Day: July 25, 2023

The introduction of a new banknote by Myanmar’s ruling junta has pushed up the price of gold and affected the value of the country’s currency, with shadow government officials saying the move is meant to alleviate some of the regime’s financial difficulties.

The State Administration Council, the official name of the junta regime that has ruled Myanmar since seizing power in a February 2021 coup, said on Sunday that it will issue a limited number of 20,000-kyat banknotes, roughly equivalent to a US$10 bill, on the last day of this month. 

The junta said the new banknote was designed to commemorate the completion of a Buddha statue. The bills, which feature the image of a white elephant, will be limited to a maximum of three per person when they are exchanged with old unusable banknotes of the same value. 

After the military-owned Myawaddy news agency announced that the junta-controlled central bank would issue the new banknotes, the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, said the regime came up with the high-denomination notes because of the financial crisis plaguing the country.

Myanmar’s economy went into a tailspin following the coup, as professionals walked off their jobs to join a civil disobedience movement opposed to the regime. 

The junta’s financial mismanagement – and economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom – have curtailed some revenue streams.

NUG officials also said the junta had no right to issue new banknotes because it is not an official government. 

Min Zayar Oo, the shadow government’s deputy minister of planning, finance and investment, said the junta is issuing the banknotes because international sanctions have blocked  its foreign income.

“When the junta faced financial difficulties due to sanctions, it started printing money,” he said. “Although they initially said that they would circulate only a limited number of the denomination, it is just the introductory step for their larger purpose which is to solve their financial difficulties.”

NUG spokesman Nay Phone Latt agreed that the junta is printing new currency because of its dire financial circumstances and said the value of the kyat would likely depreciate.

“We consider this currency to be printed by a terrorist organization,” he said.

RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment.

Forex havoc

The move comes just after the NUG began a trial run of an online bank that uses cryptocurrency in an effort to disrupt the flow of foreign currency to banks run by the junta, including the country’s central bank. 

The new crypto bank was developed to prevent the junta from violating bank regulations by blocking user accounts, seizing deposits, and providing personal account data to the authorities.

In the meantime, the junta’s latest move has led to unstable foreign currency exchange rates and fluctuations in the price of gold. 

Following the announcement about the new banknote, the exchange rate for one U.S. dollar rose to 3,400 kyats from 3,100, landing on Tuesday at 3,300 kyats. The exchange rate for Thai baht rose to 96 kyats from about 90 kyats, while the exchange rate for Chinese yuan increased to 460 kyats from 430 kyats.

Forex instability has prompted Burmese businesses that import goods from abroad to temporarily suspend transactions. 

A Burmese national who recently bought gold jewelry told Radio Free Asia that one tical, a unit of weight that is approximately 16.3 grams, of 23-karat gold was worth about 3.1 million kyats on July 23, but rose on Tuesday to more than 3.5 million kyats.

Another Burmese citizen who visited gold shops said establishments in Yangon, the commercial capital, closed on Monday due to the instability of the price of gold, though some reopened on Tuesday. Now, 24-karat bars of gold cannot be purchased at all as a safe investment, he said.

The Yangon Region Gold Entrepreneurs Association has set the price of one tical of 24-karat gold at over 2.3 million kyats – more than 1 million kyats less than the actual market price. The trade group issued a statement on Monday asking merchants to refrain from business transactions that would destabilize the price of gold because of news about the new banknote.

Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.

Police in Cambodia were moving forward with investigations into opposition activists who destroyed their ballots to protest the exclusion of the Candlelight Party from Sunday’s parliamentary election.

Authorities in Banteay Meanchey province near the Thai border sent local Candlelight Party official Chao Veasna to provincial prison for pre-trial detention on Tuesday after he posted a photo of his spoiled ballot on social media, according to his daughter.

Six other people were detained by authorities on Sunday in similar cases, questioned and released. Police have threatened to take legal action against anyone who continues to post messages on the spoiled ballots.

Authorities told Radio Free Asia that they were targeting 44 people who allegedly incited people to vandalize the ballots under exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy’s order.

Prime Minister Hun Sen posted a voice message on Sunday demanding that opposition activists who posted photos of spoiled ballots publicly apologize. 

“We recognize all of the faces of those who are in the country,” he said. “But I ask that you don’t need to be afraid. You can come forward to confess to the authorities and to the National Election Committee. Otherwise, legal action will be taken against you.”  

Photos of dozens of spoiled ballots were posted on Sam Rainsy’s Facebook page on Sunday. 

Candlelight Party activist Phorn Phanna, who lives in Thailand, told RFA that posting photos of ballots is a citizen’s right. The protests show that people are unsatisfied with Hun Sen’s election, he said.

