Mongolia to send meat to Russia to help combat COVID-19 www.xinhuanet.com

Mongolia will send meat and meat products worth 1 million U.S. dollars to Russia to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Mongolian parliament speaker Gombojav Zandanshatar said Thursday.

Website of the Millennium Challenge Account - Mongolia launched www.montsame.mn

Mongolia and Coronavirus - a view from the United Kingdom www.mongolianbritishcc.org.uk

by John Grogan - On the evening of Saturday January 25th I organised the annual Burns supper in Ulaanbaatar where the nighttime temperature can drop to -40c. A bagpiper from Glasgow dressed in a kilt and fortified by the finest Scottish whisky played outside the venue. With his rendition of ‘Scotland the Brave’ he welcomed a variety of ambassadors, business representatives and a Scottish judo team far from home. The event had been planned from my kitchen table in Yorkshire with the help of my business partner who is an adventure travel entrepreneur from Glasgow and the Honorary Consul for Mongolia in Scotland no less.

Yorkshire firms have imported cashmere from Mongolia for many decades. Stanley Burton, son of the founder of Leeds clothing retailer Burtons, visited the country twice in the 1970’s. He fell in love with the place and supported Leeds University with funding for Mongolian studies. I myself first visited as part of the inaugural parliamentary delegation from Westminster in 1998 just a few years after Russian troops pulled out and a democratic government was elected.

The relevance of my tale to the struggle against coronavirus is simple. The day after the Burns Supper on January 26th ( a Sunday) the Mongolian Cabinet met and stopped all large public gatherings because of fear of the virus . Our dinner was to be the last of its kind for many months. All schools and colleges were closed. Prime Minister Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh said simply

‘This is a time to govern ….I will prioritise the health and well being of the Mongolian people first, then the economy’.

Over the next few weeks international flights were cut back to a skeleton service allowing Mongolians to return from abroad and ex patriates to leave. The borders with mighty neighbours Russia and China were sealed to all but essential goods traffic. On February 12th the Government banned celebrations of Mongolian New Year (Tsagaan Sar) when large groups of family members and neighbours would normally have gathered together to celebrate. To put this date in some context more than a month later in England crowds would be gathering for the racing at Cheltenham. I myself left Mongolia in the final days of January and was frowned on at the airport for not wearing a mask. As of April 19th there have been just 32 cases in Mongolia of coronavirus with no fatalities. All of these were people arriving from abroad. Through careful contact tracing and testing community spread of the virus has until now been stopped in its tracks. For weeks the Mongolian Parliament has been meeting online and recently approved an economic stimulus package.

Mongolia has an annual income per capita of less than 5000 US dollars per head but they have successfully marshalled their resources. Perhaps in Europe we need to be a little more respectful and willing to learn from others around the world. The country is a genuine democracy – you do not have to be an authoritarian superpower like China to successfully keep the virus at bay. Like most of its neighbours in Asia both government and citizens were attune to the threat of a pandemic because of the recent experience of Sars. In the West, although pretty well every expensive exercise of risk analysis conducted by governments or businesses in the last two decades identified pandemics as a major threat, the response has been more uncertain and faltering. At its most basic countries like Mongolia, Taiwan and New Zealand from the outset aimed to prevent community spread of the virus and then eliminate it. In much of Europe the plan has rather been to delay the pace of infections which has resulted in a much greater cost in terms of loss of life and business activity. Surely in the future a much more robust international response to the threat of pandemic with early warning systems needs to be introduced. It is of course possible that the next such virus will be more virulent still and that is the assumption on which our planning must be based as it most certainly will be in Mongolia. For the moment it is becoming obvious that without a vaccination or drugs to treat the virus no exit plan from lockdown in the United Kingdom is going to be credible without the widespread availability of testing; a system of contact tracing; a ready supply of masks and more checking of arrivals at airports. Meanwhile the challenge for Mongolia will be to gradually lift the current restrictions without risking a more widespread outbreak of the virus.

800 years ago Genghis Khan conquered half of the known world. Perhaps his descendants have something to teach us about the battle against coronavirus today.

John Grogan

Chair of the Mongolian British Chamber of Commerce

Two charter flights to be arranged to Seoul to bring home citizens from abroad www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ According to the State Emergency Commission’s decision issued today, April 23, some changes were made in MIAT Mongolian Airlines operated-charter flights to bring Mongolian citizens abroad to their home country.

