Bharat Rakshak

KHOTAN, China — The grand mosque that draws thousands of Muslims each week in this oasis town has all the usual trappings of piety: dusty wool carpets on which to kneel in prayer, a row of turbans and skullcaps for men without headwear, a wall niche facing the holy city of Mecca in the Arabian desert.

But large signs posted by the front door list edicts that are more Communist Party decrees than Koranic doctrines.

The imam’s sermon at Friday Prayer must run no longer than a half-hour, the rules say. Prayer in public areas outside the mosque is forbidden. Residents of Khotan are not allowed to worship at mosques outside of town.

One rule on the wall says that government workers and nonreligious people may not be “forced” to attend services at the mosque — a generous wording of a law that prohibits government workers and Communist Party members from going at all.

“Of course this makes people angry,” said a teacher in the mosque courtyard, who would give only a partial name, Muhammad, for fear of government retribution. “Excitable people think the government is wrong in what it does. They say that government officials who are Muslims should also be allowed to pray.”

To be a practicing Muslim in the vast autonomous region of northwestern China called Xinjiang is to live under an intricate series of laws and regulations intended to control the spread and practice of Islam, the predominant religion among the Uighurs, a Turkic people uneasy with Chinese rule.

The edicts touch on every facet of a Muslim’s way of life. Official versions of the Koran are the only legal ones. Imams may not teach the Koran in private, and studying Arabic is allowed only at special government schools.

Two of Islam’s five pillars — the sacred fasting month of Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca called the hajj — are also carefully controlled. Students and government workers are compelled to eat during Ramadan, and the passports of Uighurs have been confiscated across Xinjiang to force them to join government-run hajj tours rather than travel illegally to Mecca on their own.

Government workers are not permitted to practice Islam, which means the slightest sign of devotion, a head scarf on a woman, for example, could lead to a firing.

The Chinese government, which is officially atheist, recognizes five religions — Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Taoism and Buddhism — and tightly regulates their administration and practice. Its oversight in Xinjiang, though, is especially vigilant because it worries about separatist activity in the region.

Some officials contend that insurgent groups in Xinjiang pose one of the biggest security threats to China, and the government says the “three forces” of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism threaten to destabilize the region. But outside scholars of Xinjiang and terrorism experts argue that heavy-handed tactics like the restrictions on Islam will only radicalize more Uighurs.

Many of the rules have been on the books for years, but some local governments in Xinjiang have publicly highlighted them in the past seven weeks by posting the laws on Web sites or hanging banners in towns.

Those moves coincided with Ramadan, which ran from September to early October, and came on the heels of a series of attacks in August that left at least 22 security officers and one civilian dead, according to official reports. The deadliest attack was a murky ambush in Kashgar that witnesses said involved men in police uniforms fighting each other.

The attacks were the biggest wave of violence in Xinjiang since the 1990s. In recent months, Wang Lequan, the long-serving party secretary of Xinjiang, and Nuer Baikeli, the chairman of the region, have given hard-line speeches indicating that a crackdown will soon begin.

Mr. Wang said the government was engaged in a “life or death” struggle in Xinjiang. Mr. Baikeli signaled that government control of religious activities would tighten, asserting that “the religious issue has been the barometer of stability in Xinjiang.”

Anti-China forces in the West and separatist forces are trying to carry out “illegal religious activities and agitate religious fever,” he said, and “the field of religion has become an increasingly important battlefield against enemies.”

Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, accounting for 46 percent of the population of 19 million. Many say Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group, discriminate against them based on the most obvious differences between the groups: language and religion.

The Uighurs began adopting Sunni Islam in the 10th century, although patterns of belief vary widely, and the religion has enjoyed a surge of popularity after the harshest decades of Communist rule. According to government statistics, there are 24,000 mosques and 29,000 religious leaders in Xinjiang. Muslim piety is especially strong in old Silk Road towns in the south like Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan.

Many Han Chinese see Islam as the root of social problems in Xinjiang.

“The Uighurs are lazy,” said a man who runs a construction business in Kashgar and would give only his last name, Zhao, because of the political delicacy of the topic.

“It’s because of their religion,” he said. “They spend so much time praying. What are they praying for?”