“I have made no mistake. I just used my right as a citizen to express my discontent over the fake election,” he said. “I have the right to appeal to people to spoil the ballots to make the Hun Sen regime badly embarrassed.”

‘The expression of the people’

Sok Ey San, the spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, estimated that the number of spoiled ballots across the country was between 200,000 and 300,000.

Exiled opposition leader Mu Sochua told RFA on Tuesday that the number could be more than 400,000. 

Mu Sochua is the vice president of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, which had been the country’s main opposition party until late 2017 when the Supreme Court dissolved it after it made substantial gains in local communal elections.

There were reports of spoiled ballots by CNRP supporters in the last parliamentary election in 2018.

The Candlelight Party, which includes many of the same supporters as the CNRP, was disqualified from this year’s election in May by the NEC, which cited inadequate paperwork.

“The CNRP thanks the people who went to the polls and spoiled the ballots, and in some locations wrote out their messages,” Mu Sochua said. “This is the will – this is the expression of the people who are the voters.”

A Siem Reap resident told RFA on condition of anonymity that she was forced to go to polls by local authorities. She said she wrote on her ballot to express her pain as a Cambodian citizen – not because of anything Sam Rainsy said.

“I was like other people who find no party that they love,” she said. “So they crossed out the ballot because they trust no other party except the opposition Candlelight Party.”

Sok Ey San said the 400,000 number cited by Mu Sochua probably includes some ballots that didn’t come from opposition protesters. 

“A number of invalid ballots were incorrectly ticked or marked by senior people, or by poor eye-sight people, or by some uneducated people,” he said.

Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed.

U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Mark Knapper condemned last month’s attacks on local government facilities in two communes in the southern province of Dak Lak, Vietnamese state media reported.

At dawn on June 11, two groups of about 40 people armed with guns and knives attacked the headquarters of Ea Tieu and Ea Ktur communes, killing nine people including four policemen, two commune officials and three villagers. 

In all, authorities detained nearly 100 ethnic minorities for allegedly participating in terrorist attacks in which two commune officials and three civilians also were killed.

The attacks occurred in an area that is home to about 30 indigenous tribes known collectively as Montagnards, who have historically felt persecuted or oppressed. 

Last week, police announced that they arrested all six ringleaders wanted for their roles in the attacks.

Knapper’s remarks came Monday during a meeting with state media at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi to commemorate 10 years of comprehensive partnership between Vietnam and the United States.

According to state media, Knapper said he “condemns the attack in the strongest possible terms.” 

When asked what he thought of the suspects’ possible connections to an organization in the United States, Knapper said that the embassy was “willing to work with the Government of Vietnam to clarify what is behind the incident.”

In the aftermath of the attack, several Vietnamese officials suggested that there were foreign organizations behind it. 

In late June, RFA interviewed several overseas Montagnard organizations whose members denied involvement in the incident and condemned the violent attacks.

Sarcasm tolerated

Also in Dak Lak, police are dropping their case against a teacher who trolled the government and military on Facebook.

State media reported that the teacher, Nguyen Dat Thanh, posted a picture of himself standing next to a sign that read “National Defense and Security Education Sports Festival,” and attached the status line “Hello everyone.”

It was deemed to be very sarcastic in nature, and caused the deputy head of the province’s Internal Political Security Department to sign an official order on “rectifying the situation of conflict and disunity at Chu Van An High School.”

The order asked teachers at the school to file explanatory reports on the incident. The teachers, thinking the order to be excessive, did not comply.

The police consulted with other government organizations and decided not to pursue the case, state media reported.

Dak Lak’s Department of Education and Training said that the post did not violate Cybersecurity laws, so no further action by authorities was necessary.

Translated by An Nguyen. Edited by Eugene Whong.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo plans to visit Beijing “this summer,” she said Tuesday, with the dates yet to be determined.

Such a trip would be the fourth to China by a member of President Joe Biden’s cabinet since last month, with Raimondo following on the heels of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and climate envoy John Kerry amid a cooling of bilateral relations.

U.S. officials have cast the trips as an attempted reset in ties with Beijing after nearly a year of increasing tensions that started when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August visited the democratic island of Taiwan, which China claims as sovereign territory.

It has since been inflamed by U.S. bans on the export of high-end microchips to China, which has been led by Raimondo’s Department of  Commerce, and February’s high-profile spy balloon incident.

Raimondo told an event at the Wilson Center on Tuesday that she had to walk a fine line in promoting American business interests in China – America’s third-largest export market after Canada and Mexico – while ensuring the country’s national security interests are protected.

“I do plan to travel later this summer. We’re still finalizing a date and plans,” Raimondo said. “At a high level, we need to do business with China, wherever we can. We need to promote [American businesses] wherever we can, but we need to protect wherever we can.”

