Myanmar Talk

Trump posts new image of $100 bill with his signature
✍️ By Kit Maher | July 3, 2026

President Donald Trump posted a new image Friday of a $100 bill bearing his signature, months after the Treasury Department announced that, for the first time, a sitting president’s signature would be featured on US paper currency.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in March that the administration planned to feature Trump’s signature on US currency in honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States. CNN has reached out to Treasury inquiring whether the $100 bills with Trump’s signature are currently being printed.

The image shows the president’s signature above Bessent’s. Previously, the $100 bill featured the signatures of the Treasury secretary and the treasurer of the United States, but not the sitting president.

“The President’s mark on history as the architect of America’s Golden Age economic revival is undeniable. Printing his signature on the American currency is not only appropriate, but also well deserved,” US Treasurer Brandon Beach said in the March announcement.

Trump has made it a passion project to get his name and likeness on a wide-ranging array of US documents and landmarks. His administration also has put his image, name or both on a commemorative US passport, national parks passes, banners outside various agencies in DC, cultural institutions like the US Institute of Peace and special investment accounts for babies. Florida also renamed the Palm Beach International Airport after him.

Some in Congress have wanted to go a step further and put Trump’s likeness on currency, introducing a bill to get his portrait on a $250 anniversary bill. That outcome is far less likely, given it would need the support of Democratic senators in Congress. US code states that “Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities,” but the House bill seeks to “create an exception for individuals who are or were President of the United States.”

Earlier this year, staff at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing were preparing prototypes for the $250 bill featuring Trump’s portrait and signature. Bessent told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at a White House press briefing in May that he didn’t think “there’s anything untoward” about putting Trump’s portrait on US currency.

“I don’t think that there’s anything untoward about having the President of the United States — that the person who was President of the United States on the 250th anniversary bill,” Bessent said.

Asked by Collins if political appointees were involved, Bessent responded: “Yeah, of course. But we prepare for everything if it gets passed.”

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When we talk about the pernicious implications of authoritarian governments, our natural instinct is to think of the intimidation, harrassment, and persecution of critics, the deployment of state sanctioned violence upon their own people, and their corrosive impact on democratic institutions.

But when you listen to those that have endured through these far too common historical chapters, you'll often hear most about something far more suffocating than the political repression... the corruption.

Even the most ideological regimes on earth are unable to avoid this trap because any political system which establishes power without accountability will eventually see that power exploited, abused, and monetised.

It is not only tolerated by the leadership, but actively promoted, because it ensures the most powerful people in the country have a personal interest in maintaining the status quo. It's a way of forming trust in the knowledge of a shared fate if the man who controls everything loses that control.

It is the reason economic decline almost always follows in the shadows of democratic decline. International investors start to recognise the risks, the corporate establishment can pay to ensure their monopolies are preserved, the need for businesses to innovate, or improve efficiency, or care about their customers, become imperatives overcome through other means.

The illusion of democracy remains on paper, even North Korea has elections. But when a single political party becomes so powerful that it can change the rules to rig the system, the party takes over the state. Every appointment within government is determined by loyalty more than competency, complicity more than effectiveness, and obedience more than merit.

It is insidious, it is a cancer that mestacises through the bones of a country, weakening every limb, eating itself from the inside...

In most instances, the corruption becomes more powerful than any political or religious ideology that once validated the need for the consolidation of power. The state becomes defined by corruption, it becomes the point of the state.

Look at the fury of Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, even Iran. These were uprisings fuelled almost exclusively by public frustration over corruption. Those that live within state capture are often prepared to risk their lives in the pursuit of the reinstatement of the rule of law; this precious concept that we foolishly believe is the natural order of a state... but it is not.

The rule of law is an ideological conviction that must be subscribed to with absolutism. The rules need to apply to everyone in the same way, regardless of your political or financial power. The rules are either breakable or their not.

The only defence we have is broad bipartisan intolerance for it. The moment we ignore the impropriety of those we ideologically align with is the moment we accept it indefinitely.

