Trade between China and Mongolia has spiked in recent years, with last year's figures reaching 12 billion US dollars, almost double the amount three years ago. The Belt and Road Initiative includes plans for more than 30 projects in Mongolia, ranging from infrastructure and energy to joint efforts to combat desertification. CGTN's Sarangua Tumur has more from Ulaanbaatar.

SARANGUA TUMUR Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia "China has been Mongolia's largest trading partner and its main foreign investor over the past decade. In 2022, trade volume between China and Mongolia reached 12.2 billion US dollars, almost double that of 2020."

BAYARKHUU DASHDORJ Former Ambassador of Mongolia "Last year, the heads of state of both countries agreed on the goal of increasing the trade volume to 20 billion US dollars in the near future. The construction of border ports and railway connections on both sides is crucial to accelerate the economic ties between China and Mongolia."

SARANGUA TUMUR Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia "The Mongolian government has formulated a development policy for Mongolia, known as the Development Road, which aligns with China's Belt and Road Initiative. Both sides aim to expand and deepen cooperation in areas such as the economy, energy, infrastructure, climate response, green development, and desertification treatment. China has commended Mongolia's 'Billion Trees' initiative and expressed its willingness to discuss the establishment of a cooperation center to combat desertification."

SUMIYA CHULUUNBAATAR Secretary of Mongolia-China Friendship Association "Mongolia is set to host the 17th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in 2026. China also has significant experience in managing sandstorms, afforestation and desertification. Given that both countries are affected by climate change and desertification, and share similar terrains and climate, it's crucial to actively promote environmental cooperation between them in the near future."

SARANGUA TUMUR Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia "Over the past 10 years, China has granted $1.5 billion of soft loans to the Mongolian government. Most recently, a series of projects were implemented with non-payable Chinese aid and soft loans under the BRI, including Mongolia's first expressway and the first development center for disabled children. However, the two sides are also expected to cooperate on more ambitious projects in the near future."

Sarangua Tumur, CGTN, Ulaanbaatar.

(An Interview With Cardinal Giorgio Marengo) On his return to Rome from South Sudan in February, Pope Francis offered the possibility of a visit to Mongolia this September. It would be the first papal pilgrimage to the country. Register senior international correspondent Victor Gaetan contacted Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, apostolic prefect in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to learn more. The interview began last October in Bangkok, Thailand, where Gaetan and Cardinal Marengo met at the monthlong Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.

The Church in Mongolia is sometimes called the newest in the world because missionaries started from nothing in 1992, following the fall of communism. The entire country is a missionary jurisdiction, with nine parishes serving 1,450 faithful. Cardinal Marengo, who will turn 49 next month, was ordained a Consolata missionary in 2001. He first went to Mongolia in 2003.

Your Eminence, there’s no reference to a papal visit on Mongolia’s main Catholic website, although Pope Francis clearly stated his hope to visit. Are you getting ready?

Technically not yet, because we must get instructions from Rome; but, of course, since Pope Francis mentioned it on his flight back from Africa, and again during his general audience a few days later, we are in the “being ready” mode but not yet technically starting the preparations.

How important would this visit be?

It will be a very historic visit, with a great impact on bilateral relations between the Holy See and Mongolia, as well as a great joy for the small Catholic community in Mongolia.

Protocol requires an invitation from the president of the country and religious leaders. Has that occurred?

Oh, yes! An invitation from the president is the fundamental requirement for a papal visit to any country. Last summer, Aug. 24, just a few days before the consistory, a delegation from the Mongolian government, including a former president, went to Rome and handed Francis an official invitation from the current president.

How is communication between the Catholic community and the dominant religious group in Mongolia, the Buddhists?

We have very good relations that have grown throughout the years. Dialogue with those who represent the majority has been a priority from the very beginning. The majority religion is Mongolian Buddhism. Buddhism came to Mongolia at different moments of its history and mainly from Tibet. So the roots of Mongolian Buddhism are in Tibet, but in recent years people have started referring to “Mongolian Buddhism” because it has become a particular form of Buddhism. That’s why, last May 28, we were received by the Holy Father.

I remember reading about that meeting … and you were there, too. Wonderful!