The government restrictions are posted inside mosques and elsewhere across Xinjiang. In particular, officials take great pains to publicize the law prohibiting Muslims from arranging their own trips for the hajj. Signs painted on mud-brick walls in the winding alleyways of old Kashgar warn against making illegal pilgrimages. A red banner hanging on a large mosque in the Uighur area of Urumqi, the regional capital, says, “Implement the policy of organized and planned pilgrimage; individual pilgrimage is forbidden.”

As dozens of worshipers streamed into the mosque for prayer on a recent evening, one Uighur man pointed to the sign and shook his head. “We didn’t write that,” he said in broken Chinese. “They wrote that.”

He turned his finger to a white neon sign above the building that simply said “mosque” in Arabic script. “We wrote that,” he said.

Like other Uighurs interviewed for this article, he agreed to speak on the condition that his name not be used for fear of retribution by the authorities.

The government gives various reasons for controlling the hajj. Officials say that the Saudi Arabian government is concerned about crowded conditions in Mecca that have led to fatal tramplings, and that Muslims who leave China on their own sometimes spend too much money on the pilgrimage.

Critics say the government is trying to restrict the movements of Uighurs and prevent them from coming into contact with other Muslims, fearing that such exchanges could build a pan-Islamic identity in Xinjiang.

About two years ago, the government began confiscating the passports of Uighurs across the region, angering many people here. Now virtually no Uighurs have passports, though they can apply for them for short trips. The new restriction has made life especially difficult for businessmen who travel to neighboring countries.

To get a passport to go on an official hajj tour or a business trip, applicants must leave a deposit of nearly $6,000.

One man in Kashgar said the imam at his mosque, who like all official imams is paid by the government, had recently been urging congregants to go to Mecca only with legal tours.

That is not easy for many Uighurs. The cost of an official trip is the equivalent of $3,700, and hefty bribes usually raise the price. Once a person files an application, the authorities do a background check into the family. If the applicant has children, the children must be old enough to be financially self-sufficient, and the applicant is required to show that he or she has substantial savings in the bank. Officials say these conditions ensure that a hajj trip will not leave the family impoverished.

Rules posted last year on the Xinjiang government’s Web site say the applicant must be 50 to 70 years old, “love the country and obey the law.”

The number of applicants far outnumbers the slots available each year, and the wait is at least a year. But the government has been raising the cap. Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that from 2006 to 2007, more than 3,100 Muslims from Xinjiang went on the official hajj, up from 2,000 the previous year.

One young Uighur man in Kashgar said his parents were pushing their children to get married soon so they could prove the children were financially independent, thus allowing them to qualify to go on the hajj. “Their greatest wish is to go to Mecca once,” the man, who wished to be identified only as Abdullah, said over dinner.

But the family has to weigh another factor: the father, now retired, was once a government employee and a Communist Party member, so he might very well lose his pension if he went on the hajj, Abdullah said.

The rules on fasting during Ramadan are just as strict. Several local governments began posting the regulations on their Web sites last month. They vary by town and county but include requiring restaurants to stay open during daylight hours and mandating that women not wear veils and men shave their beards.

Enforcement can be haphazard. In Kashgar, many Uighur restaurants remained closed during the fasting hours. “The religion is too strong in Kashgar,” said one man. “There are rules, but people don’t follow them.”

One rule that officials in some towns seem especially intent on enforcing is the ban on students’ fasting. Supporters of this policy say students need to eat to study properly.

The local university in Kashgar adheres to the policy. Starting last year, it tried to force students to eat during the day by prohibiting them from leaving campus in the evening to join their families in breaking the daily fast. Residents of Kashgar say the university locked the gates and put glass shards along the top of a campus wall.

After a few weeks, the school built a higher wall.

Arunachal districts bordering China press for autonomy
http://www.hindu.com/2008/10/20/stories ... 970900.htm
Special Correspondent

Demand to pass autonomy Bill during current Parliament session

No basis for China’s claim over territory

Guwahati: The Mon Autonomous Region Demand Committee (MARDC) of Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday demanded that the Centre immediately act upon a resolution passed by the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly recommending creation of a Mon Autonomous Council comprising West Kameng and Tawang districts bordering China, under the provisions of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
“Delhi Chalo” programme

MARDC chairman Tsona Gontse Rinpoche told journalists here that the committee decided to undertake a “Delhi Chalo” programme to mount pressure on the Centre for creation of the council, by passing the Bill in the current session of Parliament.

