bamiyan niche from Smithsonian Magazine 

Photo of Peraliya Buddha by “Buddhika De Silva”        

Photo of China Vairocano Buddha from Wikipedia

From Asia Times

Myanmar Fixates on Rohingya Calculation
By Peter Lee

To outside observers, the carnage inflicted on the Rohingya minority - a five-month spasm of violence and de fact ethnic cleansing ostensibly stemming from the rape of a Buddhist woman by three Rohingya men - in Rakhine Province is indefensible and inexplicable.

What is even less understandable to Westerners is the virtually universal closing of ranks among local and national governments, pro and anti-government Buddhist monks, junta apologists and pro-democracy activists, President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, all uniting to deny the apparently undeniable fact that an old fashioned pogrom is taking place against Rohingya minority and other Muslims.

Friends of Myanmar are puzzled and dismayed that the progressives they have championed have joined forces with the country's most reactionary forces to deny the overwhelming evidence that Rohingya - a dark-skinned Muslim ethnic minority with cultural and linguistic ties to neighboring Bangladesh - are being driven out of their homes by a campaign of intimidation, arson, and violence in 2012 that builds upon years of marginalization and demonization.

Seventy-five thousand Rohingya IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) have been herded into camps on the outskirts of the state capital, Sittwe, and other towns.

In a sign of how bad things are, thousands of Rohingya are trying to flee to Bangladesh, even though they are not welcome there and their only possible refuge if they aren't turned back are two squalid UN-run camps surrounded by a ring of miserable unsanctioned huts.

Exasperated by Myanmar denialism, Human Rights Watch published a satellite photo showing most of the Muslim quarter of a sizable town, Kyak Pyu, burned to the ground. [1]

(As is usual in these matters, nomenclature follows political inclination. The official government identifiers are Myanmar and Rakhine State. People disinclined to legitimize the regime's terms use Burma/Arakan).

The local Rakhine government and its dominant political party, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, or RNDP, have been at the forefront of the anti-Rohingya campaign, according to Rohingya advocate Nay San Lwin.

Writing in Turkey's Today Zaman, he asserted:

The tragic cruelty and the carnage of Rohingyas that occurred in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan (now known as Rakhine) state, is assumed to have been caused by Dr Aye Maung, member of parliament and chairman of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) because in his interview with Venus News Journal on June 14, 2012, he said, "The Rakhine state should be established in the way Israel was initially established." That's the dream of the Rakhine people. They want to drive out Rohingya Muslims from the Rakhine (Arakan) state, their current leader Dr Aye Maung asserted in that interview.

In the last week of last month, a RNDP statement indicated, "Bengalis must be segregated and settled in separate, temporary places so that the Rakhines and Bengalis are not able to mix together in villages and towns in Rakhine state." "Repatriating non-citizen Bengalis to a third country in a short period of time must be discussed with the United Nations and the international community," the statement added. The RNDP also issued a statement early this year against a job announcement by CARE International in Myanmar, an NGO working in Arakan state, for using the term "Rohingya." [2]

Local Arakanese monks have been pitching in as well, according to Democratic Voice of Burma:

A group of Arakanese monks have called for Rohingya "sympathizers" to be targeted and exposed as "national traitors" while tensions again flare between Buddhists and Muslims in Burma's westernmost state.

In a document seen by DVB, the All-Arakanese Monks' Solidarity Conference have urged locals to distribute images of anyone alleged to be supporting the stateless minority group to all townships in the region, potentially opening them up to violent attacks by nationalist extremists. …
Many Arakanese monks have repeatedly called on local Buddhists to sever all relations with the Rohingya community, including trade and the provision of humanitarian aid. [3]

Another ugly message was delivered courtesy of some Rakhine Buddhist university students:

Hundreds of Buddhist university students in Sittwe in Rakhine State rallied on Wednesday against Rohingya Muslims as communal tension was at a heightened pitch in western Burma, according to news service reports.

More than 800 students joined a rally to call for an end to "studying with terrorist Bengalis" and for the removal of Muslim villages on the road to the university. [4]

In addition, the RNDP embarked on an active political and public relations campaign to reframe the pogrom as "sectarian clashes" in order to present its supporters - the rioters - as the injured party, especially if foreign diplomats show up to commiserate over the plight of the Rohingya.

In June, the Secretary General of the RNDP complained:

Q : We have knowledge that UN Secretary General's Special Advisor on Myanmar Mr. Vijay Nambiar visited the town of Sittwe through Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships of Rakhine state and head back straight to Yangon. However, during his trip, he did not meet the representatives of ethnic Rakhine. What's your say on this?

A: I would so much like to talk about this issue. … We feel highly upset about Mr. Nambiar's failure to meet [Rakhine ethnic representatives] despite coming to Rakhine state. That makes us wonder about the stance of UN. There was no press conference either. And that is purely a totally unpleasant situation.