Yes. There were some contacts in the past between Buddhist monks and the Holy Father, but this was the first-ever audience granted to a delegation of Mongolian Buddhist monks with him.

And the next day, on May 29, Pope Francis announced 21 new cardinals, and you were among them. That seemed to be a very high level of diplomacy: You visited the Holy Father with a delegation of Mongolian monks; then you were immediately elevated. How did you read that?

It was, of course, a great surprise for me. I don’t know if it was planned in such a way as it happened, but we know how important interreligious dialogue is for Pope Francis.

Was there a celebration?

That very day was a Sunday, so I went to Sunday Mass with two Mongolian Catholic priests who were traveling with me, together with a Buddhist monk. We went to visit a community of Consolata Missionary sisters outside Rome. We had a nice meeting, and, meanwhile, the announcement was given at the Angelus. We got the news only after. And the Buddhist abbot was the first to congratulate me for the appointment!

How does your elevation to the College of Cardinals further enhance your ability to represent the Catholic Church in Asia and in Mongolia?

I am obviously very grateful to Pope Francis for having thought of a cardinal from Mongolia, thus promoting the image of his small Church. We trust that this choice can indeed contribute to intensifying official relations on a further level. On the other hand, since the Catholic tradition is still little known in Mongolia, we still need to work hard in introducing the Church into the real social fabric.

Are there restrictions on evangelization or conversion in Mongolia?

Mongolia’s constitution grants a fundamental right to practice or not practice religious belief so religious freedom is included in the fundamental rights that Mongolia recognizes for its citizens. This fundamental right is protected so legislation allows the practice of different religious traditions.

Is the Catholic Church recognized by the country’s constitution?

Mongolia welcomes all kinds of religious groups, but, of course, in the implementation of this fundamental right, the government has a set of rules and regulations according to which the different religious groups have to register and be acknowledged officially. The rules are there, and we have to follow procedures. Based on that, religious freedom is guaranteed.

Will other Buddhist leaders from around Asia come to Mongolia if the Pope visits?

That I really don’t know. It is beyond my knowledge. I don’t know how the Buddhist world will react to this visit, but, for sure, there will be a meeting of the Holy Father with the other religious traditions, not just Buddhism. Here in Mongolia, we have good relations with leaders of all religions: There are active communities of Muslims believers, followers of Shamanism, Hindu, the Baha’i and then the Christian denominations.

You have been in Mongolia as a missionary for 20 years. How difficult was the missionary work for you at the beginning and throughout the years?

Well, it took me — and us — because I went with a group of my own society, the Consolata Missionaries, both priests and sisters — a long time for our insertion into the new reality. This is something we were aware of, belonging to a missionary congregation, aimed at providing missionary energies to wherever there is a need, especially where the Church is not well established or even absent. We all knew it would take us a long time, and it did take a long time.

That’s a very delicate and crucial moment in the life of any missionary: to spend time, quality time, learning; first the language, then the history, culture, traditions, politics, economy of the country where one is sent.

So we spent the first three years just learning the language in Ulaanbaatar. In the third year, we started doing some little services for the local community in Ulaanbaatar. And in dialogue with the first apostolic prefect, Msgr. [Wenceslao] Padilla — the first pioneer priest, with CICM, an international missionary congregation — in dialogue with him, we offered our services to establish the presence of the Church in a part of the country where it had never been.

Where was that?

We embarked on this very interesting adventure. We established a tiny community, in a region called Arvaikheer, 450 kilometers southwest of Ulaanbaatar. It is exactly in the geographical center of the country, where the initial capital city of the Mongolian empire was established.

It was more adventurous because there were no other missionaries, not even Catholics there, so it was really a matter of inserting ourselves, again, into this new reality. It was a grace for me, a great grace, and opportunity to know more about the history, culture and religions of Mongolia; because living in the countryside offered more in this regard than in the capital city.

There, I spent 14 years, and a small community was eventually established, with a few friends from the neighborhood who started being interested. With all the due permissions of the government, we established a small church and some social projects.

I arrived in Mongolia in 2003. In 2006, we moved to this new area, and I spent the rest of my time there, until two years ago, when I was appointed apostolic prefect.