The Assembly passed a resolution in February 2004 recommending creation of two autonomous councils — one comprising Tawang and West Kameng districts in the western corner known as Mon region and another comprising Tirap and Changlang districts in the eastern corner known as Patkai region.

Rev. Rinpoche alleged that though the State government submitted clarifications and the justification for creation of the councils, there had been no response from the Union government.

The people of the Mon region — belonging to Monpa, Sherdukpen, Mizi (Sajolang), Aka (Hrusso), Bugun and Sartang tribes — intensified their movement for autonomy and organised a series of rallies at Kalaktang, Tawang, Nafra and Thirzino between October 6 and 18.

It was resolved during the rallies that in the Lok Sabha elections, the people of the region would support only those candidates and the party supporting their cause. The MARDC chairman hoped that since all the seven legislators from the region, including Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, belong to the ruling Congress, the Mon-Autonomous Council Bill would be passed without much difficulty in Parliament.
Chief Minister in Delhi

Mr. Khandu and the PCC president have been camping in Delhi to impress upon the Central leaders the need to pass the Bill without further delay, he added.

Rev. Rinpoche represents the Lumla Assembly constituency in Tawang district as a Congress legislator.
No basis for China’s claim

To a question, he said there was no basis for China’s claim over Arunachal Pradesh’s territory, including Tawang.

Rev. Rinpoche represents the Lumla Assembly constituency in Tawang district as a Congress legislator.

China may replace India in a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline deal with Iran and Pakistan if New Delhi continues 'delaying' the venture.

By Bhaskar Roy

The recently concluded third plenary session of the 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (October 9-12) ended on a sober note. There was much to be celebrated – the successful holding of the summer Olympics where China topped the medal list, followed by the hosting of the Paraolympics and most important, the successful space walk by a Chinese astronaut, known as taikonaut, aboard the Shenzou VII space craft. These were mentioned, but other issues clouded the plenum.

The communiqué issued at the end of the plenum acknowledged a serious challenge facing the country that has been generally painted over till so far. It is the rural sector where the country’s 800 million of its 1.3 billion population live. Significantly, on the second day of the plenum i.e. October 10, the Shanghai Daily reproduced a section from the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitive Report 2008-2009 which said western and north-eastern regions of China were lagging in development with wide spread absolute poverty, approximately 128 million people living on less than US $1 per day, without access to clean water or sufficient education and health care. In terms of efficiency enhancement, the report noted some serious shortcomings, with the financial sector ranked at 109 among the 131 countries surveyed.

The WEF report also noted positives for China. For example, it moved up four places to the 30th position in Global Competitiveness Index. But it was also noted that China’s remarkable showing in GDP ($3.3 trillion), foreign exchange reserves ($1.8 trillion), and high domestic savings “should not deemphasize the enormous challenges that face China is maintaining its competitiveness”.

It is known that such reports by international organizations are usually careful not to upset large countries, and China is about to step into the G8 + along with India. At the same time, an official newspaper under the control of the Shanghai government and party committee carrying such a report at a crucial time is certainly not routine.

In another development of note, the CCP mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, commented (September 28) that young professionals joining the system at high levels with proper ideological education and commitment had created a situation where young cadres were being corrupted, who would be used in th future in power politics and making money. The newspaper was quoting a party Central Committee report.

Another analytical report in the run up to the plenum suggested that erstwhile party General Secretary Jiang Zemin had brought in senior experts into the party fold to improve economic efficiency, but after he retired things began to go wrong.

These, and other reports could only suggest that problems within China are rising, and these developments appear to have opened up the otherwise dormant power struggle between Jiang Zeman’s Shanghai faction emphasizing on the coastal region, and Hu Jintao’s Communist Youth League (CYL) faction emphasizing on rural development. In March this year, Jiang Zemin had openly criticized the energy policy of Hu Jintao leadership, an issue extremely important for the industrialized coastal region of China. The differences seem to have become sharp enough to adversely affect the development and stability paradigm of the country.