$1,430,390,415...

That's how much Trump made last year, just from Crypto. No one really knows who paid him. No one really knows what they got in return. But we know that no one invests without expecting a return.

Of all the pejoratives that will come to define the MAGA movement, this will be the word that historians record most prominently: corrupt... staggeringly, shamelessly, and relentlessly corrupt.

The Rivalry Over Buddhism’s Future
As the Dalai Lama turns 91, China and India are leveraging the faith to project soft power across Asia.
✍️ By Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Philip Heijmans | July 3, 2026

Lumbini in southern Nepal, the birthplace of the Buddha, is defined by an austere, almost pastoral calm. Its manicured gardens and reflecting pools evoke the deep tranquility of a prince who, roughly 2,500 years ago, abandoned his palace to spark a spiritual movement that would reshape Asia.

Mornings are filled with ritual chanting and bells echoing from more than two dozen temples, creating the kind of meditative solace that has long drawn travelers from the West. Yet unlike Rome or Mecca, which draw tens of millions annually, Lumbini remains a nascent spiritual hub defined by poor road networks and regional political instability that keep annual traffic at a modest one million visitors, almost all of whom are local pilgrims from Nepal and neighboring India.

And still, this site is central to an intensifying geopolitical competition between two nations vying for sway over the future of Buddhism. China, officially an atheist country, has spent millions on temples, universities, relic diplomacy and monk exchanges over the last decade to market its own state-managed version of the faith. Driven partly by a desire to tighten control over historically restive Tibet and its future leadership, this push has alarmed New Delhi and Washington. They see a wider soft-power play to erode India’s advantage as the faith’s ancestral home.

Nowhere are the stakes higher than in the looming battle to control the succession of the Dalai Lama, who turns 91 on July 6. The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism fled Tibet in 1959 following a popular uprising against Chinese communist rule, and was granted asylum in India. Should Beijing appoint its own candidate while exiled leaders select another, the resulting succession crisis would effectively split Tibetan Buddhism, fracturing loyalties across an influential branch of a religion with half a billion followers worldwide.

That struggle spilled into Lumbini in 2024, when Lharkyal Lama, who until recently ran the pilgrimage trust, invited Gyaincain Norbu, the Beijing-appointed Panchen Lama traditionally regarded as the second-most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. The Communist Party of China installed Norbu after the Dalai Lama’s pick for the role, a 6-year-old boy, disappeared in the 1990s. Norbu has since been largely shunned by Tibetan Buddhists and the West.

Lharkyal Lama, a monk and former Nepalese government minister, said Indian and US diplomats exerted “huge pressure” to cancel the trip, fearing it would strengthen China’s claim to determine the next Dalai Lama.

“They complain to me directly,” he said during a March interview at his then-office at the Lumbini Development Trust, a short walk from the area’s sacred sites, sitting behind his desk in a maroon robe. “If he comes to Lumbini, what’s the matter? He’s Buddhist, right?”

The trip was eventually shelved, but Nepal has continued to welcome a deluge of cash from President Xi Jinping’s government. Chinese contractors recently built an international airport designed to bring more tourists to the site. Chinese state-aligned institutions are backing a proposed $2 billion expansion plan for Lumbini Buddhist University to include research centers, hotels and its own hydropower supply, Vice Chancellor Subarna Lal Bajracharya said. Non-religious initiatives include a drone assembly program aimed at transforming the area into a technology and manufacturing hub.

A US State Department spokesperson said Washington continues to urge Beijing to cease its attempts to “co-opt the Dalai Lama’s succession.”

The department did not respond to Lharkyal’s remarks about the canceled trip. While India has lately reinforced its claim to Buddhism, calling the Buddha its “crown jewel,” New Delhi has long sought to leverage the Buddha’s enlightenment, first sermon and death on its soil as a civilizational stake in the faith. Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has prioritized his Hindu nationalist agenda for much of his time in office, more recently he has poured money into upgrading local pilgrimage sites associated with the Buddha’s life to attract visitors, and dispatched sacred relics across Asia.

