China cracks down on ethnic minorities again – this time, in Mongolia and Tibet www.theglobeandmail.com

Even with the world focused on the plight of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Beijing has continued its efforts to quietly tighten its control over ethnic minorities in two other strategic areas.

At a two-day symposium, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for efforts to build a “modern socialist Tibet” where Buddhism would be “guided in adapting to the socialist context and developed in the Chinese context.”

In Inner Mongolia, meanwhile, Beijing launched a phased program on Sept. 1 to replace Mongolian as the language of instruction in schools with Chinese, triggering protests and class boycotts, including at least one reported suicide.

This is a radical shift from Beijing’s decades-old official policy – and it’s a reminder of what can be lost in Chinese nationalism.

Fifty-five ethnic minorities in China make up less than 10 per cent of China’s total population of 1.4 billion, but these ethnicities account for more than 100 million people who are spread over 60 per cent of the country’s territory, including sensitive border areas. The other 90-plus per cent of China’s population belong to the Han ethnicity. To the world at large, to be Chinese is to be Han.

Thanks to historical ties forged while fighting their ultimately successful civil war against the Nationalist government, the Communist Party of China has largely worked to preserve and develop minority languages and cultures. The Mongols, in particular, were helpful to Mao Zedong’s efforts, and as a reward, an Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region was set up by the Communists in northern China in 1947, two years before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Other “autonomous” regions, prefectures and counties for minority peoples were established in later years. In doing so, the state offered such regions privileged treatment, including not being bound by the one-child policy, so their numbers could increase.

But in recent years, the policy has been reversed.

Despite their proud history – ruling China in the 13th and 14th centuries as part of the Mongol empire, which at one time stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea – their homeland is now divided between the independent country of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, a Chinese province.

Tibet, which had been independent before Communist troops took over in 1950, is a special problem. Buddhism exercises a strong hold over its people, even 70 years later. Indeed, after Mr. Xi called for Buddhism to be “guided” by socialism, the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, responded: “For Tibetans, Buddhism is more important than communism. To force them to treat communism as more important than their faith is not only a violation of international religious freedom but is also deeply misguided.”

And so Beijing has begun forcing ethnic minorities to adopt the Chinese language, history and culture as their own, not to mention traditional Han religious beliefs.

Up until the 1980s, five minority languages were used for teaching in “autonomous” areas: Mongolian, Uyghur, Tibetan, Kazakh and Korean. But after China adopted the market economy in the 1980s, employers began preferring native Chinese speakers, prompting many minority parents to enroll their children in mainstream Chinese schools, rather than ethnic schools, so as to widen their career prospects. Now, ethnic schools are being systematically closed. In Xinjiang, this happened in 2017; in Tibet, they were shuttered in 2018. It appears to be the Mongols’ turn, next.

The Chinese language is now described as the national language, not just the language of the majority Han Chinese population. “The national common spoken and written language is a symbol of national sovereignty,” Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokesman, said when asked about the situation in Inner Mongolia. “It is every citizen’s right and duty to learn and use the national common spoken and written language.”

It doesn’t just end with the adoption of the Chinese language, history and culture as their own by the ethnic minorities, either; they must now also give up their traditional religious beliefs. That’s why Mr. Xi called for ethnic Tibetans to “recognize,” or identify with, Chinese culture, the Communist Party and the policy known as “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

A common language and identity – namely, Chineseness for all – is now the most important thing for Beijing. Non-ethnic Chinese must, in effect, become Chinese, through a Sinicizing process of reducing and, if possible, eliminating differences between minorities and the Han norms.

The goal is that, ultimately, everyone in China – the 100 million Mongols, Tibetans, Uyghurs and more – will act and think like Han Chinese. In that world, Chineseness will become their only identity.

Opinion by: Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based journalist.

Conflicted Irish politician compares Somalia and Outer Mongolia to the UK - seriously? www.brexit-watch.org

YESTERDAY the Irish politician, Neale Richmond TD, said while being interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today program that without a trade agreement, the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU should be compared to that of Somalia or ‘Outer Mongolia’ rather than to Australia. For someone who is shrilly purporting the UK could not survive without an EU trade deal (presumably one that includes EU access to UK fishing grounds and submission to EU State Aid rules), Richmond appears to know very little about EU trade – or even geography.

For a start there is no country called ‘Outer Mongolia’ – he was probably referring to Mongolia. There is a region of China known as Inner Mongolia but that is not a country. While Richmond is correct that Mongolia does not have a trade deal with the EU, he is wrong about Somalia. Being one of the least developed counties in the world, Somalia ‘benefits’ from the EU’s “Everything But Arms” trade initiative. However, they are a good example of how trade agreements do not seem to be especially important when it comes to actually trading with the EU.