The neo-liberal nexus of party officials – bureaucrats – business interests have worked only on profit motive, with corruption playing the role of the engine. This is exactly what the People’s Daily observed.

It is not surprising that the plenum basically concentrated on rural reform. Only small and selected news about the deliberations during the plenary meetings was released. The published plenum document, delivered by Hu Jintao, frankly admitted that “The country was facing challenges in its rural development and reform”, and promised to tackle the problems firmly. At the same time the document may have failed to inspire confidence among the people when it said “new concepts and ideas” would be worked out and the government would “try to make a breakthrough” in reforming the rural system. Efforts to uplift the situation include education, health care, employment, housing and pension sectors.

The only definite decision that came out of the session was doubling the per capita “disposable” income of rural residents by 2020 from the 2008 level. A big task, but China has delivered on even bigger promises in the past.

China’s vast rural regions suffered from years of neglect to build the country’s power show-room in the coastal region. Late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping had hoped that the development of the coastal areas would flow to the interior. This, unfortunately, did not happen. In fact, the urban real estate mafia in collusion with party officials, bureaucrats and the police almost literally robbed farmers and rural residents of their land. The government is moving to enact a compensation law to ensure that owners are paid fair compensation when the state takes over their land.

This year celebrates the 30th anniversary of late leader Deng Xiaoping’s declaration of the “reform and opening up” policy. Deng focussed on liberating the rural forces by breaking the commune policy finally and introducing the system where a farmer could lease land from the state and cultivate it. The farmers were given a partial free market for their produce. The rural sector started on a fast paced growth.

Unfortunately, further reform has come to a stop in China. This despite the promise of greater transparency and political and economic liberalization by Hu Jintao. Development has stagnated because without further political reform, economic reform would not be possible.

In the run up to the plenum there were discussions about allowing farmers to lease out their land to others for cultivation. The farmer may continue to work on the land or seek some other employment. It would depend on the agreement between the two parties. This, however, did not find a mention in the plenum report suggesting serious disagreements, and signalling opposition from hardliners in the Central Committee. This decision was apparently adopted by the Politburo after the plenum was over.

The review of the economic situation was not effusive, but guarded. The effect of the global financial meltdown on China’s economy was taken note of, but carefully in order not to raise panic. But immediately after the plenum, a Hong Kong owned toy factory which supplied to top international brands like Mattel, closed down, putting more than seven thousand workers out of jobs. China’s is basically an export driven economy, and it cannot escape global depressions.

Recently, China has suffered some battering over their quality control of its products. Three major incidents were discovery of toys that had harmful chemicals, harmful preservatives in exported preserved food stuff, and baby milk food contaminated with melamine. A lesser country’s export market could have been ruined, but it is in the interest of many to keep China afloat.

The dislocation between the Central government in Beijing, and the local governments has become acute. For the best part, laws and rules remain in the books. While social unrest has been growing, the CCP and the Central government have returned to the old ways of brushing problems under the carpet. Factional sniping has added to the problems.

China’s fortunes do affect the world in some way or the other. Serious political problems in the country is also reflected in its foreign policy. These are issues that countries involved with China economically, politically, and with territorial issues need to look out for.

These details serve the Chinese historians to refute the earlier international premise that Chinese civilization originated from Central Asia. I wonder whether Indian historians would like to do the same. But, even without touching the contentious points about the Aryans and Dravidians it may not be out of order to treat the Indian civilization essentially as a continuous indigenous growth, no matter how much external influence it has absorbed into its cultural fabrics.