The gulf is so wide between the poverty and isolation you have witnessed in Mongolia and the privilege and convenience so many Catholics in the West live among. What lessons of faith and Christ’s love have you learned in Mongolia that you might not have gained, had you stayed in an Italian parish?

Taking everything for granted is a very common risk when living in more affluent conditions. The richness of having lived for 14 years in a rural area of Mongolia, in direct contact with the ancestral rhythms of the seasons and of human life stretched to the limit, is a grace I would not want to let go of. From people who live their faith in simplicity at 40 degrees below zero, braving blizzards and stray dogs to come to Mass every morning in the middle of winter, I am led to give thanks every day for the great gift of faith. It is these people, mysteriously touched by grace, who encourage me to offer them the best, through a human and spiritual journey of continuous growth in faith.

In the beginning, how many Consolata missionaries were there with you?

We were two priests and three sisters. I was the only Italian among the priests. First, I was with an Argentinian priest, two Italian sisters and one from Colombia; then, eventually, the Argentinian left, and another Italian priest came.

Were the people welcoming?

In general, Mongolians are known to be very welcoming. The nomadic attitude is very hospitable. On the other hand, we have to remember that Mongolia was very isolated for 70 years, as a communist country, without being a member of the Soviet Union, but it was one of the first countries that embraced “real socialism.” Because of that, we were cautious and attentive, especially when we talked about religious matters.

But then, thanks to the relationships we built out of human respect and collaboration, I would say that we were welcomed and accepted there. Especially now, after so many years, we have very good relations with government officials, and we collaborate in many aspects for the good of the society.

As you are a European, do you find a keener sense of the transcendent in Asia than in Italy or Western Europe at this time in history?

Indeed, I do find it here. I’ve devoted some studies to this topic, especially while preparing my Ph.D. research in missiology. Since the age of Enlightenment, a break has occurred in the West between faith and reason, or, if you like, between religious and scientific attitudes. This is not the case for Asia. While, in some respects, the introduction of a greater critical sense might be useful in Asia, I believe that in the West there is much to be learned from the wise attitude that knows how to treasure the fundamental elements of religions in society.

When you engage in dialogue with officials, what language do you speak?

Usually I relate to them in Mongolian because I can handle the language. But, of course, some of the high-ranked monks or abbots do speak English or non-Mongolian languages like Russian. But I feel at home with Mongolian, so we usually use Mongolian.

Fantastic. Have you also explored the life of Buddhism in neighboring countries such as Thailand?

Well, I attended two of the Buddhist-Christian colloquia, an initiative of the Vatican going back to the 1990s. These meetings are prepared for two to three years, and they rotate between different Asian countries.

This has given me a great opportunity to know more about the Buddhist world. I attended the 2015 edition in India. It was really an eye-opener to the wider Buddhist work because, in Mongolia, I knew only the reality of Mongolian Buddhism. Then, in 2017, at the edition in Taiwan, which was again, a fruitful initiative, I asked the organizers to invite one Buddhist monk from Mongolia because they have not been present before. This monk who attended is also a well-known abbot of a big monastery in Mongolia. So these occasions gave me an opportunity to know more about Buddhism in general, and they are also an experience of friendship.

Tell me about the Catholic religious serving Mongolia today.

We have two local Mongolian priests, 26 foreign missionary priests, and more than 40 sisters, all from other countries.

From what other countries?

We have a very big variety: from 22 different countries and belonging to 10 religious societies and congregations. Our priests are from Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Cameroon, Congo, elsewhere … Indonesia, Philippines, one French priest, one priest from East Timor, one from Czech Republic, one from Colombia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

The biggest group is represented by CICM missionaries, who were pioneers in Mongolia. My predecessor, Bishop [Wenceslao] Padilla, was the CICM superior. It’s a missionary congregation originally from Belgium, founded in the 19th century. Also present are a group of diocesan priests from South Korea, the Salesians of Don Bosco, and my community, Consolata missionaries.

In what language is Mass given?

In Mongolian, always; every day in daily Mass. At the cathedral we have a service for the international community, and I appointed one priest to be chaplain for the international community, so there is also a Mass in English.