Mongolia trade deficit may ease as oil plunges www.zgm.mn

Oil prices came under renewed pressure on Wednesday following a historic two-day price plunge below zero, as markets struggle with an enormous glut amid the coronavirus outbreak.Mongolia, which spends more than 10 percent of its export revenue on fuel import, is likely to benefit from the trade with Russia if oil prices continue to plummet. Fuel accounts for 54.1 percent of the country’s import products from its northern neighbor, one of the world’s biggest oil producers. Brent futures, the benchmark for Europe in London, ended April 20 down sharply but still above USD 25 a barrel. The price of oil, which is referred to as black gold, is expected to drop further. Expectations are that production will fall by 1.7-2.0 million barrel per day by the end of 2020. It remains to be seen if the pace of the production fall will enough to stem the collapse in price. OPEC and its allies recently announced a record production cut of 9.7 million barrels per day starting May, even though the announcement has failed to excite the oil market.Moreover, the plunge in oil has dragged down stocks globally, with Asian equities slipping broadly on Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei was down 0.77 percent while South Korea’s Kospi lost 1.4 percent.

COVID-19 impacts construction sector www.zgm.mn

As the entire economy has been hit hard by the outbreak of the COVID-19, the construction industry is currently facing dramatic and disruptive challenges. Specifically, construction operations which to be funded by budget investment are slowing down and major housing projects have been remained stagnant this year. The supply of construction and building materials is holding up due to logistics; however, there are no difficulties in construction sectors such as shortages in importing materials. Mongolian Builders Federation highlighted “Since most of the construction materials are produced domestically, it is possible to operate completely the main construction and frameworks during this difficult time.” Barilga.mn also reported that the previous recession in the construction sector was not completely resolved, but the next crisis occurred.

Copper export price stands at USD 5,178 per ton in April www.zgm.mn

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) estimated the quoted copper export price in April at USD 5,178 per ton but copper prices have plummeted this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, copper demand is rising and the price is recovering slightly, as the business operation of China, the main consumer, resumes. Oyu Tolgoi investor Rio Tinto said in a report that China’s copper turnover has been recovering but supply is being cut off due to uncertainty in other parts of the world. In addition, the MoF calculated the export price of zinc at USD 1,905 per ton. Since the beginning of this year, the standard price of zinc has fallen by 18 percent. Mongolia’s main zinc exporter Tsairt Mineral LLC said, “Export is proceeding normally, but the price slump is the big challenge.” The average aluminum export price in April was estimated at USD 1,610 per ton. Among the major base metals, aluminum had the biggest loss. The fluorspar concentrate price was up to USD 385, while fluorspar ore is estimated at USD 324 per ton. Since the beginning of this year, Mongolia’s fluorspar exports have increased by 28 percent to 176,100 tons, amounting to USD 44.3 million. “If COVID-19 condition in Russia worsens further it could be adversely affected on export,” said General Director of Baylag Jonsh LLC. Furthermore, it is estimated that the coking coal price is USD 177, soft coking coal is USD 74.8 and coking coal concentrate is USD 126.59 from April export.

Germany's states make face masks compulsory www.bbc.com

Additional loan agreement with China enters into force www.montsame.mn

Beijing /MONTSAME/ On April 20, Ambassador of Mongolia to the People’s Republic of China D.Gankhuyag received Xiu Zhi and Ta Na, managers at Credit Management Department of Export-Import Bank of China and Wang Haitao, Director of China Railway Fourth Bureau LLC Branch in Mongolia, a contractor of construction project of the new wastewater treatment plant of Ulaanbaatar city.

The world after covid-19 www.economist.com

The West’s incompetent response to the pandemic will hasten the power-shift to the east

HISTORY HAS turned a corner. The era of Western domination is ending. The resurgence of Asia in world affairs and the global economy, which was happening before the emergence of covid-19, will be cemented in a new world order after the crisis. The deference to Western societies, which was the norm in the 19th and 20th centuries, will be replaced by a growing respect and admiration for East Asian ones. The pandemic could thus mark the start of the Asian century.

The crisis highlights the contrast between the competent responses of East Asian governments (notably China, South Korea and Singapore) and the incompetent responses of Western governments (such as Italy, Spain, France, Britain and America). The far lower death rates suffered by East Asian countries is a lesson to all. They reflect not just medical capabilities, but also the quality of governance and the cultural confidence of their societies.

What has shocked many in Asia is the reluctance of some Western governments to allow science—and basic epidemiological modeling—to determine the policy responses. After its initial missteps in Wuhan (which were clearly disastrous), China firmly deployed good science and robust public policy measures to break the back of the problem. It responsibly released the genetic data as soon as Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of the virus on January 12th.

A half century ago, had a similar global pandemic broken out, the West would have handled it well and the developing countries of East Asia would have suffered. Today the quality of governance in East Asia sets the global standard. The leaders who turned their countries around, such as Deng Xiaoping in China and Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, planted the seeds of knowledge, internationalism and order in their societies. These have blossomed into a respect for science and technology, a culture of pragmatism, a willingness to learn best practices from around the world and a desire to catch up with the West. These went along with deep investments in critical public goods such as education, health care and the environment.

The result is that the post-covid-19 world will be one in which other countries look to East Asia as a role model, not only for how to handle a pandemic but how to govern more generally.