Therefore it makes us wonder the true motives of Mr. Nambia, is he being bias against those of ethnic Rakhine? So, by looking at this event, it's obvious that there are people who are pulling the strings from behind; otherwise, there is no reason for such a high ranking diplomat like him to dare not to call for a press conference. For an organization like UN, which is the de-facto representative of world's democratic societies, such a big failure is a heinous diplomatic mistake. [5]

When the Organization for Islamic Cooperation proposed setting up a humanitarian liaison office in the state capital of Sittwe, local "offended Buddhist" women marched through the streets of the state capital, wearing mass produced T-shirts and brandishing mass-produced banners. [6]

That's bad enough. But there was more. The national government of Thein Sein endorsed the position of the Rakhine State government and declared that the best deal for the Rohingya would be to herd them into UN camps for their own safety and then deport them to whatever third country would take them.

At the national level, the anti-Rohingya wave was not limited to the callous, knuckle-dragging authoritarians associated with the Myanmar military junta (now the pro-Western reformist regime in Nyapyidaw).

Buddhist monks and democracy activists piled on, excoriating the international community for daring to care about the Rohingya.

The leadership of the 8888 student democracy movement, while vigorously and commendably deploring the violence against the Rohingya, adamantly declared its disdain for the persecuted group:

Rohingya is not one of the ethnic groups of Myanmar at all. We see that the riot happening currently in Buthedaung and Maungdaw of Arakan State is because of the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh called "Rohingya" and mischievous provocation of some international communities. Therefore, such interfering efforts by some powerful nations on this issue (Rohingya issue), without fully understanding the ethnic groups and other situations of Burma, will be viewed as offending the sovereignty of our nation. Genetically, culturally and linguistically Rohingya is not absolutely related to any ethnicity in Myanmar … Taking advantage of our kindness and deference, if the powerful countries forced us to take responsibility for this issue, we will never accept it. Concerning with the sovereignty, if we are forced to yield by any country, we, the army and democratic force will deal the issue together as a national issue. [7]

From the Western liberal perspective, the worst was the studied disdain of Aung San Suu Kyi- whose official title in the Western press appears to be "democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi- for the plight of the Rohingya.

When pressed on the issue at Harvard University, she went Ice Queen, according to Global Post:

The forum at Harvard's Kennedy School Thursday evening was little shy of a lovefest …Until someone mentioned the "R" word.

Thanking Suu Kyi for "being our inspiration," a student from Thailand said: "You have been quite reluctant to speak up against the human-rights violations in Rakhine State against the Rohingya … Can you explain why you have been so reluctant?"

The mood in the room suddenly shifted. Suu Kyi's tone and expression changed. With an edge in her voice, she answered: "You must not forget that there have been human-rights violations on both sides of the communal divide. It's not a matter of condemning one community or the other. I condemn all human rights violations." [8]

A Tale of Two Relics

The Belt of St. Mary Comes to Russia and the Buddha's Tooth Visits Myanmar

One thing that’s pretty clear is that religious movements are, for the most part, conservative and have served as bulwarks of authoritarianism (and a shield against challenges to the wealth and power of the privileged) at least since the days of the Social Democrats.

Authoritarian atheism, after a brief, 20^th century heyday under Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, is perhaps headed for the dustbin of history.

Religion is too good for business, billionaires, and bosses, both in liberal democracies and post-Communist states.
 
Modern plutocracies have rediscovered the fact that there’s nothing like appeals to religious identity to split the electorate and marginalize those obstreperous liberal activists whose political views usually combine irreligious sentiments with enthusiasm for democracy and a nasty penchant for economic justice.

The PRC is having limited success replacing Communism with nationalism and Confucianism as organizing national faiths.  It’s hard to get excited by a quasi-state religion promising little more than order and stability to its followers and offering bland, risk-averse apparatchiks like Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping as its father-figures.  And despite Bo Xilai’s Red surge in Chongqing, I don’t think Mao nostalgia is going to make a comeback.

At the same time, the PRC’s attempts to present itself as a protector of Buddhism by sponsoring a tooth tour to Myanmar look rather unconvincing, especially considering the organized pounding the PRC government is giving to Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in western Sichuan (I write about the Sichuan campaign—which looks like nothing less than an organized effort to eliminate the recalcitrant monastery at Kirti through the most onerous oppression possible—in my most recent piece for Asia Times, Will Aba be the CCP’s Waterloo? Yes, Europop lovers, I constructed that title with care and considerable pride).

I think the Russians under Putin have broken the code.  You can read about it below in the story of the Virgin Mary’s girdle.

Note in particular that the Russian state now works its religious legerdemain through an ultra-conservative, well-financed, firebreathing defender-of-the-faith-esque religious foundation instead of China’s retro-socialist, atheistic, bureaucratic, and broadly disliked government State Administration for Religious Affairs.

What China’s elites need to energize their rule is a shot of that old time religion, feeding off the invincible charisma of Jesus Christ, or for that matter, Buddha instead of relying on whatever technocrat the Politburo burps out every few years. Maybe, in a few years, we’ll see some Chinese leader profess his militantly Christian (or, what the heck, Buddhist) faith, pour state resources into institutionalizing a mass conservative religious base, and create a virtually unassailable bulwark against his political opponents and those pesky democratic activists.

Religion is not just religion when it comes to national politics and geopolitics.

As a current affairs bonus, there’s a passage on a competing Virgin Mary’s girdle held at a Syriac Orthodox Church in the rebellious city of Homs, and a competing Buddha's tooth that Taiwan will enshrine at a complex built at a cost of one-third of a billion US dollars in Kaohsiung on December 25, 2011.