BY: Victor Gaetan

Victor Gaetan Victor Gaetan is a senior correspondent for the National Catholic Register, focusing on international issues. He also writes for Foreign Affairs magazine, The American Spectator and the Washington Examiner. He contributed to Catholic News Service for several years. The Catholic Press Association of North America has given his articles four first place awards, including Individual Excellence, over the last five years. Gaetan received a license (B.A.) in Ottoman and Byzantine Studies from Sorbonne University in Paris, an M.A. from the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy, and a Ph.D. in Ideology in Literature from Tufts University. His book God’s Diplomats: Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy, and America’s Armageddon was published by Rowman & Littlefield in July 2021. Visit his website at VictorGaetan.org.

Mongolians have always lived with wolves. During the imperial era, the relationship was an ambiguous one. Under socialism, it became existential.

In Mongolia, where the dominant lifestyle is nomadic pastoralism, threat comes from the land. Wolves (chono) are found throughout the nation’s various ecosystems: steppe, semi-desert, mountains. Their existence has been lamented and romanticised for centuries.

Mongolia’s most famous son, Chinggis Khan, was supposedly descended from one. As recorded in The Secret History of the Mongols, Chinggis’ first ancestor was Grey Wolf (Börte Chono). Another ancestor, ‘Alan the Fair’, was impregnated by a ‘heavenly golden dog’ – likely a euphemism for a wolf. The Secret History was written after Chinggis’ death in 1227 and is one of the few documents written in the imperial Mongolian language. Commissioned by Chinggis’ grandson Möngke Khan, it covers Chinggis’ ancestry and was intended as a blueprint for future rulers. But though we learn of Chinggis’ lupine origins, it also contains multiple references to wolves as an enemy. When Öelün, Chinggis’ mother, rebukes him for killing his half-brother Bekter, she compares him to ‘a wolf that stalks in the whirling blizzard’. Chinggis had four generals, named his ‘Four Dogs’, who were said to be fed human flesh and are described as ‘like wolves driving teeming sheep’.

In the 17th century, another historical chronicle, the Golden Summary, continued this depiction of wolves as threats. It also presented Grey Wolf as human, rather than an animal. From the Mongol Empire through to the Manchu-ruled Qing Empire (1636-1912), wolves were commonly seen as an enemy to humans. But though many religious rituals prayed for protection from the animals, or for the skills to hunt them – killing a wolf is said to generate khiimori, good luck – wolves were not always villains. Poems written by the Khalkha prince Tsogtu Taiji (1581-1637) included lines that invited sympathy for wolves and thieves, as both stole to survive. In the 19th century, the satirist Sangdag the Poet wrote ‘What the Wolf Encircled by the Hunt Said’. In the poem, a caught wolf pleads for mercy, admitting that he is a sinful and pitiful creature, but arguing that he had no choice but to eat other animals. An anonymous manuscript, ‘The Conversation between the Wolf and the Noble’, tells a similar story, although in this case the captured wolf and noble debate the wolf’s sins and the merits of sparing his life.

In most sympathetic texts, wolves were presented as pitiable creatures. This trope continued in Buddhist thought well into the 20th century. In the 1930s, the Panchen Lama, a major leader in Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism, asked his compatriots not to hunt wolves, urging compassion for the sinful animal. Despite his pleas, wolf hunting continued.

Enemies of the people

In 1921 Mongolian revolutionaries, supported by the Bolsheviks, rid their country of the occupying Chinese and White Russian forces. In 1924, the nation was renamed the Mongolian People’s Republic, becoming the second socialist country in the world. The government followed the socialist blueprint pioneered by the Soviet Union, but retained the mobile herding system that suited the Mongolian environment. Most economic reforms were delayed by a series of crises: civil war in the early 1930s, followed by Stalin-inspired purges of Buddhist monks, Buryat immigrants and dissidents towards the end of the decade before the outbreak of the Second World War.

By the mid-1950s, the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party was sufficiently in control of the country to implement collectivisation. Party activists would confiscate individually held livestock to form collectives in which herders would work common livestock for a salary. Campaigns were launched to improve livestock production. Veterinarians worked to treat diseases; officials invested in infrastructure and policies to alleviate winter disasters (zud) and drought; the government pushed for wolf extermination.