Some Indian Buddhist monks, like Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra etc., demonstrated such a power by playing with the symbol of NagalDragon. We have records of Indian monks presiding over imperial rain-invoking ceremonies when China was visited by severe drought in the years 366, 726, 772 and 889, the last occurred in independent Yunnan -the state of Nanzhao.2 Both India and China were agrocultures (I have coined the term to replace the tongue-twister "agricultural culture") for which rain-fall assumed great importance. The imaginary powerful NagamjalDragon symbol definitely had a connection with it.

have taken this proposition of Naga-Long twinhood to the academic fora both in China and in Taiwan, and have encountered violent opposition. My opponents argued that Long had had its independent existence for five-six thousand years, that China was always the Homeland of Dragon, and the Chinese were famous for being the "Progenies of Dragon" {Long de chuanren). Even the idea of a part of the social functions of the dragon symbol might originate from India was unacceptable because it hurt the Chinese pride in their thousand years of affinity with Long. This, in a way, underlines the daunting task of popularizing the Sino-Indian perspective among Chinese (and also Indian) scholars while studying the history and culture of India and China

The mystification of the supernatural power of snake in India and Long in China was the product of agriculture of both the countries. While we don't have concrete evidence for the Indian input in the imagination of the pre. Buddhist Chinese Long, we certainly can trace the Indian influence on the Buddhist (and post Buddhist, if you wish) Chinese Long. For one thing, the artifacts that symbolize Long created in pre-Buddhist China are by and large free from the fierce look that typifies the Buddhist Long (like the Chinese say, "zhangya wuzhua", i.e. baring its teeth and waving its claws) which clearly demonstrate the inner social function of LonglDragon as the guardian of the imperial system. It is in this function that we clearly see the Indian contribution.

Another clear Chinese borrowing from India is the "Dragon-King" (Longwang) from the Indian Nagaraja.

We are in a position to say that Indians were among the earliest foreigners to know about the Chinese silk, and also to engage in its international trade long before the famous "Silk Road" between Luoyang and Rome became a thriving international phenomenon. The first foreign words for Chinese silk were "cinamsuka" (Chinese silk dress) and "cinapatta" (Chinese silk bundle) enshrined in Kautilya's Arthasastra which goes back to the 4th century BC

When Yunnan was annexed into the Han Empire in the 1st century AD, the Chinese authorities found that among the foreign settlers there was an Indian community named "Shendu" (perhaps a corruption of "Hindu") that was "Indians" or "India." But, the Chinese knowledge about "Shendu" went back to as early as the pre-Han days (3rd century BC) according to some ficticious historical accounts. India also loomed large in the broad rubric "xiyu" (western regions), because if we glean the data from all early Chinese narratives about Xiyu, we definitely find the depictions of India. Another ambiguous rubric is "Daqin" which was connected with India in two ways. First, India was trading with "Daqin" (denoting Roman Empire) on the sea. Second, ancient Chinese confused Europe with India and other far-away lands which they had had contacts through the sea. For instance, the Chinese records attributed elephant-teeth and rhinoceros as products of Daqin (while these were clearly Indian specialities not produced in Europe). Thus when the Han records say that Daqin was keenly interested in Chinese silk it actually indicated a triangular route of the Chinese export of silk reaching India, and also Europe via India. In 166 AD, the Chinese recorded the arrival of an embassy probably sent by the Roman Emperor, Mareus Aurelius Antonius, in the Han court. The Roman embassy arrived by sea and landed somewhere near the present Guangdong Province in southern China, and journeyed to the Han capital, Luoyang, by road. The embassy made a present to the Chinese emperor which contained ivory, rhinceros' hom (a precious ingredient for Chinese medicine) and the shell of haw"sbill turtle, all products of India

In Chinese historical and semi-historical documents: there are places called "Shang Tianzhu", "Zhong Tianzhu", and "Xia Tianzhu" which literally mean, "Upper India", "Middle India", and "Lower India". These three names actually indicate just a few square kilometres in Hangzhou City in Zhejiang Province in eastern China. How has such a mix-up come about? It is because of a legend that was the making of an ancient Indian Buddhist monk-scholar "Huili" (whose real identity is lost). In 326, this monk from western India came to Hangzhou. After seeing a hill in this area (in the vicinity of the scenic West Lake), he authoritatively proclaimed that the hill had been flown to China from Magadha (Bihar)! The Chinese believed him and, henceforth, called the hill "Tianzhushan"(the "Indian Hill") and "Feilaifeng"(the "Peak that has flown here from India").8 It was this legend that has contributed to the existence of "Upper" , "Middle" and "Lower" India on the Chinese map.

