Vietnamese border officials are refusing to stamp new Chinese passports featuring the nine-dash line that represents China’s claim on most of the South China Sea.

According to a report by Vietnamese media group Tuoi Tre News on Saturday, holders of these passports are, instead, issued with a separate on-arrival visa. This is to avoid inadvertently recognising China’s claim.

Last week, the Arbitral Tribunal at The Hague ruled in a case lodged by the Philippines that the nine-dash line was illegal and breached Manila’s territorial rights. China refuses to recognise the ruling.

Vietnam, with maritime claims that overlap China’s, has said that it welcomes the verdict but has otherwise been restrained in its reaction.

The vice-chairman of Quang Ninh province’s People’s Council, Mr Nguyen Xuan Ky, was quoted by Tuoi Tre as saying: “By issuing separate visas, Vietnamese authorities can avoid directly stamping the passports, thus demonstrating Vietnam’s stance of not recognising the nine-dash line in any form.”

Reactions to South China Sea ruling

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Reuters, AFP

Any such passport stamped by mistake will be stamped “voided” upon the traveller’s next entry to Vietnam.

In southern Vietnam’s Phu Quoc airport, where foreign tourists do not need a visa for entry, Chinese with the nine-dash-line passport have to fill out a separate entry declaration, media reports say.

Customs officers at Da Nang airport have also confiscated from Chinese passengers many maps featuring the nine-dash line.

Meanwhile, a provincial Vietnamese television station has stopped airing Shanghai Bund, a Chinese remake of a popular Hong Kong series, after its lead actor Huang Xiaoming voiced support for Beijing’s claims over the South China Sea, according to online portal VN Express International.

In Hanoi, about 20 people were detained yesterday while protesting against China’s rejection of the international tribunal’s decision.

This article was first published on July 18, 2016.
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LO MANTHANG, Nepal – A Himalayan Shangri-La that was closed to visitors until 1992, the former Buddhist kingdom of Upper Mustang in Nepal is facing unprecedented change as a new highway brings modernity to the roof of the world.

Kerosene lamps have given way to solar panels, denim sneakers have replaced hand-stitched cowhide boots and satellite dishes are taking over the rooftops of homes dotted across the region, which borders Tibet.

The former kingdom’s days as a cultural time capsule are numbered – and change cannot come soon enough for young people like Tsewang Norbu Gurung, who lives in its walled capital, Lo Manthang.

“I remember when Nepali TV first came here, less than 10 years ago. We used to pay 20 rupees (18 cents) for a three-hour sitting in someone’s house,” said Gurung.

Today, nearly everyone owns their own television – imported from China or India – and young men like 30-year-old Gurung spend their evenings watching Bollywood films, Tibetan mythological dramas or football matches.

Sitting with friends at a local teashop, their eyes glued to a television screen showing a Euro 2016 match, Gurung told AFP the road had transformed life in Lo Manthang.

“Earlier, everything – rice, oil, basic supplies – had to be carried up on mules, it would take so many days, now it takes just one day in a vehicle,” he said.

Gurung, who runs a souvenir shop, worked as a labourer on the road that was completed in 2014, connecting Upper Mustang with India and China – a modest throwback to an era when the region dominated trans-Himalayan commerce in salt, wool and spices.

For generations, traders led caravans through this forbidding high-altitude desert, passing vast canyons and red mountains that, legends say, are stained with the blood of a demon killed by the founder of Tibetan Buddhism.

Nepal annexed the kingdom of Lo, as it was known then, in the 18th century but allowed the king to retain his title. It renamed the area Upper Mustang.

For decades it saw virtually no foreign visitors and was accessible only by foot or horseback, leaving its residents cut off from outside influence until the road was completed a few years ago.

The local Loba community, who speak a variant of Tibetan, retained their Buddhist practices even as the Cultural Revolution hit religious traditions in neighbouring Tibet.

New highway brings modernity to Himalayan Shangri-La

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AFP

Upper Mustang’s isolation was so absolute that its royal family only boarded a plane for the first time in 1995, on visits to the US and Germany.

Former crown prince Jigme Singi Palbar Bista grew up in a cavernous five-storey palace with 108 rooms, but the family did not live in luxury.

With no electricity and with firewood scarce, palace staff would burn yak dung to heat the rooms.

There were no high schools in Upper Mustang, so the prince would spend days trekking or riding to Jomsom on the region’s outskirts.

“We are not like other royals… not that kind of luxury,” the 60-year-old told AFP.

Nepal’s transition from a monarchy to a republic in 2008 ruled out any chance of Bista inheriting the throne, making his father the last king of a 600-year-old dynasty.