In Lumbini, just a short drive from the Indian border, an India-funded $10 million cultural center is being built less than a mile from the Chinese-backed Lumbini Buddhist University site. But it’s not remotely comparable in scale.

“We have competition in Lumbini between India and China,” said Ajaya Bhadra Khanal, who served as chief advisor in the caretaker government of former Nepalese Prime Minister Sushila Karki. “China seems to be winning.”

Lharkyal Lama’s career also reflects China’s diplomatic success. Chinese officials fiercely opposed his 2011 appointment as Nepal’s junior finance minister, viewing him as a sympathizer of the Tibetan freedom movement. Once in office, though, Lharkyal Lama was in frequent contact with Beijing officials. Last year, he joined a government-curated tour of Tibet designed to build regional support for China’s authority over Tibetan Buddhism—including exclusive legal control over choosing the next Dalai Lama.

“We are happy that China is taking interest,” Lharkyal Lama said. “It’s good for the Buddhist community.”

Midway through the conversation, his phone lit up. “China ambassador,” the caller ID read. He glanced down, then stood abruptly. “Oh, I have to go.”

Born Siddhartha Gautama in the sixth century BC, the prince-turned-ascetic attained enlightenment in northern India and became known as the Buddha, the awakened one. Followers believe he achieved nirvana by eliminating human impulses such as greed, hatred and ignorance. His teachings evolved into distinct geographical traditions as they spread along the Silk Road.

While Buddhism largely faded in India over the centuries, squeezed by the revival of Hindu traditions and the decline of the great monastic universities, post-independence leaders reclaimed the faith, incorporating Buddhist imagery into the national flag and state emblem.

China doesn’t dispute that Buddhism originated in India, but sees itself as a steward of the faith. According to Pew Research, China has 53 million Buddhists, ranking second behind Thailand, while India has fewer than 10 million. The actual number of Chinese adherents may be even higher, as Pew says many in the country hold Buddhist beliefs without formally identifying as followers. Xi credits China with merging Buddhism with Confucian ideals and Daoist beliefs and helping propel the religion across the rest of Asia.

Mao Zedong’s Communist regime sought to harness Buddhism in the 1950s, using state-backed associations to align the faith with socialist ideology. That tolerance shattered in 1959 when Beijing violently crushed a massive Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, forcing the 23-year-old Dalai Lama to flee across the Himalayas into lifelong exile in India.

United Nations experts and rights groups say China has sought to co-opt Buddhism to assimilate Tibetans, forcing monasteries to display state propaganda, install party loyalists and align teachings with Marxist principles.

“The subtext of China’s Buddhist diplomacy is to undermine India’s status as the real founder of Buddhism and the sacred Buddhist geography,” said Ashok Kantha, India’s former envoy to China, who now teaches at Bengaluru-based Chanakya University. “China has been successful to some extent because India hasn’t been able to match up.”

Kantha said Chinese-organized events like the World Buddhist Forum, which in 2024 drew around 800 monks, scholars and religious leaders from 72 countries, are used to project China as the center of the Buddhist universe.

India launched the International Buddhist Confederation, or IBC, in 2011 as a rival to China’s Buddhist outreach. The country has increasingly sought to turn its religious heritage into a diplomatic asset, hosting both Vietnamese President To Lam and Myanmar leader Min Aung Hlaing this year at Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment.

It also moved to revive Nalanda University, the ancient center of learning that operated from the 5th to the 12th centuries, drawing students from across Asia.

Still, India’s Buddhist outreach remains fragmented and poorly coordinated, according to senior government officials who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. The dysfunction has reduced the IBC to a “song-and-dance division,” according to Jayadeva Ranade, a former member of India’s National Security Advisory Board.