It {urns out that though India invented Buddhism she benefited much less from this invention as compared with China. For Buddhism, it had a horizontal development, and for some time it was as if all the roads were leading to China -eminent monk-scholars, scriptures, artifacts, and legends. To the Chinese, the four great Buddhist Bodhisattvas (as alluded to just now) had left India for good, but not the Buddha. No Chinese account, however daring, has the audacity to claim that Buddha is no longer residing In India. Indian mythology, i.e. the Tantric traditions, however, reached a very daring and pro-China conclusion proclaiming China as the country where the true Buddha lives. The Tantric literature Taratantra in the section entitled "Rudrayamala", described an Indian ascetic, Vasistha, having failed to obtain siddhi (divine power) in India, travelled to China -the "land of Atharvaveda" where he saw Buddha having an indulgence in meat, wine and women. Vasistha emulated such behaviours of Buddha and "attained final liberation",

According to a recent study the term "Zhongguo" (now the Chinese name for "China") appeared 178 times in all written documents before China's unification in 221 BC. "Guo" in the bisyllable denoted "country", or "state", while the other syllable "zhong" denoting "centre", (This has given rise to the international term "Middle Kingdom", and also the international stigma of "sinocentrism".) But, politically China was not one state when these terms appeared. A detailed investigation of these 178 concepts proves that they mean different things in various contexts, and were anything but the suggestion that China lay in the centre of the universe. One scholar felt that "zhongguo" arrived as a symbol of a kind of unity in diversity,11 This shows clearly that the progenies of the Ramapithecus north of the Himalaya started an endeavour in the hinterland of present China to build up a commonwealth sharing a common cultural development, Such a commonwealth would not exclude communities from various directions who might not be the direct descendants of the trans-Himalayan Ramapithecus. It can be said that in ancient India, the same movement towards establishing a commonwealth was in action culminating in the establishment of the Maurya and Gupta empires.

Here, Daoxuan was citing the ancient Indiar) signification of "Madhyadesa" for Magadha. That he had no hesitation in transposing the Chinese term "Zhongguo" (Central state) to Magadha, the heartland of Buddhist India (in modern Bihar) may indicate his absolute loyalty to Buddha, but also indirectly reflects the open-mindedness among Chinese intellectuals of his times. He, further, in the same text, cited a debate taken place in the court of Emperor Wen of Song (reigning from 424 to 453 AD), In the presence of the emperor, Buddhist monk-scholar Huiyan out-smarted learned scholar He Chengtian by saying that in summer in India there was no shadow which proved that India was the real "zhongguo", The emperor was pleased to hear that and offered an appointment to the monk.13 Once again, it was the Chinese ruler's being convinced, (in this case, that India, not China, was the central state and lay at the centre of the earth) that should be noted than monk Hulyan's going overboard to compliment India

We notice that Shijia Fangzhi was a famous Chinese book penned in "High Tang", i.e. when Tang Dynasty attained highest power and prosperity, while Tang Dynasty 1s generally regarded as the "golden period" of China's cultural development. During such a period, Chinese Buddhist writers, Daoxuan and many others, used the term "Zhongguo" only to signify India, while calling China "Dong tu" (Eastern Land). In non-Buddhist literature during Tang one seldom comes across (if ever) the teim "Zhongguo" -and denoting China. But, terms like "Tianzhu" (Heavenly India), and "Xitian" ("Western Heaven" also denoting India), are replete in Tang literature

Dharma" was initially translated into "Dao" in Chinese, and stories about Gautama Buddha's being the reincarnation of Laozi14 were circulated widely which were tacitly accepted by the early Chinese Buddhists for the sake of integration of the Indian religion into Chinese mainstream culture.

China has, thus, imported the concept of "equality" (pingdeng) not from the French Revolution (as it was generally believed), but from India (from the Buddhist movement).

