Mongolia Brief August 27, 2014 Part II

Summary of President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Mongolia

By B. Dulguun

August 27 (UB Post) Chinese President Xi Jinping, his wife Peng Liyuan, and other official Chinese representatives paid a two-day state visit to Mongolia from August 21 to 22, at the invitation of Mongolian President Ts.Elbegdorj.

President Ts.Elbegdorj welcomed the Chinese representatives: “I extend to Your Excellencies President Xi Jinping and Mrs. Peng Liyuang, and distinguished guests, my sincere welcome to Mongolia during this historic visit, which heralds a new page in bilateral relations between our countries.”

During the visit, approximately 30 agreements, memoranda and contracts were signed between the governments, government authorities, enterprises and companies, namely for issues concerning the economy, trade and transport sectors, and upgrading Mongolia-China bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

“Great things may be done by mass effort. China is willing to provide the opportunity and space for common development with neighboring countries, including Mongolia, so that they may benefit from China’s development,” stated the Chinese President.

At the State Ceremonial Ger, the two presidents had a private conversation, where the Mongolian President made several propositions for cooperation in the production and gasification of coal, increasing the number of goods from Asia to Europe passing through Mongolia to 100 million tons by 2020, enhancing transit railway performance for Russia, Mongolia and China, and support for Mongolia’s bid to join APEC. He also emphasized tax-free and unlimited export of goods, especially those from the agricultural sector.

In response, President Xi Jinping agreed to take the propositions into consideration, guaranteed to support Mongolia’s membership in APEC, and invited President Ts.Elbegdorj to partake in APEC’s high level meeting in China in September. The Chinese side also mentioned their willingness to cooperate in the energy sector by partnering the construction and operation of a coal power plant and importing coal, and showed interest in signing a Russia-Mongolia-China transit transport agreement and developing a China-Mongolia-Europe transit transport system.

On the final day of his two-day state visit to Mongolia, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech to a special session of the Mongolian parliament, underlining that Mongolia-China relations had entered their best period in history and pointing out the significance of signing a comprehensive strategic partnership, the peak of bilateral relations.

Mongolian President Ts.Elbegdorj, MPs, Head of the Diplomatic Corps, and other Mongolian officials, as well as the Chinese delegation, were present at the special parliamentary session.

Analysts say the first state visit in 11 years by the head of the Chinese state to Mongolia contributed considerably to solving many issues concerning sea ports, new routes for railway, the trade volume of commodities, duration of agreements and facilitations, and created an opportunity for the two presidents to exchange views on a broad range of international and regional issues of mutual interest.

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Twitter users outraged at blocked access to porn sites

By B. Khash-Erdene

August 27 (UB Post) A new wave of outrage hit Mongolia’s Twitter communities as the Communications Regulatory Commission blocked access to Mongolian pornographic websites last week.

Mongolia’s Twitter users have expressed outrage at the recent conviction of Ts.Bat on defamation charges for speaking out against Roads and Transport Minister A.Gansukh on Twitter, using the hashtag “#FreeBat”, which was accompanied by the hashtag “#FreePorn” shortly after the targeted porn sites were blocked.

“With these new measures, the Democratic Party can’t hope to be reelected in 2016 #FreeBat #FreePorn,” said Twitter user @bayarkuu.

“Xaxaxa #FreeBat #FreePorn, they say blocking alcohol made us alcoholics, blocking cigarettes made us smokers, and blocking porn will make us prostitutes,” said @ariunbileg.

The critics on Mongolian social media view the blocking of porn sites to be a violation of internet freedom, which will lead to further limitations to cyber freedom.

Some 166 “blacklisted” sites were named by the Mongolia Communications Regulatory Commission, Intellectual Property Community, Criminal Police Department, and Fair Competition and Consumer Rights Protection Agency.

According to the authorities, the sites were blocked because they violated the laws on obscenity, children’s rights, intellectual property protection, fair competition, consumer rights, advertising regulations and the Criminal Code.

The list of blocked sites is available at black-list.mn.

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China and Mongolia’s cooperation focused on bilateral benefits

August 27 (UB Post) The two-day visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping started with official bilateral negotiations between both state heads. Mongolia was expecting important results from their individual and official agreements. Both governments were expected to ink over 10 agreements, but the sides signed 24 agreements.

The Mongolian President emphasized that the most important results expected from the visit were resolutions on the issues on railway and transit transportation.

The only way for Mongolia to solve the problems of transit transport is with the help of its southern neighbor. Thanks to the negotiations, Mongolia will have the opportunity to open transit towards the sea using eight Chinese ports. The new access will positively influence mining export products to “third” neighbors. A project to build a port railway started in spring, and negotiations on the port railway were renewed and agreements on bilateral port connections were signed.

President Ts.Elbegdorj guaranteed that the discussions would pose no threat to bilateral independence or the security of Mongolian borders, bilateral development would be respected, and there would be no Chinese involvement in internal issues.

He announced that Mongolia would live peacefully with its neighbor without any threat of attack. Most interestingly, the Mongolian President stated the acceptance of Mongolia’s sovereignty, no emphasis on international and regional military training, which can affect national interests and security, refusal of training from other countries, and not joining any new confederations.