The father-of-three now devotes his time to running a tour agency and doing charity work while overseeing repairs to the palace after last year’s earthquake.

But the Lobas still regard Bista as a spiritual guardian and approach him for help resolving land disputes that would otherwise have to be filed in court.

Nepal’s government has sought to preserve Upper Mustang’s unique culture by keeping tourist numbers down, charging a minimum visitors’ fee of $500.

But many fear the road threatens the region’s unique identity as younger Lobas embrace modernity, swapping handspun Tibetan robes for made-in-China jeans.

Lo Manthang’s gates are no longer locked at night to keep horses from running out. Instead, motorbikes crowd its cobblestone streets.

“It’s important to save our culture so it reflects our identity. Otherwise there will be nothing special left about (Upper) Mustang,” said Khenpo Kunga Tenzin, head of Lo Manthang’s Monchoe Dragkar Thegchen Ling monastery.

“We had our own identity, our own way of dressing… but now it’s all disappearing, it will all be gone.” Poised between an isolated past and an uncertain future, young Lobas like shopkeeper Gurung are more positive.

“When I realise that my generation doesn’t know local songs or dances, I feel a bit ashamed,” he said.

“But overall I am optimistic about the future. Things are getting better… life is getting easier.”

An Indian Islamic preacher, Dr Zakir Naik, whose teachings were popular with one of the terrorists in the Dhaka cafe attack, has denied advocating terrorism as the authorities in India and Bangladesh investigate whether his sermons could radicalise South Asians.

Bangladesh has banned Dr Naik’s Peace Television – a 24-hour Islamic channel that broadcasts in English and Urdu, while India is poring over the contents of his sermons and the funding of his Mumbai-based Islamic Research Foundation.

At least one Indian government minister said his speeches “were a matter of concern”.

The preacher has come under intense scrutiny since it was revealed that Rohan Imtiaz, one of the five gunmen behind the Dhaka cafe attack in which 20 hostages were killed, had quoted from Dr Naik’s sermons on Facebook last year.

“I did not inspire any terrorist… I am a messenger of peace,” Dr Naik said during a press conference last Friday via Skype from Saudi Arabia. He denied allegations that his speeches were inflammatory. “I have been branded a hatemonger without an iota of evidence.”

Earlier in a YouTube response, he had said: “Every Muslim should be a terrorist to anti-social elements like rapists and murderers.”

Dr Naik, who was born and raised in Mumbai, founded the Islamic Research Foundation in the early 1990s. He claims to have more than 100 million followers and his lectures are reportedly seen in more than 125 countries.

Gunmen take hostages in Dhaka cafe

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Reuters, AFP

Last year, he launched Peace Television in China and was awarded the King Faisal International Prize in March last year for “service to Islam” awarded by Saudi Arabia.

But he has also faced controversy. In 2010, he was banned from entering Britain for making inflammatory remarks that “seek to provoke others to terrorist acts”.

Asked whether Dr Naik would be allowed to enter Singapore to preach, a Ministry of Home Affairs spokesman said it could not comment on specific cases.

But the MHA said the Government needed to “guard against foreign religious speakers, regardless of the faith they represent, who propagate divisive doctrines that advocate exclusivism, disrespect to other religions, or cause members of a particular faith to live apart from others in society”.

Dr Naik’s Peace Television, which is broadcast from Dubai and hosts Islamic scholars and preachers, was first denied permission to air in India in 2008. The government is asking cable operators to ensure they do not transmit the channel.

Dr Naik, who quotes from the Quran in his speeches, has appeared to support suicide bombers. But at the press conference last Friday, he said the footage of that particular speech had been doctored.

In other lectures, he has criticised the United States and described gay people as “patients suffering from a sinful mental problem”.

His supporters say his teaching was being misrepresented and maintained he was the target of a witch-hunt, even as critics have accused him of belittling the Shi’ite and Ahmadi Muslim sects.

Without naming Dr Naik specifically, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted earlier this month that “preachers of hate and violence are threatening the fabric of our society”.

Security experts said his sermons must be studied to see if they contained any inflammatory messages.

“His speeches are problematic. But it is a matter of judicial assessment whether it is incitement, advocacy or a provocation to other communities. There are legal standards,”‘ said Dr Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management.

Associates of Dr Naik said he would present himself for questioning by the Indian authorities if asked.

“When agencies summon him, he will come down. He spends six months out of India. He is ready to join any investigation,” said Mr Mohsin Khan, one of Dr Naik’s supporters and a volunteer at the All India Dawah Centres Association.

gnirmala@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on July 18, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.