When Bhutan requested sacred relics in 2024, for example, officials sat on the appeal for months, prompting the country to turn instead to France, which quickly dispatched a relic bead from its own collection, according to senior government officials who asked not to be named as discussions are private. The relics were sent to Bhutan a year later, but the window for maximum diplomatic impact had already closed. Officials described a similar episode in Thailand, where senior aides intervened to salvage a stalled relic exchange.

India’s External Affairs Ministry and Culture Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The difficulties have also dogged Nalanda. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen resigned as chancellor in 2015, citing government interference. His successor, Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo, stepped down after the Indian government abruptly dissolved the university’s governing board without notifying him. Yeo cited a lack of academic autonomy and his refusal to get embroiled in domestic Indian politics. Today, he sees the political landscape moderating.

“Now I’m talking to the current chancellor to see how we can put the past behind us,” Yeo said in a recent interview.

On China, he saw its diplomacy as an effort to maintain secular “Confucianist rule,” keeping faith at arm’s length.

“I don’t see China wanting to own Buddhism,” he said. “It’s part of Chinese cultural heritage, but they’re very careful not to talk about Buddhism as if it’s part of the governing philosophy.”

Across South and Southeast Asia, Buddhism is much more than a matter of faith. In Thailand, the king derives part of his legitimacy from his role as protector of Buddhism, and Sri Lankan monks front political parties. In Myanmar, monks led anti-military protests during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, while years later, ultra-nationalists incited hatred against the Muslim minority, triggering violence that’s now on trial in The Hague as genocide. In Cambodia, where Buddhism is the official state religion, ruling elites have long used patronage of the faith to bolster their political authority.

Those are also countries where China has made significant diplomatic and economic gains. Chinese scholars and regional officials alike have attributed some of that success to Buddhist outreach. Such exchanges are often paired with discussions about trade, infrastructure and the Belt and Road Initiative, while historic centers such as Quanzhou have been recast as symbols of a revived Maritime Silk Road.

“It opens doors,” said Khy Sovanratana, a secretary of state at Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. “Whenever they talk with their counterparts there’s the aspect of Buddhism mentioned.”

In war-torn Myanmar, Beijing’s efforts are gaining traction with Buddhist leaders despite long-standing anti-China sentiment over its ties to the military and ethnic groups. There, China has utilized years of cultural exchanges and millions in emergency aid — including funds to restore earthquake-damaged religious sites in Mandalay.

U Acinna, a monk and associate professor at an international Buddhist university in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city and its former capital, was struck by China’s rapid urban development during a visit to Beijing and Yunnan two years ago with a delegation of monks. Despite being required to sign an agreement not to preach while in the country, he recalled the trip favorably.

“I thought about how the government provided everything to the Chinese people,” he said, seated on a university bench near a massive gilded stupa. “In China, skyscr**ers are everywhere.”

The strategy takes on a sharper edge in places Beijing considers central to its territorial claims. In Taiwan, officials say China’s religious exchanges are built around common identity. Subsidized pilgrimages and temple visits can extend into meetings with local politicians, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, a government agency in charge of relations with China, said in a written response to Bloomberg’s queries.

“That flow of religious visitors has created an ideal channel for Beijing to cultivate connections and promote political narratives,” said Liu Yu‑hsi, an associate professor at Shih Hsin University in Taipei, adding that temples that organize pilgrimage trips to China tend to see more of their followers shift toward voting for the Kuomintang, the primary opposition party advocating for closer engagement with Beijing.

Taiwanese officials warn that Beijing’s methods are becoming harder to detect, prompting authorities to tighten scrutiny, coordinate with the Interior Ministry and, in some cases, curb exchanges ahead of local elections in November.

“The religious sector has always been one of the sources of risk,” said Shen Yu-chung, deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council. “The methods being used in the religious sphere are now very subtle and can easily lower the vigilance of the Taiwanese people.”

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected allegations of political manipulation, saying the “trend of compatriots on both sides coming closer will not change”. The ministry’s spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether China is competing with India for influence over Buddhism.