According to Eurostat’s ‘Client and Supplier Countries of the EU27 in Merchandise trade in 2019’: while neither Mongolia or Somalia featured very high up on the list of EU trading partners, the EU bought over three times as much from Mongolia, €76 million worth of goods, without a trade agreement, than it did from Somalia with one, €23 million. In this case, having a trade agreement doesn’t appear to have benefited Somalia, at least compared to Mongolia. So maybe this was not the best example to use.

Nor did the lack of a trade agreement make much difference to EU exports to Mongolia or Somalia: the EU exported €486 million to Mongolia but only €129 million to Somalia – but no doubt this is a reflection of the countries relative ability to purchase the EU’s expensive manufactured goods. An attribute that neither Somalia or Mongolia share with the UK – a wealthy country that can definitely afford to buy the EU’s expensive goods and bought €318 billion worth of them in 2019, making the UK the EU’s second largest customer.

The EU’s largest customer was of course, the US, even though like Mongolia and Australia and China, the US does not have a trade agreement with the EU. So, should we worry if the UK is soon in the same situation?

China is still the EU’s largest supplier of imported goods without a trade agreement. While Australia was the EU’s 14th largest export market and its 35th largest import supplier, selling over €8 billion worth of goods to the EU without a trade agreement - that is over 80 times more than Somalia and Mongolia added together. So maybe Neale Richmond should have picked on two different countries for his illustration of how the UK would be left out in the cold without an EU trade agreement.

But the lack of UK-EU trade knowledge being spouted on the BBC did not end with Richmond’s interview. In a later interview with George Eustice, the UK Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural affairs, who calmly explained that without an agreement the UK would be adding tariffs to EU imported goods. The Radio 4 presenter, Nick Robinson, another EU useful idiot, tried to flip the discussion to UK exports by insisting that the EU would reciprocate with ‘tariffs on our exports of a similar sort’.

It never ceases to amaze me how little media presenters know about UK trade. But as a rule of thumb, they should always assume, especially when talking about agricultural trade, that the UK is a net importer not an exporter. This should be done almost irrespective of the commodity under discussion. The UK is only a net exporter of whisky, milk, salmon, lamb and breakfast cereals but only the whisky trade surplus is measured in billions and most UK whisky exports go outside the EU. However, so many commentators would like us to believe that the UK is a major exporter of agricultural products – it just isn’t. Maybe commentators believe that exporters will get more public sympathy than importers and emphasising the impact on exporters will cause their audience to complain to the Government about the lack of an EU trade agreement. However, it is their audience who will have the most to benefit from trading outside the EU block.

However, back to Radio 4. Having got away with inverting the conversation from tariffs on Imports to worrying about the very few UK agricultural exports to the EU, Robinson then went on to tell his audience that the cost of beef would increase by 40% without an EU trade agreement. He did this massive piece of mental arithmetic based on the information that the EU beef tariffs were 40%, but even though he was feigning concern for UK beef exporters only a few minutes earlier, his miscalculation exposed his core belief – that the UK imports 100% of its beef and all of it from the EU.

Although this is mind-bogglingly stupid, what made it worse was that the Minister in charge of UK agriculture let him get away with it. Instead Eustice should have corrected Robinson and quoted some numbers that he ought to know by heart, and that can be found in his own department’s annual survey of Agriculture in the UK, 20191 , on page 83. That the UK produced 86% of the beef it consumed in 2019 and over the last 5 years the percentage of home-grown beef consumed in the UK has never been below 80%. Even if all of the 14% of the beef the UK imported last year, had had a 40% tariff added to its import price, that would only have increased average beef prices by 5.6%.

But the craziest element of this conversation was Robinson’s obvious Stockholm syndrome: why would he assume that the UK would continue to buy EU beef once it is outside the EU’s tariff regime?

Beef is not exclusively produced in the EU – it is not Champagne. Beef is produced in many countries and is generally produced at a lower cost outside the EU. The UK could buy the additional beef that it consumes each year from Australia, or Brazil, or Argentina, or Uruguay or the US. Sure, without a trade agreement imports from these countries would also incur tariffs, but as they are all more efficient producers than Ireland, their base prices would be lower before any tariff is added.

This should be worrying the Irish, if not the EU. If the UK signs a trade deal with Australia or the US or rolls over the EU’s deal with the Mercosur countries, then Irish beef will lose a lot, if not all, of its UK market share and UK consumers could find the price of beef in the UK goes down, not up.

Neale Richmond may have been hoping to scare the ill-informed Radio 4 listeners into pressuring the Government to accept the EU’s preposterous demands about access to UK fishing waters and compliance with EU State Aid rules, but the boot is most definitely on the other foot when it comes to trade. Because one thing the UK does have in common with Australia when it comes to EU trade, is a large trade deficit in goods. Although Australia’s trade deficit with the EU, at €22.6 billion is the EU’s 5th largest, it is a fraction of the UK’s trade deficit of €124 billion.