It was clear that Chinese President Xi Jinping was placing high priority on bilateral cooperation in politics and security. He especially underlined, “Together we will protect defense, common security and always respect independence, authority and the path to development. We aim to have bilateral trust, to be good neighbors, good friends and have good partnerships.”

The Mongolian President suggested organizing a trilateral summit negotiation with Mongolia, China and Russia, which was supported by President Xi Jinping.

In the trade sector, the sides agreed to export Mongolian products to the Chinese market, especially agricultural products, without tax and limits. In addition, the sides discussed issues on energy export and import and decided to solve this issue within 2014.

The agreement on transferring prisoners will be implemented within three years. The bilateral credentials of this agreement were signed on June 16, 2011, in Beijing. On Friday, the protocol on exchanging the credentials was signed by the Minister of Justice Kh.Temuujin and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi.

The credentials will be valid 30 days after their signing, which means they will be effective on September 20, 2014. Mongolian nationals are incarcerated in 21 countries and 41 Mongolian nationals are in China, 16 in Hong Kong, and one in Macau. Thirty-six of the prisoners are involved in narcotics cases. Mongolia requested the transfer of 14 people from China.

Mongolia and China also signed mutual understanding credentials between Erdenes Mongol Ltd. and China Railway Engineering Corporation.

The President of Mongol Bank and President of Chinese National Bank Zhou Xiao Chuan signed a new agreement on increasing the currency swap exchange from 10 billion CNY to 15 billion CNY. Increasing the amount of currency exchanged will help provide foreign currency to the domestic market and support repayment in the foreign currency market, benefitting foreign trade and investment.

Source: Udriin Shuudan

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Chinese President speaks to special meeting of Parliament

August 27 (UB Post) Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to Mongolian MPs during the Honor Meeting of the Parliament held on Friday at the invitation of Speaker of the Parliament Z.Enkhbold.

The Honor Meeting took place in the presence of Mongolian President Ts.Elbegdorj and Prime Minister N.Altankhuyag. MPs and distinguished guests welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping with a standing ovation.

Speaker Z.Enkhbold opened the Honor Meeting by saying, “The Honor Meeting of Parliament is held in the presence of the Chinese President, His Excellency Xi Jinping. President Xi Jinping is paying a state visit on the eve of the 65thanniversary of Mongolian-Chinese diplomatic relations. In 1994, both countries established bilateral friendly relations and a cooperation agreement and successfully implemented other documents that form a legal basis important in developing bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership. Congratulations on behalf of the Mongolian MPs and personally, to the Chinese President Xi Jinping, I welcome to our sunny country.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping said, “I’m really pleased to visit Parliament and meet you. First of all, I want to express sincere greetings and best wishes to the Mongolian people on behalf of the Chinese Government and Chinese people. I exchanged views on issues of interest with Mongolian leaders on the Chinese-Mongolian relationship and reached agreements on a broad scale. Both sides established a bilateral declaration on developing comprehensive strategic partnership relations and signed over 20 cooperative documents. I’m satisfied with the results of the visit and confident about the future of Chinese-Mongolian relation. Our countries established official diplomatic relations 65 years ago. Mongolia is surely one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the New China.”

After the Chinese leader’s speech, the Chairman of the Parliament expressed his gratitude to President Xi Jinping on behalf of the Mongolian Parliament for a warm speech, wishing him good luck and all the best, and gave a closing speech.

The Office of Media and Public Relations of the Parliament reports that the entire closing speech and speech of Chinese President Xi Jinping will be available online on parliament.mn and open.parliament.mn.

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Soil Heat Technology to Be Introduced

By B. Khuder

Ulaanbaatar, August 27 (MONTSAME) The State Secretary of the Ministry of Energy D.Delgertsogt Wednesday met a delegation led by Mr Kodama Toshihiro, a director of the Hokkaido Governor's Office of International Business and Economic Affairs.

A cooperation memorandum was established in September of 2013 among this Ministry, the Ministry of Industry and Agriculture, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Sorachi social and ecological institute of Japan to introduce in Mongolia the Japanese technology of exploiting soil heat.

At the meeting, the sides discussed a project to be implemented in accordance with the memorandum and with participation of the Energy Ministry on expanding collaboration between Mongolia and Japanese Hokkaido Prefecture.

Present at the meeting were also Takeno Naoto, a chair of the international cooperation department of the Hokkaido branch of the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade; Shinji Yoshimura, a researcher at the Hokkaido Governor's Office of International Business and Economic Affairs.; and Eda, a project coordinator.

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Ministry of Education at “11 11” Center

By B. Khuder

Ulaanbaatar, August 27 (MONTSAME) Reports on adequacy of kindergartens and registration issue were given during online interview by officials of the Ministry of Education and Science in the "11 11" center.

A head of the pre-school education section B.Gantulga and an export at the City’s Education Department Sh.Bolor-Erdene gave details. They say that state-owned and private 1,112 kindergartens will work in the academic years of 2014-2015 nationwide, receiving 201 thousand 967 children. The number of kindergartens increased by 45, the number of pupils--by 82,000 this year against the previous academic years. There are 106 thousand pre-school kids in the city, 75 thousand 600 of them can go to kindergartens, said B.Gantulga. The registration of kindergartens started Monday and it will continue until Friday, added Bolor-Erdene. 

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