McLeod Ganj in the Indian Himalayas is the administrative and spiritual headquarters of the Tibetan community living in exile. The hilltop village, flanked by strategic military positions, throngs with Buddhist devotees and international travelers hoping for a glimpse of the Dalai Lama as they navigate narrow thoroughfares saturated with prayer flags and pro-independence slogans.

Penpa Tsering, the community’s elected leader, said the octogenarian high monk is still looking good healthwise. “His Holiness keeps reassuring that he will live for another two decades and more,” he said.

Still, there are nerves about what happens next. The US claims China destroyed more than 300 Tibetan Buddhist stupas, or sacred monuments, in 2025 alone as part of its campaign to keep the religion subordinate to the Communist Party’s ideology. The United Front Work Department, an elite government organ, is tasked with co-opting religious groups and managing overseas influence operations. Critics also argue that a new ethnic unity law that came into force on July 1 will further curb religious freedom by prioritizing the Mandarin language and promoting a single Chinese national identity across schools and public life.

Xi is pushing for so-called Sinicization, aiming to integrate religions with local cultures and make them rely on state-backed leadership, said Jack Meng-Tat Chia, an associate professor of Buddhist studies at the National University of Singapore.

“By doing so, what he wants to achieve is a more direct control over various religious groups in mainland China.”

Tibet owes its strategic importance to the vast mountains that form a natural buffer along China’s southwestern frontier. To strengthen its hold, Beijing has unleashed a massive urban makeover alongside a military infrastructure push. That spending helped lift Tibet’s per capita GDP above $11,000 in 2025, according to Bloomberg News calculations based on official data, a figure that exceeds those of neighboring countries. Much of that growth was driven by Beijing’s spending rather than organic, business activity. India’s GDP per capita was about one-quarter of Tibet’s in 2024.

That buildup has also allowed Chinese firms to gain access to significant reserves of copper, gold and lithium, while work is progressing on a massive $167 billion dam along the Yarlung Tsangpo river.

For Tibet Policy Institute fellow Dechen Palmo, the threat is personal. Her family lineage of lamas was historically mandated by the Dalai Lama to protect the region’s rivers — a responsibility that has become increasingly dangerous. Today, she says, speaking out against large-scale dam construction and resource extraction is risky as Beijing crushes any sign of dissent in Tibet with brute force.

“This is about common people taking responsibility to protect the source, whereas when we talk about the Chinese government policies and their way of mangling those rivers, it’s very disheartening,” she said.

Officials elsewhere see Beijing’s expanding role as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Chinese-backed university programs in Lumbini are already in full swing, with Beijing’s involvement on full display in March as a convoy of black sedans pulled up to Lharkyal Lama’s office. China’s newly appointed ambassador, Zhang Maoming, stepped out with a ceremonial khata scarf dr**ed around his neck and was ushered inside. There, in a small conference room, he sat through a 30-minute presentation on the history of the sacred site.

Slides traced the ruins believed to mark the exact spot where the Buddha was born. He lingered on references to multiple Buddhas across time, a concept central to Buddhist cosmology, and highlighted the role of a prominent Chinese temple nearby as a potential bridge to deepen ties.

“I don’t know about the geopolitics,” Zhang said after the meeting. “We are here to promote harmony, peace and tranquility.”

Various Chinese institutions have signed more than two dozen agreements with Lumbini Buddhist University for language and research programs in recent years. Vice Chancellor Bajracharya said the partnerships underpin the university’s push into disciplines ranging from AI to medicine and engineering, while its broader goal is to expand the religion through practical applications, an approach he describes as “applied Buddhism.”

The university has already partnered with China’s United Aircraft Corp. to provide equipment and instructors for drone technology, he said, adding the aircraft will eventually be used for survey mapping, mountain logistics and rescue operations.

“If we take Buddhism as a religion, we will go backwards because just knowing the philosophy will not be enough to survive,” Bajracharya said. “We need to exist in this materialistic world.”

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