Finally, we have a picture of not more Indian cultural influence on China, but more Chinese pro-active input to synthesize the two great civilizations. Returning to Pannikkar's observation about Indian Buddhist preachers' arriving in China "to influence and not to be influenced", the actual picture is that they, eminent among them like Kumarajiva, Bodhidharma, Amoghavajra etc., had taken China as their own country and tried to build the Tusita utopia on her soil. In contrast no Chinese Buddhist monks participated in such extraordinary altruistic international synergy (in India), hence the creation of the asymmetry. It is clear here that the two civilizations had decided to experiment cultural synergy only on Chinese soil -to marry Mahayana universalism in the mind with Chinese universalism on the ground. To conceive this Sino-Indian joint venture as a one-way traffic is out of order.

The scholar was Hong Xiuquan (also spelled as Hung Hsiu-Ch'uan) (1819-1864), a drop-out from the Imperial Examination System (Keju) who led millions of peasants of south China to arms and established an ephemeral rebel regime named "Taiping Tianguo" (The Celestial Kingdom of Taiping). As I have written elsewhere, this Taiping Movement had many Indian cultural input in it.25 I may just add here that though the Taiping regime was revolutionary, it still circulated Confucian classics with slight modifications.

It must be pointed out that although the second millennium ushered in many centuries of Islamic domination to be followed by a Christian-Western domination in the last three hundred years in India, we still should treat India as a country of Buddhist and Brahmanic cultures

For more than a thousand years Chinese have been celebrating two festivals in the new year, one on the first day of the first month, and another 15 days later because Chinese learnt that in the "country of Buddha", i.e. India, the month commenced on the full moon which was half a month later than the Chinese practice. And the mode of celebration of the second festival (called "lantern festival") is the imitation of Diwali.

While Buddha has assumed the highest position among all foreign gods in China, the highest native Chinese god, the Jade Emperor (yuhuang dadl) is the duplication of Indra. Bodhidharma (in China from 520? to 536? till his death} took a seat directly in the Chinese heaven after his demise. The Chinese pantheon, in fact, is crowded with Indian personalities. China has the dubious honour of having the maximum numbers (numbering thousands} of Buddhas. According to Chinese oral literature, even the Indian monkey Hanuman (Chinese name "Sun Wukong"} is a Buddha with the title of "Ever Victorious Buddha in Fighting" (Douzhansheng FO}

“Sivapithecus or Ramapithecus is a genus of extinct primates. Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.5 million to 8.5 million years old in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Siwalik Hills in what is now India and Pakistan. Any one of the species in this genus may have been the ancestor to the modern orangutans. “

Hinduism (original form from Iran/Middle East) became the perfect tool to control the uneducated population and also to protect the interest of the minority Brahman class who are the offspring between darker skinned Dravidian (Australian Aborigine like people, proto-Tamil) women and invading Aryan men from Iran. This is due to the fact that the majority of the population in India at that time was Dravidian and to provide legitimacy to rule the majority, the Brahman class had to use Hinduism (caste system). Modern day India currently consists of mixed (Dravidian + Aryan) offspring and around 30% Dravidian mostly in Southern India. That also explains why latter day Persians can easily rule the local populace due to their fair skin and local reverence.

BEIJING, Nov 22 (AFP) Nov 22, 2008
China reacted angrily Saturday to a US congressional report that accused Beijing of developing sophisticated cyber warfare and militarising its space programme.

The annual China report to Congress of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was aimed at misleading the public and impeding bilateral cooperation, foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

"The commission has all along seen China through dark glasses and has deliberately attacked China with slanderous accusations aimed at misleading public opinion and obstructing the development of Sino-US relations," Qin said.

"The report is unworthy of rebuttal and the aims of the commission are doomed to failure," he said in a statement on his ministry's website.

The report issued in Washington Thursday accused China of developing a sophisticated cyber warfare programme aimed at penetrating US computer networks to extract sensitive information.

"China has an active cyber espionage programme," the report said.

"China is targeting US government and commercial computers."

The panel also criticised Beijing of exercising "heavy-handed government control" over its economy and "continuing arms sales and military support to rogue regimes" such as Sudan, Myanmar and Iran.

The commission also issued a warning about China's space programme. "China continues to make significant progress in developing space capabilities, many of which easily translate to enhanced military capacity," it said.

Qin urged the commission to stop issuing such reports and refrain from interfering in China's internal affairs.