Balancing act

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress, officials in the U.S. Commerce Department and even the president have said the ban on exports of advanced microchips to China is a key national security priority, arguing that China is using the chips for military purposes.

The bans – and billions of dollars in subsidies for chipmakers in the United States – have led to complaints from Beijing, which has called the moves examples of a “Cold War mentality” and protectionism.

But Raimondo said she believed she can still promote American business in China while standing firm on the Biden administration’s chip export bans, even if that can be a difficult balancing act.

“There are many industries – food, entertainment,” she said of areas where America could expand trade with China at little risk. “I was recently with [CEO] Bob Iger of Disney –  their Shanghai park is growing gangbusters. Starbucks is opening a store a day in China.”

She also pointed to the “health and beauty product space” as U.S. industries that could be promoted in China while still “working with our allies to deny” Beijing the technology it needs to build its military.

“There is no national security risk to the United States selling coffee and beauty aids to China. It creates jobs in America,” Raimondo said. “Having said that, we have to protect what we must, and be eyes-wide-open about the threats, and strategic competition.”

Authorities in the northern Chinese city of Xi’an have moved to tamp down angry protests by thousands of parents over an influx of out-of-town students taking the high-school entrance examination, arresting at least 10 people for “fraud” and investigating educational services companies.

Thousands of angry parents of junior high-schoolers gathered outside several government buildings in Xi’an on July 21 chanting “Let Xi’an kids go to school,” amid complaints that out-of-town candidates from the central province of Henan had bumped thousands of their children below the cut-off point for entrance to senior high school.

Some knelt down to express their dissatisfaction, while others sang patriotic songs – often chosen by protesters in China to indicate that they don’t oppose the ruling Chinese Communist Party, just a specific policy.

The crowd dispersed in the early hours of July 22 after city leaders promised to thoroughly investigate their claims that families from Henan were taking advantage of the city’s relaxed residency rules to game the system and get their children into its senior high schools, which carry a much higher probability of a place in higher education than Henan’s high schools.

According to the Twitter account “Mr Li is not your teacher,” police also arrested two parents during the protests.

The protests erupted amid reports that some 40,000 out of 100,000 candidates for this year’s high-school entrance examination in Xi’an actually came from Henan province, and while they could produce a household registration for Xi’an, had never attended school in the city.

The influx of students from out of town made it harder than last year for students who had been born and raised in the city to get a place in senior high school, effectively raising the threshold in a competitive examination system by 61 points.

Fraudulent candidates

Anyone scoring less than 600 out of a possible 700 points in the exam was effectively shut out of the university application process, the parents complained. Last year, a Xi’an student would only need a score of 539 points to be sure of a place in senior high school, official media reported.

The protests came after the Xi’an municipal education bureau claimed on July 18 that there were only 3,608 out-of-town candidates taking the test this year. But people quickly compared this year’s total with last year’s, finding that 20,000 more candidates took the exam this year.

“Why are there 20,000 more children?” they demanded to know.

The Xi’an police department announced later on July 22 that it had arrested 10 people and was holding six more amid an investigation into a number of educational service providers for “fraud” in connection with the sudden influx of candidates from Henan.

But the government has stuck to its claim that there were only 3,608 out-of-town candidates.

“A joint inspection team composed of multiple departments will screen the household registration, school status, school certificates, and academic level test scores of the 3,608 [out-of-town] students one by one, and cancel the admission qualification of candidates who are verified as having obtained their registration and examination qualifications by fraudulent means,” the Communist Party-backed Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported on July 23.

Meanwhile, the Lianhu district police department said it had also arrested a 35-year-old man for “fabricating” information online about the number of students from Henan.

Inequality complaints

Former university lecturer Wang Deyu said public anger around education stems from a system that is already highly competitive and highly unequal.

“This conflict has been somewhat limited, and it has glossed over the biggest issue when it comes to China’s educational resources — the excessive concentration of wealth and power [among the privileged],” Wang said.

He said anyone born and growing up in Beijing, Shanghai and other privileged areas has far greater access to education than people in poorer parts of the country.

“This current conflict around … high school entrance exam immigrants shows how much of the cake has already been given out, leaving [people in Xi’an] with a smaller share,” Wang said. “There is no way to share that small piece of the cake fairly among so many people.”

U.S.-based journalist Wang Jian said his parents made exactly the same move when he was a teenager, because students in Henan are far less likely to have a shot at a higher ranking university – necessary to find a job in an era of mass youth unemployment — if they stay where they are.

“Zhengzhou University is the only [higher-ranking] 211 institution in the whole of Henan,” Wang said. “It’s very hard to find a job if you didn’t graduate from a 211.”

