Mongolia to learn Swiss experience of tourism www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/. On September 3, Minister of Environment and Tourism D.Sarangerel met with Head of Cooperation, Swiss Cooperation and Consular Agency in Mongolia Ph.D Stefanie Burri and discussed the present state of cooperation between the two countries and opportunities for further expansion to a new level.

SEC to examine Rio Tinto whistleblower claims over Oyu Tolgoi www.reuters.com

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is examining claims from a whistleblower that Rio Tinto was aware of problems at its underground copper mine extension project of Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia months before the miner confirmed the project would face delays and higher costs, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Ex-World Bank head Robert Zoellick: ‘The world could look like 1900 again’ www.bbc.com

The former head of the World Bank has warned the world could look like it did in 1900 if countries don’t work together to tackle the current crisis.

China’s yuan to become world’s third-largest reserve currency behind dollar & euro – Morgan Stanley www.rt.com

With Beijing pushing for greater use of the yuan internationally, the Chinese currency could rise to the status of the world’s third-largest reserve currency in 10 years, according to a forecast by Morgan Stanley.
The share of the yuan in global foreign exchange reserve assets could more than double from its current level of two percent and surpass the share of the Japanese yen and the British pound, the bank’s analysts said in a report released on Friday, cited by CNBC.

How China's new language policy sparked rare backlash in Inner Mongolia www.cnn.com

(CNN)Ethnic Mongolian students and parents in northern China have staged mass school boycotts over a new curriculum that would scale back education in their mother tongue, in a rare and highly visible protest against the ruling Communist Party's intensified push for ethnic assimilation.

Under the new policy, Mandarin Chinese will replace Mongolian as the medium of instruction for three subjects in elementary and middle schools for minority groups across the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, home to 4.2 million ethnic Mongolians.
Authorities have defended the adoption of a national standardized curriculum -- which comes with Chinese textbooks compiled and approved by policymakers in Beijing -- will improve minority students' paths to higher education and employment.
But parents fear the move will lead to a gradual demise of the Mongolian language, spelling an end for the already waning Mongolian culture.
To critics, the policy bears a chilling resemblance to measures rolled out in the regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, where Mandarin has replaced ethnic minority languages as the instruction language in most schools. It also reflects a shift in the Party's policy towards more aggressive assimilation under President Xi Jinping, as evident in the harsh crackdown on the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.
This week, as students across China returned to classrooms for the new school year, many ethnic schools in Inner Mongolia remained empty as parents refused to send their children back, according to residents and videos circulating online.
"We Mongolians are all against it," said Angba, a 41-year-old herder in Xilin Gol League whose 8-year-old son has joined the boycott.
"When the Mongolian language dies, our Mongolian ethnicity will also disappear," the father said. As with the other Mongolian residents who spoke to CNN for this article, Angba requested to use a pseudonym over fear of repercussions from authorities for speaking to foreign media.
Videos shared with CNN by overseas Mongolians and rights groups appear to show crowds of parents gathering outside schools -- sometimes singing Mongolian songs -- under the close watch of police officers, demanding to bring their children home. In one video, students in blue uniforms topple metal fences blocking a school entrance and rush outside. In another, rows of schoolchildren throw their fists in the air and shout: "Let us Mongolians strive to defend our own Mongolian language!" CNN is unable to independently verify the videos.
But the opposing voices have spread far beyond students and parents. According to residents, overseas Mongolians and rights groups, Mongolians across the region from musicians to members of the local legislature have allegedly signed petitions calling for the regional government to rescind the policy.
On Thursday alone, some 21,000 signatures were collected from residents in 10 counties, forming 196 petitions to the regional government's education bureau, according to an overseas Mongolian scholar who has been in close touch with local residents. In the regional capital of Hohhot, over 300 employees at a prominent regional television station also signed the petition, said the scholar, who has requested anonymity due to sensitivity of the issue.

On Weibo, China's version of Twitter, some ethnic Han users have spoken out in sympathy of Inner Mongolia's plight to protect its mother tongue. Some citizens in the neighboring country of Mongolia have also protested in solidarity.
A staff member at the Inner Mongolia regional government wouldn't comment when reached by phone by CNN on Thursday.
A readout of a regional government meeting on Tuesday said the rolling out of standardized textbooks shows "the loving care of the Party and the state towards ethnic regions" and benefits "the promotion of ethnic unity, the development and progress of ethnic regions, and the building of a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation."
On Thursday, China's foreign ministry dismissed reports of the protests in Inner Mongolia as "political speculation with ulterior motives."
"The national common spoken and written language is a symbol of national sovereignty. It is every citizen's right and duty to learn and use the national common spoken and written language," spokesperson Hua Chunyin said.
"Model minority"
The boycotts and petitions are a rare show of open discontent among ethnic Mongolians, hailed by some as one of China's "model minorities" that have been largely pacified and successfully integrated into the ethnic Han majority.
Mongolians are one of only two ethnic minorities to have ruled imperial China. In the 13th century, the Mongol Empire arose from the unification of several nomadic tribes in the Mongolian steppes to conquer much of Eurasia -- including China, where it was known as the Yuan Dynasty (from AD 1271 to 1368).

