China’s largest onshore wind-power facility started full-capacity operations in the northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Sunday, according to its operator, state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC).

With a capacity of 3 gigawatts (GW), the project’s 701 turbines can generate more than 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, according to the company. This is equivalent to cutting standard coal consumption by about 2.96 million metric tonnes and avoiding around 8.02 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

The project, which started construction in 2020, is also the first in a batch of renewable energy projects targeted for the desert region, according to state news agency Xinhua.

China is the world’s largest wind power producer, adding 40GW of net capacity in 2022, more than half of the 77.6GW added worldwide in the same time frame, according to the International Energy Agency. Onshore installations accounted for 68.8GW of the capacity added worldwide last year, with China contributing 52 per cent of that.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has set a target of bringing China’s total wind and solar capacity to at least 1,200GW by 2030, the year China plans to peak its carbon emissions.

The country is also the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturing base, accounting for around 60 per cent of the global wind turbine manufacturing capacity in 2023, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

By 2024, GWEC expects onshore wind to grow by 100GW of capacity annually, while offshore wind will add more than 25GW in a single year for the first time in 2025, with installations expected to accelerate rapidly after that.

Growth in China, Europe and the US will be the backbone of global onshore wind development in the next five years. Together, they are expected to account for more than 80 per cent of a total of 550GW of additional capacity in the next five years, according to GWEC.

While the long-term outlook is optimistic, offshore installation is facing short-term challenges due to financial troubles in the US and sluggish project approval of offshore projects in China, according to Wood Mackenzie.

The consultancy last week cut by 29GW its previous forecast for global wind power capacity by the end of 2032, downgrading cumulative installed capacity to 2.35 terawatts. China accounted for 12GW of that cut because of tightened permit requirements and project cancellations, Wood Mackenzie said.

The consultancy did not adjust its outlook for China’s onshore wind segment from 2026 to 2032, adding that it will drive global onshore wind installation over the period.

“Long-term market fundamentals remain strong globally despite near-term challenges in project execution in China and offshore market maturation in the US,” said Luke Lewandowski, vice-president of global renewables research at Wood Mackenzie.

China’s state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, announced early last year the country plans to build 450GW of solar and wind power generation capacity in the Gobi and other desert regions as part of the efforts to boost renewable power use and China’s 2060 net-zero goals.

BY Yujie Xue

Yujie is a business reporter for the Post with a focus on energy transition, climate change and sustainability issues. She previously worked as a technology reporter in the Post’s Shenzhen bureau. Yujie graduated from Boston University with a degree in mass communication.

All she wanted was for her only child to go to school in her native tongue.

In 2020, the ethnically Mongolian teacher living in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia joined protests against a ban on most Mongolian-language education. Police cracked down hard. She was fired, hauled in for questioning and pushed into exile.

Three years later, her daughter is attending kindergarten here in Ulaanbaatar, where she can learn Mongolian and have pride in her heritage. But the former teacher fears that the Chinese security state could drag them back any day now.

China under Xi Jinping, its most powerful leader in decades, has progressively clamped down on ethnic minorities living on the country’s periphery: Tibetans, Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Mongols have all been targeted as part of Xi’s broader effort to crush dissent and force assimilation into the Han Chinese majority.

This effort has increasingly spread beyond China’s borders. To combat international criticism and silence diaspora communities, Beijing has used economic leverage and political pressure to enlist other countries to support Xi’s quest for absolute control.

Governments on China’s doorstep face a stark choice about how far to go along with Beijing’s global agenda. Shared culture and language make neighboring countries a natural destination for people fleeing China’s borderlands, but these places are also the focus of efforts to defend against perceived foreign threats.

Beijing views exiles like the small but growing number of China-born Mongolians living in Ulaanbaatar as dangerous pockets of overseas resistance who could incite protest at home. Six people who spoke to The Washington Post all reported varying degrees of Chinese police harassment and intimidation through phone calls, messages and pressure on their families in China.

An emerging network of Mongolian activists and politicians want to protect these people, despite concern from Mongolian officials about angering China, the country’s largest trading partner. As a young democracy concerned for human rights, they argue, the country should be a haven for persecuted Mongols everywhere.

That tussle over influence and values is already underway in Mongolia, a former Soviet satellite state once known as “Outer Mongolia” where, after the fall of Communism in 1990, leaders built a multiparty democracy and reoriented the national identity around Mongol heritage and historical figures like Genghis Khan. The traditional Mongolian script abandoned in the Soviet era will be reinstated as an official language in 2025.