First, from Russia, via RIA Novosti:

A remarkable procession is currently taking place in Russia…

The Belt of the Virgin Mary, otherwise referred to as the Precious Sash, or Cincture, of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos – the holy treasure of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece, is travelling abroad for the first time. The Belt is travelling in style. It flies in a private jet, chartered by the tour’s organizer – the influential St. Andrew Foundation, and is accompanied by six Vatopedi monks. In St. Petersburg, it was welcomed by none other than Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth largest city, Governor Alexander Misharin and the region’s bishop, Metropolitan Kirill, met the relic with the guard of honor before a procession of some 15,000 people took it to the cathedral.

The numbers are stunning indeed. In St. Petersburg, estimated one million people came to venerate the Belt in three days and nights, according to the local media. People stood in line for twelve to fourteen hours to be able to kiss the silver box containing the piece of camel wool fabric believed to have been woven and worn by the Virgin Mary, and take a small band blessed on the relic. In Yekaterinburg it was 300,000, in Krasnoyarsk – 100,000.  The relic has already been to the country’s Far East – in Vladivostok, and the Far North – in Norilsk, beyond the Arctic Circle. Volgograd and Stavropol in the South are in the days to come. And it is hard to imagine what kind of crowds will gather in Moscow when, by the end of November, the relic arrives in the capital before leaving Russia for good.

According to the Vatopedi Monastery, the Virgin Mary dropped the belt from heaven for St.Thomas:

According to the Sacred Tradition and the history of our Church, the Most Holy Theotokos [Virgin Mary] three days after she fell asleep she rose from the dead and ascended in body to the heavens. During her ascension, she gave her Holy Belt to the Apostle Thomas.  Thomas, along with the rest of the holy Apostles, opened up her grave and didn't find the body of the Theotokos. In this way the Holy Belt is proof for our Church of her Resurrection and bodily ascension to the heavens, and, in a word, at her metastasis.

From AFP, the socio-political angle:

Clerics said they hoped the relic would help more Russian women become mothers as the influential Russian Orthodox Church is actively promoting motherhood to help the government curtail a population decline.

Church officials in several cities plan to take the relic to pregnancy centres that counsel women contemplating an abortion, the Russian Orthodox Church said.

“This event is of huge significance especially when it comes to strengthening people’s faith,” Father Kirill, a spokesman for the Saint Petersburg diocese, told AFP.

“And the fact that this is such a singular relic helping women is especially important for our city and our country, where the demographic situation leaves much to be desired.”

Russian leaders have called the shrinking population a matter of national security.

The country’s latest census released earlier this year showed that the country’s population had shrunk by 2.2 million people since 2002 and now stands at 142.9 million.

There are also photos of Putin and Medvedev solemnly observing the reliquary.   Putin chose to appear in his Action Man uniform (no tie, unbuttoned collar), inviting the question of whether his expression is one of stunned reverence or sullen challenge to a potential rival.

All joking aside, Vladimir Putin  has jettisoned the official atheism of the KGB and has established the Russian state as a vigorous promoter of the Russian Orthodox Church--and vice versa, as Michael Binyon wrote for The Humanist in 2008:

Putin … is fervently and ostentatiously observant in his religious beliefs. As a result, the Russian Orthodox Church, now richer and more powerful than at any time for almost a century, has been at the centre of all state ceremonies, is a strong supporter of Putin’s policies and has resumed its traditional role as the spiritual arm of the Russian state. Restored churches can be seen everywhere. There are now some 28,000 parish churches in Russia, 732 monasteries and convents and thousands of priests training in seminaries. Putin delivers speeches at major religious festivals; in return the Patriarch acts as his agent in extending his control over all sectors of society. Church and Communist Party have become almost interchangeable.

As reported by Ministry Values in 2010, President Medvedev  is equally forthright about playing the religious card:

An icon of Jesus hidden in a Kremlin gate used by Soviet leaders but bricked over in the 1930s during communist times was restored on Saturday to public view.

Russian President Medvedev,  on the day that marks the Virgin Mary being taken into heaven, said the "Saviour Smolensky" icon, which depicts Jesus holding open the New Testament, with Russian saints below him, will provide moral support to Russia. 

"Now that we've got the icon back, our country secures an additional defense." 

The “influential St. Andrew Foundation” cited in the Novosti report—the outfit that sent the private jet to pick up the belt—is a religious foundation run by Vladimir Yakunin, a member of Putin’s inner circle and reputedly a veteran of the KGB’s First Directorate.  He is also president of the gigantic state-owned Russian Railways.

Presumably, Yakunin is there to lock up the support of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy for Putin and whatever subsequent strongman craves well-financed, pervasive, and activist backing from the conservative church.  

In 2010, European CEO breathlessly pegged him as “the man to watch” as a potential successor to Putin:

This ex-KBG spook is discreet, bright and endowed with a potentially huge powerbase. Vladimir Yakunin has a neighbouring lake-side dacha with prime minister (and former president) Putin. He’s often mentioned in the same breath as other successors to his all-powerful boss…

He’s patently bright and has certainly proved himself able and willing to move with the times. After the Soviet Union collapsed he moved into banking and business before being appointed as deputy transport minister in 2000. Many ex-KGB personnel were able to take advantage of new industry licences and Yakunin, along with some physicist friends, were no exception. In time they established Bank Russia, which later financed Putin’s re-election campaign in 2004.