UK-EU Trade will not stop without a trade agreement, but EU companies and farmers will find suddenly they must compete with the rest of the world for UK customers. This is unlikely to end well for the EU. My advice to the EU would be to stop arguing about fishing and state aid and grab whatever trade agreement they can get from the UK. Otherwise they will be the ones who find themselves in ‘Outer Mongolia’.

By: Catherine McBride is an experienced economist, working in corporate governance, competition economics, global trade, financial regulation and public policy. Catherine gained her bachelor’s degree from the University of Sydney in the mid 80s, was a trader in equities, derivatives and commodities during the 90s and noughties, and following the EU referendum worked for the Financial Services Negotiation Forum, Legatum Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs, before becoming freelance.

Mining operations degrade over 18,300 hectares of land in Mongolia www.xinhuanet.com

Mining operations have damaged at least 18,366 hectares of land across Mongolia as of 2020, the country's Environment and Tourism Ministry said Tuesday.

Mongolian Bankers Association gives latest banking sector review www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On September 8, Mongolian Bankers Association (MBA) organized a press briefing to give an update on the current state of the country’s banking industry and macroeconomic situation amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

At the press event, L.Amar, Executive Director of the MBA highlighted that the coronavirus has had a significant impact on the Mongolian economy, causing it to decline and restricting demand and supply of commercial bank loans, as of the first half of 2020.

Following the economic expansion, commercial banks’ loan issuance volume had been experiencing growth in the past two years, however, bank loan issuance has reduced to MNT 17.3 trillion in the first half of 2020, showing a decrease of 4.6 percent. Consumer loan volume also dropped by 17 percent. In terms of loan categories, all types of consumer loans, except from savings-secured loans, diminished. In addition to the impacts by the pandemic, the bank lending decline is mostly caused by measures taken by the central bank to limit the consumer loans taken since 2019.

The volume of overdue consumer loans increased by 40 percent in the first quarter of 2020. However, thanks to the government measure to allow deferral of up to six months on the consumer loan repayment to alleviate the negative impact of the COVID-19 on individuals and business entities, the overdue loan growth has started to slow down to 21 percent, beginning from April 2020. Overdue loans now make up around 5.8 percent of total loans while nonperforming loans equaled to MNT 1.9 trillion, accounting for 11 percent of total loans. Accompanying the lending decline, imports of auto vehicle and electronic appliances reduced by 33 percent and 8 percent respectively.

As presented by L.Amar, the negative impacts, posed on the mining, transportation and tourism sectors by the COVID-19-related lockdown measures, commodity price falling and setback in the coal and copper exports were main causes of the country’s economy to decline by 9.7 percent. On the other hand, the country’s economy is expected to revive gradually thanks to the current volume of continuing coal exports and zero locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases in Mongolia, and business loan issuance are to grow back toward the end of this year.

Another adverse effect of the COVID-19 on Mongolia’s banking sector is an increase of foreign currency savings in total savings. In the first 6 months of this year, foreign currency savings rose by 48 percent and are now constituting 29 percent of total savings. This was also mainly due to gradual increase of Mongolian Tugrug to US Dollar exchange rate since last October.

During the press briefing, L.Amar also touched upon the recently-approved government’s strategy to reduce loan interest rates, which contain 47 measures. “38 measures or some 80 percent of the measures in the document are aimed at macroeconomic stabilization, stabilizing currency exchange rate and increasing foreign exchange reserves. With the help of these measures, the MBA will be further cooperating with commercial banks to reduce their own operational expenses. As a result, the loan interest rates are possible to be cut by 4 percentage points within four years” said L.Amar.

Coal export increases www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Statistics released by the Mongolian Customs General Administration shows that Mongolia’s coal export increased significantly last month.

The business is run on four key values – Battushig Batbold www.thriveglobal.com

It takes an entrepreneurial spirit and unique international outlook to bring a business that started just a couple years after socialism ended, into the 21st century. Yet young businessman Battushig Batbold is working hard to do that as Chairman of Altai Holdings in Mongolia. Founded in 1992 by his father, Sukhbaatar Batbold who served as Mongolia’s 26th Prime Minister, Altai Holdings has evolved into one of the largest and most diverse companies in the country. What propelled the business to new heights and to emerge as a leader in Mongolian business—while attracting foreign investment—is its emphasis on modern operating principles and progressive tactics.

China unveils global data security initiative www.reuters.com

BEIJING (Reuters) - China unveiled on Tuesday its global data security initiative that opposes undermining key infrastructure, or data theft by using information technology and forcing firms to store data generated overseas in their home country.

Gold could be heading to $5,000 per ounce www.rt.com

Renewable energy cooperation discussed with UK www.montsame.mn

Mongolia reports no coronavirus cases for 3 days in a row www.akipress.com

Mongolia reported no coronavirus cases for 3 days in a row.