Ever since Ronald Reagan declared, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” in his inaugural address in 1981, there has been a progressive delegitimisation and consequently, demoralisation, of public services in America. President Donald Trump didn’t create this problem. He aggravated it. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta was one of the most globally-respected agencies. Yet Mr Trump proposed to cut the CDC’s budget even after covid-19 emerged. The world gasped in horror.

By contrast, East Asian societies have believed in the wise insight of Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate in economics, that for societies to succeed they need the invisible hand of free markets and the visible hand of good governance. China now arguably has the most meritocratic government in the world. The post-covid-19 world will see China accelerate both for the public’s benefit—and the balance of strong markets and good governance will be an appealing model for other countries.

China was a feudal society for thousands of years and the brains of the vast majority at the bottom of society were never used. Given the tribulations it suffered in its “century of humiliation” from the mid 19th and 20th centuries, China understands well the dangers of a weak government. And because the Chinese psyche fears chaos more than any other force, the people welcome a strong state. The public’s trust in its leaders has been enhanced by the successful response to covid-19.

Clearly there are sharp differences between the communist system of China and the societies of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore. Yet one feature they share in common is a belief in strong government institutions run by the best and the brightest. This emphasis on meritocracy also has deep roots in Confucian culture. The entry bar to the Chinese Communist Party is set very high: only the top graduating students are admitted. Equally importantly, the rising levels of competent governance is both fuelled by, and contributes to, rising levels of cultural confidence. All this is gradually eroding the natural deference to the West that used to be the norm in Asia.

Taken together, the competence and confidence of East Asia will reshape the world order. It has already begun. Twenty years ago, no Chinese national ran any United Nations organisation. Today they oversee four: the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, the UN Industrial Development Organisation and the International Civil Aviation Organisation. If the International Monetary Fund and World Bank remain bastions of Western power, insisting that only Europeans and Americans can run the shop, they will progressively lose their credibility unless they allow Asians (as well as Africans and Latin Americans) to manage them. Failure to adapt hurts any organism—including international organisations.

The rules-based global order was a gift by the West to the world after the second world war. Will China overturn it when it becomes the world’s undisputed economic power, as it eventually will? Here is the good news. As the current, biggest beneficiary of this order (since China is already the world’s largest trading power), the country will preserve the rules. However China will systematically try to reduce American influence in international organisations. In early 2020 China put up a candidate to run the World Intellectual Property Organisation. America campaigned ferociously against her. In the end, a neutral candidate from Singapore won. This provides a foretaste of fractious battles to come.

Even Europeans are becoming disenchanted with an American-led world order. Few will forget that in the same week that the Trump administration banned travel from Europe (without any advance notice), the Chinese government sent medical equipment including masks, ventilators, protective suits and doctors to Italy and Spain. This is why the Group of Seven countries resisted pressure by America to call covid-19 the “Wuhan virus” in a communique after a virtual meeting in March.

However, this does not mean the world will shift to a solely China-led order. Countries do not want to be forced to choose between China and America, as I document in my latest book, “Has China Won?” (Public Affairs, 2020). There will still be concerns over China’s rise, especially among its neighbours. No one feels comfortable sharing a small room with an elephant, no matter how benign.

Most would welcome a continuing American presence to balance China’s influence. Yet they wish to see a competent and careful American presence, not one that forces them to choose between the two systems—as if America’s “with us or against us” ethos were the only options.

To maintain its role and its respect, America will have to demonstrate remarkable diplomatic dexterity. Yet its foreign service has never been more demoralised; the Chinese one never more confident. Fortunately, all is not lost for America. In South-East Asia, for example, there remain huge reservoirs of goodwill after many years of American engagement in the region, which its diplomats can tap.

As China’s weight in global affairs grows, it will have to take on greater responsibilities. America has progressively walked away from the family of United Nations institutions. China has not, and may use its new confidence to take on a larger role. For example, before the pandemic the World Health Organisation (WHO) had been weakened by an effort led by the West, starting in the 1970s, to reduce the share of funding that member states are obliged to pay and make the majority of its budget come from voluntary contributions. Today, some 80% of WHO’s budget is voluntary. China could demonstrate global leadership by calling for a charge to restore the mandatory funding to its earlier level of around 60%, since WHO can only develop long-term capabilities on the basis of predictable, compulsory contributions.

But that may just be a start. The world after the crisis may see a hobbled West and a bolder China. We can expect that China will use its power. Paradoxically, a China-led order could turn out to be a more “democratic” order. China doesn’t want to export its model. It can live with a diverse multi-polar world. The coming Asian century need not be uncomfortable for the West or the rest of the world.
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Kishore Mahbubani is a former Singaporean diplomat and Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS from 2004 to 2017. He is currently a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute, NUS and the author of numerous books on Asia and the West, most recently “Has China Won?”. This article is part of a series from outside contributors on the world after covid-19. More can be found at economist.com/coronavirus