Yet it would be a mistake to label this discreetly influential man as just another power-hungry party apparatchik or ex-KGB “siloviki”, the unflattering term given to describe the network of ex and current state-security officers. He has a fascination with Russia’s religious legacy and has helped launch a foundation that encourages reconciliation of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Yakunin’s “fascination with Russia’s religious legacy”, and his evolution from amoral KGB apparatchik to creepy, "values"-promoting bigot is reflected in remarks like this:

The head of the Council of Trustees of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation and JSC Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, believes tolerance to homosexuality is harmful. 

"I think traditional family values and childbearing should not be substituted with some notorious imitations invented by the homosexual propaganda which could be only arbitrarily called attributes of a democratic society," he said at the opening ceremony of the 15th World Russian People's Council held on Wednesday in Moscow. 

Yakunin told that he wanted to address this issue in his speech delivered at the Berlin forum last year, but he was warned that "this country will hardly understand you; and you may have troubles here." 

"Nothing of the kind. There was not a single protest made and not a single person left the room because I mentioned that the propaganda of homosexuality was the same pollutant for the social environment as other pollutants were for the natural one," he said. 

Getting back to the Cincture of the Virgin Mary, another version of the relic is held by the Jacobite Syrian Church in Homs—yes, Homs, ground zero of the anti-Assad rebellion-- under considerably less glamorous conditions.

The reliquary, and a history of Syria’s girdle and religious art showing its bestowal on St. Thomas, can be viewed on a very interesting Flickr feed by Rhoneil Victor de Leon.

On its website, the Cathedral of St. Mary in Homs claims its belt is the one that Mary dropped to St. Thomas from heaven, was brought to Syria in  476 and hidden in the church, and was rediscovered in 1953.  

Remarkably, a piece of the Homs belt resides in Jacksonville, Florida at the Mother of God Zunoro Syrian Orthodox Church.  The Patriarch of Damascus arranged to bestow a section of the belt on the new church.  The relic was first adored at a sister church in Paramus, NJ, before taking up permanent residence in Florida in 1998.

Any competing claim for the Homs belt is not addressed on the Mt. Athos website, which plausibly traces the provenance of its belt back to the Byzantine Empire in the 12^th century and its donation to Mt. Athos by Emperor John the 6th Katakouzinos (1347-1355).

Meanwhile, from around the globe and a religious universe away, via Xinhua:

NAY PYI TAW, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Buddha sacred tooth relic was conveyed to Myanmar's new capital of Nay Pyi Taw Sunday afternoon for 48-day public obeisance in the country under the escort of venerable monks.

It is the fourth time that the Chinese Buddha sacred tooth relic was brought to the country for obeisance 15 years after the last conveyance.

Arriving along with the special plane which carried the sacred tooth relic were a Chinese Buddhist delegation led by Director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs of China Wang Zuoan and tooth relic escort team, and Myanmar Religious Affairs Minister Thura U Myint Maung who specially went in advance to Beijing to greet the tooth relic.

Myanmar held a grand ceremony at the Nay Pyi Taw International Airport to greet the arriving tooth relic in accordance with Buddhist practice with national characteristics.

Vice-President Dr. Sai Mauk Kham and other high government officials, representatives of Buddhist circle and followers totaling about 2,000 greeted the Buddha sacred tooth relic at the airport.

The sacred tooth relic is being transferred to colorful floats and white-elephant-decorated vehicles and heading for Nay Pyi Taw' s Uppatasanti Pagoda where President U Thein Sein, along with 6, 000 Buddhist followers, is awaiting for greeting the relic for paying homage.

The Chinese tooth relic will be kept in Myanmar for a total of 48 days for public obeisance from Nov. 6 to Dec. 24 covering three major cities -- Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay.

Of Myanmar's 60-million population, over 80 percent believe in Buddhism. The conveyance of the Chinese sacred tooth relic to Myanmar represents not only a major event of the Buddhist believers but also a fine story of China-Myanmar friendship.

It would seem that this lavish and lavishly costumed exercise was planned well before the recent, orchestrated chill in PRC-Myanmar relations that accompanied the civilian Myanmar government’s recent tilt toward the West.

One would imagine that China decided to proceed with the tooth tour anyway, to show it could be big about the snub.

Buddhism also has its relic-related controversies, sometimes exacerbated by political scraps.

The provenance of China's tooth is relatively secure.  It is generally accepted that only two of Buddha's teeth survived his cremation to exist in the earthly realm: one at Lingguang Temple in China, and another at the Temple of the Tooth Relic in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

In the 1990s, Taiwan had well-funded government pretensions of establishing itself as a world center of  Buddhism, including Tibetan Buddhism, and even luring the Dalai Lama to reside there.  In 1998 a Tibetan Buddhist Rinpoche bestowed a Buddha's tooth (as authenticated by other rinpoches) rescued from the Namgyal Monastery inside Tibet to Fo Guang Shan Temple in Kaohsiung China.

American readers might recognize the Los Angeles branch of the far-flung and absurdly prosperous Fo Guang Shan empire: Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, California, where then Vice President Al Gore encountered his campaign contribution bundling awkwardness.