Thus, a professional class of wolf hunters was introduced. These hunters had quotas of pelts to fulfil, receiving a salary and additional bounties for each pelt turned in. The value of the bounty depended on the sex and age of the wolf, with pregnant females and pups being the most valuable.

Decorated and experienced hunters wrote handbooks and held conferences to share their knowledge. J. Damdin’s Notes of a Grizzled Hunter (1963) provides advice on how to track and kill wolves, concluding that ‘the work exterminating the enemy wolf is very important’. S. Luwsan’s Mongolian Hunter’s Notes (1986) includes practical advice: ‘Hunters must not drink vodka or smoke tobacco.’ After suggesting strategies for how to hunt wolves, Luwsan concludes by declaring the wolf a ‘very bad intentioned, darkly suspicious animal’.

Before professionalisation, training had been passed from father to son. Older hunters often chastised younger hunters for their perceived lack of skill. But such criticisms were more than the age-old story of generational divide. Reverence for age and experience was propagated by the socialist government, despite the promise of revolutionary new ideas. Hunting was seen as Marxist labour (though Marx described it as the earliest stage in the evolution of societies). Most hunting strategies had long histories and were identical to those found in other countries, such as the United States. The wisdom of older hunters was highly valued.

By the book

Handbooks for hunters often began with a history of Mongolian hunting, supporting the idea that this labour was a valid form of Marxist production. This meant that in the early 1960s, while historians were being criticised by the government for their positive evaluations of Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Empire, handbooks continued to celebrate mentions of hunting in the Secret History, as well as in ‘superstitious’ religious texts. The Soviet Union was commended for its success in wolf extermination; so too were rival capitalist countries such as the US.

In the 1950s and 1960s, as part of the global push for wildlife conservation, the Mongolian government instituted protections for a number of endangered species, including the takhi (wild horse) and the yangir (ibex). Wolves, rather than being seen as part of the natural ecosystem, were blamed for eating endangered species. Of course, the real culprit was displacement by humans. Despite this, anti-wolf sentiment was spread by various books. MPR’s Game Animals (1969) warned that ‘the wolf causes immeasurable harm to our national economy’. Some books celebrated the methods of killing wolves, including the introduction of strong poisons from the USSR, specifically barium fluoride acetate.

�Like a wolf

Wolves soon became a common metaphor for wicked people. Like wolves, wealthy ‘class enemies’ preyed on poor herders. In the 1930s, the Russian linguist Nicholas Poppe recorded songs in various Buryat collectives, including one that connected wolves with kulaks, the rich exploiters who were among the enemies of collectivisation:

In the forest on the western mountain,

There will be no-ever present wolves.

All of us will form a commune;

There will be no rich kulaks.

The other class enemy in the Mongolian People’s Republic was the Buddhist clergy. During the socialist era, lamas and wolves – both said to be greedy and cruel – were targeted for extermination (ustgakh). Thousands of lamas were executed, their monasteries destroyed. In the post-socialist era, tales spread of monks surviving these bloody purges by living with wolves in their dens.

Yet there were some pro-wolf voices in socialist Mongolia. In the mid-1960s the author D. Namdag wrote a novella, The Howl of the Old Wolf. The protagonist is an old three-legged wolf who has survived years being hunted, clearly an avatar for Namdag, who was imprisoned twice. The old wolf lives with his daughter and her mate, but when the younger wolves feed on sheep, a professional hunter kills them. The old wolf howls, but receives no answer. Socialist censors deemed the novella subversive and banned it.

The future

Though their numbers decreased, wolves were never exterminated in Mongolia. With the end of socialism in 1991, the planned economy fell away, including quotas for wolf pelts. The state-directed persecution of wolves ended, but this did not mean the end of wolf hunting. Mongolian provinces still hold wolf hunts, with socialist-style bounties. In the capital, Ulaanbaatar, bounties are often offered for dead feral dogs, another holdover from socialism. Many Mongolians openly lament the increase in the wolf population that followed the end of professional hunters. But wolves are not the only problem facing Mongolian herders, whose livelihoods are threatened by mining and climate change.