At the same time, the leaders of Mongolia, landlocked and dependent on China and Russia for trade and energy, have sought closer ties with the United States and its allies to shake off those overbearing neighbors.

Beijing has been watching this cultural evolution warily.

The Chinese Communist Party has governed the southern part of the Mongolian homeland — “Inner Mongolia” — since 1947 and is deeply suspicious of resurgent Mongol nationalism. It fears stronger ties of blood and language across the border will undermine assimilation and control.

Some Mongolian activists fear that the Chinese security state could use cross-border policing ties to target critics of China on Mongolian soil. They say that ethnically Mongolian Chinese citizens seeking refuge over the border — activists estimate there could be hundreds — have little to no protection from Chinese police harassment.

The 2020 protests in Inner Mongolia were a “wake-up call” that China wants to “eliminate the great desire and tradition of Mongols to learn their own culture and language,” former Mongolian president Tsakhia Elbegdorj told The Post. “It’s a very dangerous policy.”

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Public Security did not respond to requests for comment about Chinese security interests in Mongolia.

Free to speak Mongolian — but fearful of police

In a cafe on the ground-floor of a trendy apartment complex in southern Ulaanbaatar, where the snarl of traffic and dust fades into tree-covered mountains, the teacher grew pensive when talking about her struggle to stay in the country.

“Life has been very difficult,” she said through tears, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals from Chinese authorities. “Under Chinese rule, we lost our ancestral land and now they are taking away everything. Mongols in China will be Chinese within generations,” she said, suggesting they will be stripped of their identity.

China’s border may be nearly 900 miles away, but she is worried Chinese police could soon launch a formal investigation against her, which, under bilateral agreements, could easily result in her being detained and extradited.

Already in 2020, Chinese police seized on her social media posts as evidence of collusion with “hostile foreign forces” and interrogated her about a Mongolian activist, Munkhbayar Chuluundorj, she had barely heard of. Last year, the activist was jailed by Mongolian authorities for a decade on espionage charges. His family alleges the arrest was made to curry favor with Beijing.

More recently, the teacher said her fears intensified after she heard about an ethnic Mongol Chinese citizen, a dissident writer in his 80s, who was sent back to China. His case is at least the fifth instance of a Chinese passport holder being returned involuntarily from Mongolia since 2009, according to Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organization. In most cases, Mongolian authorities detain people and hand them over to China.

These events have made the teacher question whether she is really safe here. But she is determined to stay for her daughter. “If she can’t speak Mongolian, how can she say she is Mongol?” she asked.

A Mongolian jailed for working ‘against China’

The revolutionary statues and imposing colonnaded architecture of Sukhbaatar Square speak to Mongolia and China’s shared Communist history. But unlike Beijing’s heavily policed Tiananmen Square, where calls for democratic reform were brutally crushed in 1989, this expanse in central Ulaanbaatar remains the go-to place for a protest, just as it was in 1990 as the Soviet Union unraveled.

For decades, Munkhbayar, the activist the teacher was questioned about, was a familiar face among the crowds protesting issues such as corruption, pollution and inflation. More often than not, the activist would energetically criticize his country’s close relationship with China.

Then last July, the activist was detained and then sentenced to a decade in jail for “collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency.”

The case, which activists consider the first incident of a Mongolian critic of China being targeted, has become a rallying point for Mongolians who fear China’s growing influence. A famous Mongolian poet, Tsoodolyn Khulan, was jailed for eight years on similar charges in July.

She had criticized the selection of an 8-year-old boy as the reincarnated head of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. China has watched that process closely as it attempts to weaken influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader. Beijing considers him a “separatist.”

In Munkhbayar’s trial, prosecutors argued that Munkhbayar was guilty of espionage because he attended a meeting of activists organized by an Indian diplomat to discuss the crackdown in Inner Mongolia. The convener was an intelligence agent, they claimed, and by speaking to him, Munkhbayar had “worked against China.”

“They used that phrase ‘worked against China’ more than 10 times,” his brother, Munkh-Erdene Chuluundorj, said. How could unwittingly speaking to a foreign agent — about a foreign country — count as espionage? The only possible explanation, he said, is that the charges are politically motivated.

Mongolian authorities and the Indian embassy in Ulaanbaatar declined to comment on Munkhbayar’s case, the details of which are classified.