It has taken ten years for Fo Guang Shan Temple to complete the facility that will house and reverence what it claims to be Buddha's third tooth, the Buddha Memorial Center.

The BMC is a colossal structure that, by the temple's own calculation, cost NT 10 billion to construct.  That's US $350 million dollars.  I repeat:US $350 million dollars. Its official opening is scheduled for December 25, 2011.  This artist's rendition gives the best idea of the facility's inter-galactic awesomeness.  Those little specs?  People.  That Buddha in the back there?  Largest seated Buddha statue in the world, 108 meters high, roughly the height of a thirty-story building. 





Predictably, the PRC government was not amused when Taiwan first shouldered in on the tooth-relic action, as the BBC reported in 1999:

A third relic in the possession of a Tibetan monk caused great excitement when moved to Taiwan last year, but was angrily denounced by Chinese officials as a false tooth. 

Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, said there was no Buddhist scripture to prove its authenticity - a claim rejected as irrelevant by Taiwanese Buddhist leaders. 

Quite possibly, the Chinese government decided to send its tooth on tour this year in order to remind the world once again that the PRC, not Taiwan, possesses a Buddha tooth of widely acknowledged provenance (the Lingguang Temple tooth was sent to Hong Kong for display in 1999, following the Fo Guang Shan bombshell).

Impoverished Myanmar may not be able to match the multi-million dollar spectacle slated for the BMC's Christmas Day 2011 official opening, but it made the arrival of the tooth a national event.

A Myanmar publication, The Village Weekly, depicted the procession on its Facebook page:

 New Light of Myanmar, the China Daily as it were of Myanmar, described the unfolding of the Jumbotron-inflected 24-hour simulcast religious raree, while meticulously recording the financial take and the respectful  obeisances of local and foreign notables (Jon Patrick Barta of the Wall Street Journal!) in breathless daily reports.

Donations appear to be coming in at a rate of around 20 million MMK (Myanmar Kyat) per day.  At the official exchange rate of roughly 6 kyat to the dollar (the rate at which the government will generously sell a visitor its currency), that’s over $3 million per day, or more than $140 million dollars over the 48-day duration of the visit.

The black market rate of the MMK (for people who want dollars but need to buy them illegally) is around 800:1, which makes for a somewhat less impressive $25,000/day.  

The IMF apparently believes an exchange rate of 400-450 MMK is a good reflection of the purchasing power of the kyat.  Assuming that the value of the gold offerings is calculated at the official rate, the take is perhaps $50,000/day or $2 million for the entire visit.

With over 80% of Myanmar's population identified as Buddhist, the Buddhist establishment is a key political player. As one can see from the list of donors and donations, Myanmar’s leaders spare no expense in publicly associating themselves with Buddhism and its most revered symbols.

I imagine the Chinese delegation took careful note of the phenomenon.

New Light of Myanmar’s website is a mystifying relic of an earlier Internet age, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Usenet represented the pinnacle of human aspiration.  As far as I can tell, it has no useful search engine and no archive beyond retention of the most recent seven days’ stories.  So, at the risk of trying my readers’ patience, and playing fast and loose with fair use, I am reproducing a week’s worth of daily reports below for the sake of posterity, and for Myanmarologists who wish to parse the donation levels of the various military and bureaucratic notables who flocked to the event.

From New Light of Myanmar

Uppatasanti Pagoda packed with pilgrims who pay homage to Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic

NAY PYI TAW, 8 Nov-Pilgrims continued to crowd Uppatasanti Pagoda to pay homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic conveyed for the fourth time from China to Myanmar for Buddhists in Myanmar from dawn to dusk today.

In addition to two elevators installed at southeast and south-west corners of the hill for the sake of public convenience, members of social organizations helped the elders and the disabled climb the hill.

Three pathways are systematically designed in the cave to enable the pilgrims to pay close homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic and sites for those who want to meditate in the cave are created.

The artistes of Fine Arts Department of the Ministry of Culture performed Dhammapuja songs in the accompaniment with harp troupe. Religious associations of ministries and in Nay Pyi Taw Council Area recited religious verses.

Donation boxes and pavilions are opened at the southern arch and the eastern arch on the precinct of the pagoda for accepting donation of cash and jewellery. A total of 24 donors of K 100000 and above emerged today. Chairman of Financial Sub-committee Deputy Minister for Finance and Revenue U Win Than returned certificates of honour to them.

In the evening, Director of Armoured Unit of Commander-in-Chief (Army) Office Maj-Gen Hla Myint and wife Daw San San Aye and family donated one earring with jade and diamond with estimated value of K 650000, US$ 100 and K 100000.

Secretary of Financial Sub-committee Deputy Director- General Dr Lin Aung of Budget Department under the Ministry of Finance and Revenue accepted donations and returned certificate of honour. Cash donation at the donation centres from 7 November evening till 7 pm today amounted to K 16789410 and US$ 207, RMB 23 Yuan, 100 Baht, 60 jewelleries with estimated value of K 3065600, two silver vases worthy of K 350000 and Non Jade Buddha Image worthy of K 500000.-MNA

Pilgrims throng Uppatasanti Pagoda to pay homage to Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic conveyed from PRC

NAY PYI TAW, 9 Nov- A large number of pilgrims thronged Uppatasanti Pagoda, here, to pay homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic conveyed for the fourth times from the People’s Republic of China to Myanmar for public obeisance from dawn to dusk today.