There are also an increasing number of pro-wolf voices. In Mongolia, pro-wolf books are sold alongside works by older hunters who worked for the socialist government. Gotowyn Akim’s Dog of Heaven: Truths and Myths of Blue Mongolia’s Blue Wolf combats prejudice using historic stories, such as lamas escaping purges with the help of wolves. Some promote American-style conservation efforts. But Akim and other pro-wolf voices are a minority, activists pushing back against dominant anti-wolf feeling.

Mongolians have a complicated relationship with animals and the environment. This was true during the imperial period, continued to be true under socialism, and remains true today. The romantic notion of Mongolians revering the wolves they live alongside is a fantasy.

BY: Kenneth Linden is an environmental historian of Mongolia.

We are witnessing Mongolia’s harshest dzud in over a decade. The United States and Mongolia are friends, and friends help each other in hard times. We are proud to stand with the Mongolian people in their time of need.

I am proud to note that the U.S. Government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), will give an additional $900,000 (over three billion Tugriks) to World Vision in response to the dzud disaster appeal.

This money will provide livestock fodder and cash to vulnerable herder households and brings the total U.S. Government dzud response contribution to $1 million.

World Vision is a trusted partner and has the experience and expertise to efficiently and effectively distribute the fodder and cash to the herders most in need.

This response work builds on USAID’s ongoing disaster risk reduction programs that strengthen livestock herders’ resilience against dzuds and other natural disasters. It will not completely relieve the hardships of all the herders but it will help over 3,300 households in important ways.

I have personally met with herder families to hear for myself their stories of how they are making it through the winter. I know that herding is a difficult life, and although most are reliably independent, sometimes people need help.

Of course, the United States and Mongolia are not alone in assisting those in need. We are part of an international coalition acting in concert thanks to the efforts of the United Nations. The United Nations is coordinating all the donors to ensure that assistance is distributed equitably, and people receive what they need. I would like to take a moment to recognize UN Resident Coordinator Mr. Tapan Mishra. Tapan, where are you? Tapan has spearheaded both the appeal and distribution of international assistance and has done a wonderful job. Thank you, Tapan.

I’m proud to say that this new project is another example of how USAID is ramping up in Mongolia under the U.S.-Mongolia Strategic Partnership. While USAID has been in Mongolia since 1991, over the last couple of years it has launched new initiatives in a variety of areas, including supporting small businesses, strengthening democratic institutions, improving energy governance, and assisting in the fight against COVID-19.

The United States and Mongolia enjoy a strong, long-standing partnership built on common interests and shared democratic values. Our strategic partnership is more than just words on paper; it is about delivering real results. I am confident this program will deliver real results for the Mongolian people. Thanks again to all our partners, and I wish you all great success.

As the man widely seen as the godfather of artificial intelligence (AI) warns about growing dangers from how it is developing, businesses are scrambling to see how they can use the technology to their advantage.

Geoffrey Hinton, 75, who used to work for Google has warned that AI chatbots could soon be more intelligent than humans.

Many businesses bosses are telling me that the hot topic presented at board meetings is how to deploy ChatGPT style technology across their businesses as quickly as possible.

A few weeks ago, I watched as the boss of one of Britain's biggest consumer-facing companies looked at his computer, entered the transcript of a customer complaint call, and asked ChatGPT to summarise it and respond to it based on set of rules he made up on the spot.

In about a minute it came up with a very credible answer, with no need for any coding.

The end result was, I'm told, about 85% accurate. That is a bit less than human call centre staff, but it cost a fraction of a percentage point of the cost of deploying staff.

The good news for all, the pure enhancement to productivity, would occur if all the staff were now focused on the 15%, that could not handled by AI. But the scope to go further, and cut back on staff, is clearly there.

AI Large Language Models are, however, getting more powerful. Not yet quite as capable as an intelligent adult, but not far off.

Advances are occurring faster than expected, and could be reaching the point where they become exponential.

The pace of change and adoption means there is scope for an economic and jobs shock to the economy as soon as this year.

The moment it becomes cleverer than the cleverest person, in pretty short order, we could get to "runaway capability" - more advanced than the entirety of humanity, on the way to what has been described by another former Google AI insider Ray Kurzweil as the "singularity". Are we at the start of that exponential moment right about now?

AI has the possibility of taking a bunch of sectors of the economy, which have been immune to productivity improvements up until now, because they were time and knowledge intensive sectors, and transforming them.