Munkhbayar’s firebrand advocacy made him an outlier, but he is far from alone in advocating that Ulaanbaatar should do more to defend Mongols in China.

After writing a public letter to Xi criticizing China’s Mongolian-language restrictions in 2020, Elbegdorj, Mongolia’s president from 2009 to 2017, launched the World Mongol Federation, a nonprofit group that speaks up for Mongols facing oppression across the world.

“Our main goal is to keep Mongolian culture and Mongolian identity safe. That should be our right, and we are defending that,” the 60-year-old statesman said.

But Beijing’s hair-trigger sensitivity to issues regarding ethnic minorities makes aiding Inner Mongolians — whether in China or in Mongolia — complicated. Behind closed doors, Beijing has warned the Mongolian government against providing official support, said two people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. The Mongolian administration declined to comment on Chinese pressure on Inner Mongolians in the country.

China’s coming showdown with Mongol solidarity

Underlying concern about Chinese influence are deeper fears that hard-line security policies under Xi amount to a wider assault on Mongolian culture and heritage.

Watching Mongols in China fight to protect their heritage sparked sympathy in Mongolia, because “people saw how hard they are trying to preserve their language,” said Zolzaya Nyamdori, executive director of the World Mongol Federation.

Others see a chance that China’s crackdown on Mongolian-language education, combined with its increasingly aggressive actions inside Mongolia, could backfire by spurring on criticism of China and support for Chinese Mongols in Ulaanbaatar.

Muumiangan Tengerleg walks through Ulaanbaatar looking like he just stepped out of the ancient past, when Mongols ruled from the Carpathian mountains of central Europe to the Sea of Japan. An ethnic Mongol from China who came here with a Chinese mining company 15 years ago, he now wears a navy blue deel tunic and traditional yuden hat.

Over a dinner of deep-fried mutton pockets, the 41-year-old said that if the Chinese government pushes too hard it could “bring together their enemies’ enemies,” meaning Mongols in China and Mongolia or elsewhere. “Then we would have a showdown,” he warned.

Among Mongol literati, there are few more potent symbols of their endangered heritage than the dying use of that vertical writing system. Many consider Mongolia’s adoption of Cyrillic in the 1940s a grievous error of Communism. At the time, Mao Zedong let Inner Mongolians keep the script, in part to distinguish them from kinfolk across the border. Now Mongolia is trying to undo that mistake.

Five minutes east of Sukhbaatar Square, a famous paean to the beauty of Mongolian language is painted in brilliant blue graffiti on a two-story whitewashed wall. The artist, who goes by the pseudonym Ochirone, said watching videos of protests in Inner Mongolia during the pandemic inspired him to teach himself the script and incorporate it into his work “as a reminder that language is the biggest part of our national identity.”

For some in Mongolia, China’s crackdown on the Mongolian language brings up unpleasant memories of the Soviet Union’s suppression of Mongolian intellectuals.

“The situation is desperate,” said Mongolian novelist Puvsan Purevdorj, who wants his government to offer visas to Inner Mongolians so they can come teach Mongolians how to write vertically.

“In the past, we achieved independence by standing, carefully balanced, between Russian and Chinese influence. But now that balance is being lost,” he said. “If Russia becomes China’s little sister, what happens to Mongolia then?”

By Christian Shepherd

Christian Shepherd is China correspondent for The Washington Post. He previously covered the country for the Financial Times and Reuters from Beijing

Mongolia is expected to experience freezing weather next week, the country's weather agency said Sunday.

Starting next Wednesday, the cold air mass originating in Siberia, Russia, will affect large parts of Mongolia, and overnight temperatures will exceed minus 40 degrees Celsius, according to Mongolia National Agency for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring.

It said that the extreme cold weather is expected to continue until the end of the week, urging the public, especially nomadic herders and drivers, to take extra precautions against possible disasters.

Mongolia's climate is strongly continental, with long and frigid weather. A temperature of minus 25 degrees is standard during winter.

The freight volume passing through land checkpoints in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which borders Mongolia and Russia, has surpassed 100 million tonnes this year, with the annual throughput breaking the benchmark for the first time, according to the region's commerce department.

Inner Mongolia has a border line that stretches over 4,200 km and boasts 14 land ports. These ports handle more than 90 percent of the land transport between China and Mongolia, as well as over 65 percent of the land transport between China and Russia.