For the convenience of pilgrims, an elevator at south-west corner helps monks, the aged and the disabled climb the hill. Apart from Myanmar people, visitors from Germany and Japan paid homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic.

A total of 14 wellwishers who donated K 100,000 and above and 22, various kinds of jewelries emerged today.

Among donors were U Myo Myint Aung and wife Daw Khaing Su Yin and son Maung Ye Yint Aung of MRTV in Nay Pyi Taw Tatkon who donated two gold rings worth K 312,000 and U Aye Kyaw and wife Daw Myint Myint Than and family of Natalin in Bago Region, a gold ring worth K 295,200. An official of financial subcommittee received the donation and presented certificates of honour to them.

Today’s donation amounted to K 18,406,511, US$ 39, 500 bahts, 500 pesos and 100,000 Indonesia rupiahs and 47 kinds of jewelries worth K4,034,500.

Uppatasanti Pagoda packed with pilgrims to pay homage to Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic

NAY PYI TAW, 10 Nov - Uppatasanti Pagoda was thronged with devotees who pay homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic conveyed for the fourth times from the People’s Republic of China to Myanmar for making public obeisance from dawn to dusk today.

The Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic was showed on large TV screens for enabling pilgrims to pay close homage to the tooth relic.

Moreover, booklets, pictures of the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic and religious books are on sale at the bookstall of the Department for Promotion and Propagation of the Sasana at the foot of the Uppatasanti Hill.

For the convenience of pilgrims who pay homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic, buses of Nay Pyi Taw Council are providing free-of-charge transportation service to pilgrims on this Fullmoon Day of Tazaungmon.

A total of 64 wellwishers who donated K 100,000 and above and 92, various kinds of jewellery emerged today. Among the donors were Deputy Minister for Communications, Posts and Telegraphs U Tint Lwin and wife Daw Khin Mar Lwin and family who donated K 300,000, U Nyi Nyi Hlaing and wife Daw Khin Myo Myat and family of Yati Min Silk House in Mandalay, K 500, 000, Cambodian pilgrims led by Bhaddanta Vilasa of Tipitaka Maha Gannayon Monastery in Mayangon Township, K135, 200, US$ 365, 1000 Vietnamese dongs, 2000 Cambodian riels and 20 bahts.

Today’s donation amounted to K 34,691,370, US$ 794, 820 yuans, 40 bahts, 1000 Vietnamese dongs, 2000 Cambodian riels, 320 Malaysian ringgits, 10 Indian rupees, two units of FEC and 118 items of jewellery worth K 6,269,460 .

Uppatasanti Pagoda continues to be crowded with BuddhaTooth Relic pilgrims

NAY PYI TAW, 11 Nov-Uppatasanti Pagoda continued to be crammed today with pilgrims who paid obeisance to Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic conveyed from China for public obeisance.

Sky Net family donated LED Display Boards at southern and northern archways to enable pilgrims from around the country to pay close homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic.

U Kyaw Nyunt Yi-Daw Wah Wah Kyaw (Kyaw Nyunt Yi Publishing House) family and U Moe Hsaung- Daw Aye Thuzar Win family donated K 0.3 million each, U Hla Nyunt-Daw Myat Thida Ko and family, three jewellery worthy of K 820000, U Aung Win Htay-Daw Khin Htay Myint family, seven gold rings worthy of K 216000, U Win Khant-Daw Win Pale family, jewellery worthy of K 561500. Members of financial sub-committee returned certificates of honour to 35 donors of over K 0.1 million and 45 donors of jewellery.

Union Minister for Environmental Conservation and Forestry U Win Tun and wife Daw Swe Swe Chit donated K 0.3 million to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic yesterday evening.

Donation at the centres from 10 November till 6 pm today amounted to K 26920909, US$ 551, RMB 110, Baht 20, one Ringgit, 10 Singapore dollars, and 81 jewellery worthy of K 4268700.

Donation at the centres from 6 November till 6 pm today amounted to K 107389987, two FEC, US$ 1961, RMB 953, Baht 660, 500 Peso, 321 Ringgit, 100000 Rupiah, 10 Rupee, 100 Dong, 2000 Riel, 10 Singapore dollars, and 332 jewellery worthy of K 19997160.

Pilgrims add in crowd paying homage to Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic

NAY PYI TAW, 12 Nov- Today is the seventh day on which the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic had conveyed for the fourth time from the People's Republic of China to Myanmar for Buddhists in Myanmar from dawn to dusk.

Pilgrims continued to crowd Uppatasanti Pagoda in which the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic is sojourning in front of Gautama Buddha Panima Yadana Jade Buddha Image in the Pagoda cave for paying homage to it.

Among the crowds this morning, a total of 21 elder persons- four males and 17 females- from Nay Pyi Taw Pyimanna Home for the Aged participated in the donations for the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic, accepting take care of Patron Dr Daw Kyawt Tha Sein and officials concerned of the committee for Home for the Aged.