Technology has given us lots of improvements in the quality of life. All of our smartphones now have all the content we could want, always instantly available on streaming services.

One top policymaker told me that "a lot of that innovation has made our leisure time more enjoyable. It's not made our working time, more productive. It may have eradicated boredom as a human experience. But has it made you more productive at work?"

The real shock has been that these technologies are usable in a commercial context, not just for "low-cognitive, repetitive" - i.e. robotic - tasks, long thought susceptible to automation.

The surprise has been how deployable these technology is to highly creative, high-value work, which had been assumed to be relatively protected from competition.

The Open AI/ ChatGPT founder Sam Altman has himself expressed his surprise at the use so far. Specifically, the "blank page" or "first draft" stage at the start of the creative process of writing copy, creating an image, or music, or coding a programme can be achieved in seconds rather than weeks of briefing and refining.

Again this is what is possible with AI's not-yet-as-intelligent-as-an-adult human. So the good news is that rapid deployment of this technology, faster than the rest of the world, could solve the UK's longstanding productivity crisis.

The bad news is that it could occur so rapidly as to overtake workers' ability to adapt in time, creating social and economic crises. Could we face in call centres and creative studios in the 2020s, the equivalent of what happened in the coal mines in the 1980s?

Some of the people most reluctant about the size of government in Silicon Valley have started to suggest that states might need to provide a basic income. The response of techno enthusiasts is the mantra: "You wont be replaced by an AI, but you might be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI".

But they used to say that's why everybody should learn how to code. That might not be such sage career advice any more.

Forty-nine forest and steppe fires have ripped across Mongolia since the beginning of this year, destroying 359,505 hectares of forest and grassland, the country's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said Tuesday.

In addition, 20 homes and a vehicle were burned, and 3,273 heads of livestock were killed in the wildfires, NEMA said in a statement.

The emergency agency said negligence was the leading cause, urging citizens not to make open fires or throw cigarette butts on the ground.

As of Tuesday, firefighters are working to contain two steppe fires in Choibalsan and Bulgan soums (administrative subdivisions) in the eastern province of Dornod, it said.

China and Mongolia are “good neighbours, good friends and good partners”, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said, agreeing to deepen ties on issues ranging from the economy, railways and other infrastructure to fighting sandstorms.

Meeting his Mongolian counterpart Batmunkh Battsetseg in Beijing on Monday, Qin said China was ready to synergise development strategies and promote its Belt and Road Initiative with Mongolia.

The pledge comes as China seeks to diversify its trade routes and boost ties with Russia via its landlocked northern neighbour. Ulaanbaatar also plays a pivotal role in a joint 2016 plan to develop the China-Russia-Mongolia economic corridor, a key segment of Beijing’s belt and road strategy.

Qin told Battsetseg that China would further enhance mutual political trust with Mongolia and “pursue mutual support on issues concerning each other’s core interests and major concerns”.

He also highlighted bilateral cooperation on mining and interconnectivity towards building “a China-Mongolia community with a shared future”, according to an official Chinese readout.

Battsetseg expressed support for Beijing on Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang, saying they related to its “internal affairs”, the Chinese readout said. She also hailed China’s recent series of foreign policy documents, including last year’s Global Security Initiative.

“Mongolia is willing to deepen mutual political trust and expand practical cooperation with China, and make bilateral ties a model for the region,” Battsetseg, who wrapped up a two-day visit to Beijing on Tuesday, was quoted as saying.

The two sides also agreed to strengthen cooperation on the prevention and control of sandstorms.

Sandstorms originating in the Gobi Desert, which straddles northern China and southern Mongolia, are a regular feature in the spring and send pollution levels soaring in the region. But their frequency and intensity have increased in recent years.

As many as 12 sandstorms had already hit China this year, state news agency Xinhua said, and some of them even crossed into Japan and South Korea.

According to the Mongolian foreign ministry, a joint research team would be deployed in Beijing and Ulaanbaatar over May and June to study how to tackle sandstorms caused by worsening desertification in Mongolia and some parts of northern China.