By Dec. 8, the railway freight via the ports had reached 35.8 million tonnes and that of road transport amounted to 64.3 million tonnes so far this year.

Among them, cargo trade with Russia logged 21.4 million tonnes, and that with Mongolia reached 78.7 million tonnes.

Cao Junpei, an official with the regional administration of customs, said the regional government has been committed to supporting upgrades in infrastructure and facilities on the land ports, especially major ports such as Manzhouli and Erenhot.

He said the China-Europe freight train service through the land ports provides convenient land routes for international economic and trade exchanges, and has given a strong impetus to the growth of freight trade in Inner Mongolia.

According to the customs data, there are 57 China-Europe freight train service lines passing through the port of Manzhouli, and 63 lines via the port of Erenhot. Combined, these lines account for about 40 percent of the total number of China-Europe freight train lines.

In the first 11 months of this year, 7,708 China-Europe freight trains passed through the land ports in Inner Mongolia, with the number surging by 14.8 percent year on year.

In November 2023, the Bank of Mongolia (BoM) purchased 1,856.4 kg of precious metal. The total amount of precious metal purchased in 2023 has reached 16.1 tons so far.

Since the beginning of the year, the BoM branches in Darkhan-Uul and Bayankhongor aimags bought 1957.7 kg and 951.8 kg of precious metal respectively.

The purchase price of precious metals by the BoM is determined by the price of the world market, and the average purchase price of gold in November this year was MNT 219,514.35.

Since 2021, the Immigration Agency of Mongolia has been progressively digitalizing its services to increase accessibility and streamline processes, reducing delays and the necessity for multiple in-person visits. Previously, citizens had to visit the Agency 7 to 15 times, but now it is limited to two times, making services available online.

The Immigration Agency of Mongolia has launched a new digital Alien Registration and Monitoring System. Through this system, foreign citizens and enterprises worldwide can access Agency services via the integrated DAN authentication system.

Starting from December 1, 2023, the Immigration Agency of Mongolia will offer four services through its new online system on the Agency's website (immigration.gov.mn):

-Visa permission,

-Applying for a visa (including applications for multiple-entry visas),

-Applying for residency in Mongolia for official or private purposes,

-48-hour registration of temporary stay of foreigners.

Seven services can still be accessed through eimmigration.mn website:

-Visa extension

-Changing the category of a residence permit

-Extending and canceling a residence permit

-Changing residency address

-Updating passport information

-Reacquiring lost or abandoned residence cards

These services will be transferred to the new system soon.

By shifting to the new system, the Agency expands its services internationally and offers facilitated services, including:

- Information exchange through "KHUR," the state information exchange system.

-Receiving all types of services offered by the Immigration Agency of Mongolia from a single system.

- Customer's direct control over decisions within the system.

-Paying fees online.

Mongolia ranked 47th out of 81 countries in the PISA 2022 assessment, Montsame reports.

Among the six countries participating for the first time, Mongolia secured first place. In mathematics, the average score of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was 472, while the Asian average stood at 451. Mongolia's average mathematics score was 425, 2.3 years behind the international average and 1.2 years behind the Asian standard.

The PISA assessment reveals an international average score of 476 in reading, with an Asian average of 427. Mongolia, ranking 65th, scored 378 points, falling 5 years behind the global average and 2.5 years behind the Asian average.

In natural sciences, the international average score is 485, the Asian average score is 449, and Mongolia's average score is 412, ranking 53rd. Science test results showed Mongolia is three years behind the international average and 1.8 years behind the Asian average.

Mongolia has participated in the PISA for the first time. A sample of 7,300 students from 196 schools across the country took part in a computer-based assessment of math, reading, and science skills.

PISA is the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment. PISA assesses the extent to which 15-year-old students near the end of their compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies.

Erenhot, the largest land port on the China-Mongolia border, handled nearly 1.33 million inbound and outbound travelers in the first 11 months of this year, reaching a peak of over 8,870 people in a single day, Xinhua reports.

The land port handled some 169,000 vehicles, according to the port's entry-exit border inspection station.

Customs clearance services for passenger traffic at the Erenhot highway port, located on the border of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, resumed on January 8. China-Mongolia international passenger train services resumed on August 30.

In recent years, bilateral trade between China and Mongolia has seen a steady rise in scale.

Bilateral trade totaled $12.2 billion in value in 2022, up 34% year on year. It soared 62.6% year on year in the first six months of 2023, maintaining a strong growth momentum, according to official data.