Pilgrims led by Myanmar Monastery Presiding Sayadaw Dr Bhaddanta Nannisara from Kuthinayon of India donated K 0.4 million, 80 bahts and 20 rupees, Director-General of Energy Planning Department U Htin Aung and wife Daw Cho Cho Win and family, K 0.3 million, U San Shwe Aung from the Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraphs and wife Daw Aye Aye Than, K 0.2 million, Warrant Officer Class I Sein Win and Daw Sein Sein Aye, one gold crystal and one gold chain 
estimated amounted K 720,000, CaptainNaing Zaw Oo (Retd) and brothers and sisters, one gold ring estimated amounted K 0.5 million, U Wumsowe and (Daw Lintngar) Shwewa Family rice shop, one gold ring, a pair of gold earrings estimated amounted K 349,000, Brig-Gen Aung Myo Min (Retd) and Daw Thazin Nwe, two gold rings estimated amounted K 310,000, Daw Khin Aye (Latpan Kharhla) of Zabuthiri Township, one gold bracelet estimated amounted K 310,000.

Members of financial sub-committee accepted donations of 18 donors who made donations over K 0.1 million and 76 donors who donated various kinds of jewelries and presented certificates of honour to them.

In yesterday evening, Commanderin- Chief of Defence Services General Min Aung Hlaing and wife Daw Kyu Kyu Hla donated K 0.5 million, Union Minister for Immigration and Population U Khin Yi and wife Daw Khin May Soe, K 0.2 million.

D o n a t i o n s - K 30682186, US$ 100, 112 yuans, 1159 bahts, 20 rupees, 54000 dongs and 90 kinds of jewelries estimated amounted K 7,965,000, were accepted from yesterday evening to this evening.

Sky Net broadcasts live recording of Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic

NAY PYI TAW, 13 Nov-Sky Net launches DTH-system Dhamma Channel on 14 November to bring round-the-clock live coverage of the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic to people length and breadth of the country.

The channel stops airing on 24 December, the date set for conveyance of the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic back to China.

The Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic was conveyed to Myanmar from China for fourth time on 6 November and is displayed in the cave of Uppatasanti Pagoda in Nay Pyi Taw from 7 to 21 November, in the cave of Maha Passana cave on Kaba Aye Hillock in Yangon, and in Maha Atulawaiyan (the unrivalled) Monastery in Mandalay from 8 to 23 December.

To update DTH Receiver, click Menu and select Installation. The DTH Receiver will require you to enter Password plus four zeros. To pay homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic on Dhamma channel, complete Auto Scan.-MNA

Uppatasanti Pagoda packed with pilgrims who pay homage to Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic

NAY PYI TAW, 14 Nov - Today is the ninth day on which the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic had conveyed for the fourth time from the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar for public obeisance.

Pilgrims thronged the cave of Uppatasanti Pagoda to pay homage to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic which is temporarily being kept in front of Maha Manimaya Gotama Buddha Panima Yadana Jade Buddha Image from dawn to dusk.

The compound of the Pagoda and surrounding area of the hill were packed with pilgrims who took a walk from the southern archway on Yazahtani Road to the foot of Uppatasanti Hill and free-of-charge ferries of Nay Pyi Taw Council to pay obeisance to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic.

Among the crowds, Pa-O pilgrims from Phayaphyu ward of Taunggyi led by U Khin Maung Koe donated K 500,000, U Tin Sein-Daw Sandar and family of Thabyegon ward in Zabuthiri Township, K 250,000, U Myint Lwin of ACE Construction and Daw Moe Moe Ngae and family, K 150,000, Managing Director U Hla Thein of No (2) Mining Enterprise and Daw Malar Myo Sein and family and religious association of the Ministry of Home Affairs and staff of Correctional Department and families, K 100,000 each, U Aung Moe Kyaw-Daw Mar Mar Tun and family from Yangon, K 235,000, a family of wellwishers, a block of gold worth K 739, 000, Col San Myint of Command and General Staff College in Kalaw and Daw Aye Aye Mu and family, two pairs of earrings and one gold ring worth K 360,000, U Khin Maung Zaw-Daw Chit Chit Su and family of Mogok, one gold ring worth K 200,000 in memory of Daw Khin Than Myint, Daw Khin Lay Myint (Doh Nyinaung) and family of Takon Township, two gold rings worth K 190,000, U Khun Thein Htut-Daw Nan Lin Lin Aung Win and family, a pair of platinum earrings worth K 150,000 and others, K 100,000 and above and various kinds of jewelleries to the chairman and officials of financial subcommittee who presented certificates of honour to them.

Donations-K 25,922,220, one unit of FEC, US$ 47, 30 yuans, 40 bahts, three Malaysian ringgits, 25 Singaporean dollars and 97 kinds of jewelleries worth K 6,196,600 were accepted from yesterday evening to this evening.

Chinese Vice-Chairman of Internal & Judicial Affairs Committee of the NPC and party pay obeisance to Uppatasanti Pagoda

NAY PYI TAW, 14 Nov - Vice-Chairman of Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China Mr. Bai Jingfu and party paid homage to Uppatasanti Pagoda, here, this evening.

First, the visiting delegation led by Mr. Bai Jingfu paid obeisance to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic which is temporarily being kept in the cave of Uppa-tasanti Pagoda.