The two foreign ministers also touched upon a list of planned cooperation projects, mostly related to upgrading Mongolia’s outdated rail links, as agreed upon during Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh’s state visit to China in November.

Sandwiched between China and Russia, landlocked Mongolia depends heavily on energy supplies from Russia and trade with China – its largest investor and trading partner for nearly two decades.

China buys up to 95 per cent of Mongolian exports, mostly coal, copper and other minerals. Bilateral trade volume crossed US$9 billion in 2021, up by more than 35 per cent from the previous year, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.

Around 90 per cent of freight transport between China and Russia passes through Mongolia, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Improved railway systems and other infrastructure in Mongolia – such as under the tri-nation belt and road economic corridor – are also expected to help boost trade links between China and Russia, as Moscow grapples with Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine.

According to the Mongolian readout, Battsetseg urged China to help speed up the construction of a railway at the Gashuunsukhait-Gantsmod border checkpoint, which handles over half of Mongolia’s copper and coking coal exports.

She also called on China to renew a 1955 bilateral agreement on border railway crossings – something Beijing has repeatedly pledged to do since Xi’s 2014 state visit to Ulaanbaatar – and help ensure stable exports of mining and agricultural products so that annual bilateral trade could rise to US$20 billion.

Mongolia has also pinned its hopes on China to help tap its potential in the renewable energy sector, such as solar and wind power.

However, neither side mentioned the new China-Mongolia-Russia natural gas pipeline project, dubbed the “Power of Siberia 2”. China and Russia agreed to “promote studies and consultations” on the project during Xi’s visit to Moscow in March.

Both Ulaanbaatar and Moscow have high hopes for the mega project, with Russian officials expecting it to replace the Europe-bound Nord Stream 2, which has been put on hold due to the Ukraine war.

In a delicate balancing act, Mongolia has avoided openly condemning Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, and sought close economic ties with both giant neighbours China and Russia, while seeking constructive ties under its “third neighbours” foreign policy with countries including the United States, Japan and European Union members.

In an interview with the Post in March, Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, who is planning a visit to China this year, praised bilateral ties but at the same time voiced hopes of diversifying the country’s economy to reduce its dependence on Beijing.

BY:

A former diplomat, Shi Jiangtao has worked as a China reporter at the Post for more than a decade. He's interested in political, social and environmental development in China.

During her working visit to China, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia Batmunkhiin Battsetseg visited Beijing branch of the Chinese company iFLYTEK yesterday and got familiarized with the company's AI-based voice, speech recognition and translation software, digital audio language translation equipment, and smart computer software.

iFLYTEK develops a variety of artificial intelligence products and applications in the fields of education, health, urban planning, and manufacturing.

Since 2010, iFLYTEK Open Platform has been developing a one-stop artificial intelligence solution focused on intelligent voice and human-computer interaction.

Minister of Foreign Affairs B. Battsetseg expressed an interest in cooperating with iFLYTEK company saying that it is possible to seek opportunities to fill the shortage of staff in health and educational institutions in rural areas of Mongolia using the company's technology, organize international conferences, meetings, and events simultaneously without the need for interpreters in foreign languages using artificial intelligence-based translation and interpreting equipment, introduce it in some government services for foreign citizens. The Foreign Minister invited iFLYTEK company management to visit Mongolia in the near future for cooperation.

In 2017 and 2019, iFLYTEK was selected as one of the top 50 global technology companies by MIT, ranked first in China and sixth in the world in 2017. In 2016, iFLYTEK translation equipment was introduced to the Chinese market.

A delegation led by Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary László Kövér will pay an official visit to Mongolia on May 4-7, at the invitation of Chairman of the State Great Khural of Mongolia Gombojaviin Zandanshatar.

During the visit, Speaker of the Parliament of Mongolia G. Zandanshatar and Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary László Kövér will hold official talks and exchange views on bilateral relations, inter-parliamentary cooperation, and other issues of mutual interest. Prime Minister of Mongolia L. Oyun-Erdene will pay a courtesy call on Speaker László Kövér.

Mongolia established diplomatic relations with Hungary on April 28, 1950. This visit is the second visit of the Head of the National Assembly of Hungary to Mongolia, and will be of considerable significance for the expansion of relations between the two countries and the development of inter-parliamentary cooperation.