China: Strategic Experts Talk About a 'Partial' Sino - Indian War by D. S. Rajan
Paper no. 2939 24-Nov-2008
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers30%5Cpaper2939.html

Some comments in China media as monitored by the Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai.

Worth a read! There are plenty of nuggets worth noting so I refrain from posting select quotes!

Huanqiu, China

Financial Crisis
Makes a Substantial
Improvement on
Sino-American Ties



By Peng Guangqian

Translated By Ming Li

05 December 2008
China - Huanqiu - Original Article (Chinese)

The global financial crisis that started from the subprime calamity in the U.S. is now spreading globally, and the impact that it will have on China-U.S. relations is worthy of concern.

The three pillars that have supported the U.S. empire for a long time- financial hegemony (dollar hegemony), military hegemony and cultural hegemony- have been heavily wounded in this financial crisis in a way never seen before. The ebb and flow of the balance of strategic powers between China and America is beyond expectation and improvement in China’s strategic posture comes earlier than expected, but it is groundless to judge that the “turning point” of the strategic power contrast between these two countries is coming. As a dollar empire with its foundation still intact, the U.S. is still a strong nation owning the most advanced technologies in the world and the American homeland still has huge production capacity. There is not a currency that can replace the dollar’s role, even though the dollar hegemony has been impaired somehow. Deep-rooted problems existing in China’s structure have been enormous hidden trouble, which limits its development. The strategic disparity between China and America can’t be erased overnight. It is a risky hallucination to think about challenging the world’s richest nation when China just discards the bowl used to beg food.

What can be certain is that the U.S. government, which names the financial crisis as its top priority, will be forced to focus on the domestic economy for some time. The outgoing American government, kidnapped by neoconservatism, ran the war machine, which greatly consumed the country’s strategic resources and impaired the country’s comprehensive strength. There are no other choices for Obama, who cried “change” out loud when assuming his presidency at a time of crisis, but shrinks to his front line. The newly elected government will turn its attentions from abroad to home, from military affairs to economic in the terms of administrative emphasis, resource allocation and policy focuses. During the time that the U.S. tries to pull its troops from Iraq and solve a few hot-spot issues by political means, the readjustment of its global strategic concerns and the construction of a new hub for its Asia-Pacific strategy within which Guam is the center, might be moderately slowed down. While America is busy with its own business, the strategic pressure China faces will get some relief though it will not vanish completely.

More importantly, against the backdrop of the financial crisis, working together to deal with the crisis is becoming a new base of strategy for Sino-American ties. The worsening financial crisis is the biggest threat shared by China and the U.S. these days. The degree of dependency on China by the U.S., who is anxious to jump out of the crisis, will widen and increasing strategic cooperation, including those for economy in this hard time, will further form a main rift of Sino-American relations. The past has witnessed China and the U.S. working together to form an anti-Fascist front to fight bravely against the Fascist powers of German, Italy and Japan and a historic handshake by China and America, who let go of past rancor, for a common goal to resist the expansion of Soviet hegemony. To counter international terrorism, the U.S. has to redirect its policy that once improperly treated China as its strategic competitor. It is not an enemy with a gun in hand that the two countries share today, but an economic disorder with grimness, damage and destruction never seen before and neither one of the two countries can deal with it alone. This new strategic pattern will widen the surface of cooperation between China and America by limiting the conflicts in traditional China-U.S. strategy constitution to a degree. The strategic tie between China and the U.S. will assume a new content and will get new development thanks to their cooperation against the financial crisis.

Some invoke the fact that World War II was a result of the world economic crisis from 1929 to 1933 and fear that the U.S. might begin a war to transfer the crisis. It is understandable, but the situation is not any more the same then as when a war could stimulate the stagnant economy, and the recession today is not caused by lack of stimulation, but excessive debt. War again, like drinking poisoned wine to curb thirst, will stimulate nothing but will backfire. It can be said that the economic friction and occasional shocks are inevitable but for the moment, they will not hit hard on Sino-American strategic relation. On the contrary, the economic interdependence and the increasing economic cooperation will bring a substantial improvement to Sino—American strategic ties.

(The author is an expert on China’s national strategy)

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