After signing visitors’ book, Mr. Bai Jingfu presented K 50,000 to the Pagoda and paid homage to Jade Buddha Image being kept in the cave of the Pagoda.

Then he donated K 50,000 at the donation centre which is kept open for the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic on the compound of the Pagoda. -MNA

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Members of Sangha, people pay obeisance to Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic

NAY PYI TAW, 15 Nov-The Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic is temporarily being kept for the public obeisance for the tenth day today in front of Maha Manimaya Gotama Buddha Patima Yadana Jade Buddha Image at Nay Pyi Taw Uppatasanti Pagoda.

The pagoda was crowded with monks and pilgrims and member of the State Central Working Committee of the Sangha of All Ganas Yadanasi Sayadaw Agga Maha Saddhamma Jotikadhaja Bhaddanta Silananda of Loilem in Shan State (South) paid homage to the sacred tooth relic.
Likewise, representatives of Pyithu Hluttaw and Amyotha Hluttaw paid homage to the sacred tooth relic and donated cash.

Bureau Chief Mr Jon Patrick Barta of South-East Asian branch of Wall Street Journal paid homage to the sacred tooth relic this morning and viewed peaceful and happy obeisance of the people to the tooth relic and making donations at the donation centres.

Staff families of the Ministry of Finance and Revenue donated K 401,000, staff families of Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Religious Affairs K 365,000, Maj-Gen Nyan Tun and family of the Commander-in-Chief (Army)’s Office K 500,000, Asia World Co family K 400,000, U Kyaw Swe and family K 100,000, Daw Khin Aye Than-Daw Nwe Nwe Than family and U Aung Mya Thein-Daw Le Yi Moe family K 50,000 each, U Myat Min-Daw Phu Pwint Thwe and family K 30,000 and others. Their donations amounted to K 1,896,000.

Likewise, members of the financial subcommittee accepted K 370,000 by Pyithu Hluttaw representatives, K 375,000 by Amyotha Hluttaw representatives, K 500,000 by reporter U Zaw Min Aung of Kyemon Daily, daughter The Su Hlaing of Ministry of Commerce and family in memory of late Daw Tin Hlaing, K 333,300 by manager and staff of Yaypyar drinking water factory of Myanma Economic Corporation (Nay Pyi Taw), K 300,000 by U Aung Kyaw Thu-Daw Thida Myint (Thida Biriani) family of Lashio, K 237,000 by a family of Ywathit Sub-Township of Bawlake District in Kayah State, K 200,000 each by Col Kyaw Win and family of Commander-in-Chief (Army)’s Office and grandson Thit Htoo San, U Aung Kyaw Moe-Daw Khin Kyi and family and U Htaik Sein-Daw Lily and family of the US, one ring decorated with nine precious stones worth about K 340,000 by U Maung Sein-Daw Mya Kyi Aye, daughter Amyotha Hluttaw Representative Daw Yi Yi Myint of Mawlamyine Constituency, one golden bracelet worth about K 332,000 by U Thein Aung-Daw Than Myint and family of Dawei, two golden rings worth about K 294,000 by Captain Myo Zaw Aung-Ma Yamin Swe Zaw of Nay Pyi Taw Command, one golden necklace worth about K 280,000 by Daw Hla Myint of Hline Township, one pair of golden earplug worth about K 257,500 by Col Aung Myint Oo-Daw Tin Mar Nwe and family of Kyaikto in memory of late father U Kyaw Sein, one golden chain worth about K 250,000 by U Myo Hlaing-Daw Nan Loung Hsai and family of Pyinmana under the patronage of both side parents, one golden locket worth about K 230,000 by Daw Ngwe Kyi and daughter Khin Su Su Htwe of Kyaikto in memory of late U Kyaw Sein, one golden ring worth about K 227,000 by daughter Daw Nan Loung Hsai and family of Pyinmana in memory of late Sayadaw U Vimalasami, one golden ring worth about K 200,000 by U Htay Lwin-Daw Phyu Phyu Lwin and family of Namhsan of Shan State (South) and K 100,000 and above donations by 63 wellwishers and gold, silverware and jewellery by 58 wellwishers.

Certificates of honour were presented to the donors.

Yesterday evening, Director-General U Kyaw Myint Hlaing of Irrigation Department and wife Daw Sanda Khin (Deputy Minister for Culture) and family and Union Minister for Rail Transportation U Aung Min-Dr Wai Wai Tha and family under the patronage of grandfather U Tha Khaing donated K 500,000 each, Union Minister for Religious Affairs Thura U Myint Maung-Daw Aye Aye Tun and family K 300,000, Union Minister for Labour U Aung Kyi- Daw Thwe Thwe Sein and family K 100,000 and Daw Mya Sein and family of Zeyatheikdi Ward K 200,000, US$ 200 and ¥ 1000.
From evening of 14th November to 6 pm today, donations at the centres amounted to K 28,184,207, FEC 10, US$ 479, RMB 203, Thai baht 1010, Indian rupee 62, S$ 20, Korean Wam 500, Japanese ¥ 1000, Sri Lankan rupee 100, 81 items of gold, silver and jewellery ornaments worth about K 6,419,400.