“I went to Shaanxi to take the exam because there are a lot of [higher ranking universities] in Shaanxi,” he said. “From a sociological point of view, this is the consequence of the unfair division of educational resources.”

In June 2021, the government announced a crackdown on the U.S.$120 billion private tutoring, or buxiban, industry, in a country where hothousing children to ensure the best shot at a good high school or university has become the norm for middle-class families, citing excess psychological pressure on children and financial pressure on families.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

Myanmar’s junta will extend a state of emergency in the country ahead of a deadline at the end of the month, experts said, in a bid to pave the way for an election through increased political repression and crackdowns on dissent.

The junta has announced three consecutive six-month extensions of emergency rule in Myanmar since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat, citing ongoing instability in the country. The current period is set to expire on July 31.

Political analyst Ye Tun told RFA Burmese that the junta will announce a fourth extension this week in the hopes that it can crush the rebellion and legitimize its rule through an election.

“The [military junta] will be able to hold elections only if it can put an end to the resistance across the country,” he said.

“That’s why they will fight more fiercely to achieve their goals in the six-month extension term. If there are no other political changes to the situation, we can expect more armed clashes and more casualties.”

Opponents have dismissed the planned election as a sham because it appears rigged to exclude parties ousted by the coup and keep junta officials in power.

On July 13, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing hinted at a possible extension of emergency rule during a meeting of the Tatmadaw, or Myanmar’s Armed Forces, in the capital Naypyidaw, calling for greater security in Sagaing region, as well as Chin and Kayah states. The three regions are centers of resistance to military rule and have seen an uptick in violence in recent months.

Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun also recently told reporters that a decision on whether to extend the state of emergency would be made soon.

According to Myanmar’s military-drafted constitution, emergency rule can only be extended twice “in normal situations.”

In announcing the last extension on Jan. 31 this year, junta leaders cited the “extraordinary situation” created by resistance against the military regime for stymieing efforts to hold a general election.

At the time, Min Aung Hlaing, faulted “terrorist groups” formed by deposed lawmakers and officials – the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw and the National Unity Government – as well as the numerous local militias known as People’s Defense Force, or PDF, that have fought the junta across Myanmar since 2021.

Min Aung Hlaing was the leader of the coup that ousted and jailed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy government about two months after their landslide election victory. 

‘No one can object’

Lawyer Kyee Myint told RFA that the junta will again extend the state of emergency by exploiting the constitution’s reference to “normal situations.”

“The [junta] appointed the heads of the Constitutional Court, not by [parliament] – that’s why they won’t care about whether what they are doing is in line with the constitution,” he said. “This is nothing new. It’s not in accordance with the constitution by any means.”

Members of the public who spoke to RFA Burmese about the likely extension seemed resigned over what they suggested was a forgone conclusion.

“The junta will extend the state of emergency period for another term, but the people’s defiance will remain unchanged,” said a resident of Sagaing, who declined to be named, citing security concerns. “The junta will extend it to make it appear as if they are needed [to maintain stability]. The country is in a situation where no one can object to this extension.”

After the last extension, the junta declared martial law in 40 townships in Sagaing, Magway,  Tanintharyi and Bago regions, as well as in Kayin, Chin and Kayah states. The military embarked on a brutal campaign against the armed resistance, but the resistance grew stronger.

Mone Tine, an official with the special operations unit of the Myaung Township PDF in Sagaing, told RFA that an extension of emergency rule would have little impact on anti-junta forces in his area.

“I expect [junta forces] will carry out more brutal acts in the future [with an extension],” he said. “But we are increasingly attacking them in some areas, rather than relying on a defensive strategy. If they extend the state of emergency again, it won’t affect our fight for control of our region.”

Civilians bear the brunt

Military clearance operations have claimed the lives of civilians on a near daily basis in Myanmar.

According to Burma News International’s Myanmar Peace Monitor, which compiles data on military conflict in the country, at least 383 civilians were killed throughout the country during the latest extension of emergency rule, from Feb. 1 to July 15. Most were arrested and killed or died in military shelling and airstrikes.

Than Lwin Oo, a former lecturer at Yangon University’s Department of International Relations and Political Science who left his position to join the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, warned that if the military regime cannot achieve its goal through repression, it may try to negotiate with the country’s ousted leadership.

“They first tried to find a political exit by holding an election, but it hasn’t worked and they are talking less about the election lately,” he said.

“The next attempt was that I heard that they mentioned a plan to hold a conference with the various ethnic groups … This is also its attempt to find a way out. If all else fails, the junta will try to reconcile with Aung San Suu Kyi.”

According to a July 15 statement by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 2 million people have been displaced by armed conflict across Myanmar since the coup. Of those, nearly 800,000 people have been displaced in Sagaing region alone.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matthew Reed.