Within the framework of the National Campaign "Food Supply and Security" initiated by the President of Mongolia "Harvest Festival 2023" ceremony was held at the Corporate Hotel and Convention Center on December 6, 2023. Farmers and national top food producers summed up their achievements discussed future goals and awarded the best.

At the ceremony, the President of Mongolia Khurelsukh Ukhnaa thanked the farmers and food producers and wished them success in the future. President U. Khurelsukh noted the growth of production, domestic supply, and export of staple food items as a result of state-private sector collaboration under the "Food Supply and Security" Campaign. He highlighted that a loan of MNT 675 billion given to 1,857 enterprises and citizens, and customs duty relief and exemptions provided to 428 types of equipment needed for 19 types of food and agricultural products were a crucial stimulus for intensive development of the "Food Revolution" initiative.

Further, President U. Khurelsukh stressed the importance of consolidating achievements focusing on climate change, soil degradation, seed quality, quality, and standards of raw materials for food production. In this context, Mr. U. Khurelsukh emphasized the significance of supporting private sector investment and cooperation as well as finding optimal and affordable use of economic incentives such as budgets, funds, loans, financing, taxes, and insurance.

"Developing nomadic and intensive animal husbandry, optimizing full use of livestock products, and increasing the income and livelihood of herders are vital goals of the "Food Revolution" initiative. It is expected to make progress in preparing the succession of shepherds, protecting animal health, improving animal breeds, showing cooperation at work, increasing feed production, and improving pasture management. Especially in 2024, special attention should be paid to the production of vaccines and biological products, and fulfilling the goal of making Mongolia an animal disease-free region. State and private sector must cooperate in reducing the risk of desertification and dust storms, supporting green development, establishing food and agricultural clusters and complexes, an integrated system for the preparation and supply of raw materials, setting up transport and logistics networks, supporting small and medium enterprises, introducing new technologies and develop a workforce development program. In the future, we should strive to meet domestic demand for 19 staple food items, and unite to work together with the state, the government, and the people to become a food exporting country," said President U. Khurelsukh.

The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry has declared 2023 the "Year of Agricultural Revival." As part of the "Food Supply and Security," National Campaign, the "Agricultural Revival 2023" conference was held before the spring sowing season signifying implementation of the "Food Revolution" initiative of the President of Mongolia.

As part of State Great Khural's Resolution No. 36 of 2022, 10 commercial banks provided MNT 89.7 billion to agricultural producers and MNT 24.3 billion to vegetable growers, a total of MNT 114 billion of soft loan, which allowed spring sowing, ploughing, plant protection, and harvesting at the right time.

In 2023 Mongolia's domestic yield met the demand for potatoes at 100 percent and for vegetables at 85.0 percent setting a record for vegetable harvesting for the first time in history. Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Kh. Bolorchuluun emphasized the need to increase the workforce, stabilize prices, and increase sales to increase historical success.

He noted that measures to limit the import of vegetables and wheat, intensification of seed production, and planting elite seeds had a positive effect on the quality of the harvest. As a result of the intensification of seed production, wheat production increased by 32 thousand tons compared to last year, and the country's average yield per hectare reached 15 tons. This is the highest result in the last five years.

The 22nd session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP22) to the Rome Statute is taking place in New York on 4-14 December 2023. The election of 6 judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the period of 2024-2033 was held on December 5, 2023. A Mongolian candidate, Justice of the Supreme Court of Mongolia Erdenebalsuren Damdin obtained 81 votes from 114 States Parties in the first round of voting. Hence, Erdenebalsuren's election as an ICC judge marks a historic moment for Mongolia, as he becomes the first Mongolian to ever hold this position.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an international court that investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression. Currently, 123 countries have joined the Rome Statute of the ICC. Mongolia ratified the ICC Rome Statute in 2002.

A total of 13 countries put forward candidates for the election of 6 judges of the ICC. Mongolia's candidate's victory in the first round of voting demonstrates not only the country's active foreign policy but also the international community's faith in Mongolia.

Justice Erdenebalsuren Damdin has over a decade of experience serving at the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Mongolia and 30 years of experience in criminal law and criminal proceedings. By serving as a judge of the International Criminal Court for the first time, Mongolia will make a significant contribution to international law, particularly international criminal law. Moreover, it will be of great importance in strengthening the court proceedings of Mongolia.