After World War II, the Chinese Communist Party gained control of Inner Mongolia, a vast strip of grassland and desert to the southeast of the country of Mongolia, and established the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 1947 -- the first of five so-called autonomous regions in the People's Republic of China.
Following decades of Han migration and intermarriage into Inner Mongolia, ethnic Mongolians have since become a minority in their own land, accounting for only about one sixth of Inner Mongolia's population of 24 million, according to the last available census data.
However, unlike autonomous regions such Tibet and Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia has largely avoided violent ethnic unrest in recent decades.
"Inner Mongolia is not against the Chinese government -- it is a relatively stable place," said Tala, a 26-year-old Mongolian who grew up in the region and now lives overseas.
"But even so," he said. "We've been pushed to the brink."
Under the surface, tensions have been running for years, especially between Han settlers and Mongolian herders, who complained their traditional grazing lands have been ruined by a coal mining boom.

That conflict was laid bare in 2011, when a Mongolian herder was struck and killed by a coal truck driven by Han Chinese. The herder, protesting against the coal mining activity, had tried to stop trucks from crossing into his traditional pastureland. His death triggered thousands of Mongolians to take to the streets -- the last time major protests broke out in the region.
Mongolian activists also lamented the loss of their pastoral tradition. Herders were moved from their homes on the prairies into new housing complexes in towns under "ecological migration," a decades-long relocation program that officials say is aimed at alleviating poverty and easing overgrazing.
"The Mongolian way of life (has already been) wiped out by so many policies," said Enghebatu Togochog, director of the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center, a New York-based advocacy group.
"This new policy is the final blow to the Mongolian identity," he said of the curriculum change.
"Bilingual education"
As discontent threatens to boil over, Inner Mongolian authorities have sought to reassure parents that the change will only apply to language and literature, politics, and history over a staggered three-year period. Other subjects -- as well as the number of hours for Mongolian-language lessons -- remain unchanged, according to a statement from the education bureau of the regional government.
"Therefore, the current bilingual education system has not changed," the statement said.
However, some ethnic Mongolians also fear that Mongolian will eventually be replaced by Mandarin in all subjects.
Critics of China's assimilation policy say Mongolians only need to look at the ethnic minority regions of Xinjiang and Tibet to get a glimpse of what the future might hold.
Students walk past a portrait of China's late Chairman Mao Zedong at a bilingual middle school for Uyghur and Han Chinese students in Hotan, Xinjiang in 2006.
Students walk past a portrait of China's late Chairman Mao Zedong at a bilingual middle school for Uyghur and Han Chinese students in Hotan, Xinjiang in 2006.
Both regions have implemented "bilingual education" for years, but in practice, the system skews heavily toward Mandarin teaching, according to rights groups. Across Xinjiang, Mandarin had become the instruction language in all primary and middle schools by September 2018. Tibetan is also being replaced by Mandarin as the primary medium of instruction in Tibet.
"We should implement bilingual education in some ethnic areas, both requiring ethnic minorities to learn the national common language, and encouraging Hans living in these areas learn ethnic minority languages," Xi said at a high-level Party meeting on ethnic policy in 2014.
"If ethnic minorities learn the national common language well, it will be beneficial to them in employment, in accepting modern scientific and cultural knowledge and in integration into society."
In reality, however, few Hans in ethnic minority regions know the local languages, which they are not required to learn at school, residents say.
"As in Xinjiang and Tibet, the Chinese authorities appear to be putting political imperatives ahead of educational ones," said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. "Chinese authorities should be focused on providing genuine bilingual education, not undermining it and persecuting its proponents."

For decades, Inner Mongolia's model of bilingual education has allowed Mongolian to be used as the language of instruction and Mandarin taught as a subject. In ethnic minority schools, students used to receive their first Mandarin lesson in the third year of elementary school, but since at least the 1990s, it has started earlier, in the second grade.
And now, it will be taught in the first year, in Mandarin, and with more advanced content.
Angba, the herdsman in Xilin Gol, said by the first grade, many children haven't even properly learned their mother tongue yet, and adding another language would be a big burden.
In Inner Mongolia, many children only begin to properly learn the Mongolian script -- a unique alphabet written vertically that ultimately derives from the Middle East -- when they enter elementary school.
"Now, Chinese is already spoken everywhere in cities as well as pastoral areas," he said. "So I hope school can be the place where (the children) learn Mongolian properly."
For its part, the regional government has emphasized that the new curriculum is a policy decision made by the Party's central leadership.
"Our region is a model autonomous region, firmly implementing this policy is a major political task that we must fulfill," it said in the meeting on Tuesday.
According to the overseas Mongolian scholar, however, parents are not against the use of standardized national textbooks -- as long as they're translated into Mongolian. In fact, she said the curriculum previously used in Mongolian-medium schools had all been translated from Chinese textbooks used in other parts from the country.
"The (old) education system has worked very well," said the scholar, who grew up in Inner Mongolia and attended Mongolian-language schools in the countryside.
"The children don't have any problem speaking Mandarin ...They're already bilingual."
Generational shift
Some experts have noted that the new education policy is part of a broader, generational shift of ethnic policy in China, which is veering from the Soviet model of ethnic autonomy to a more monocultural model.
Under the old Soviet model adopted at the founding of Communist China and written into its constitution, ethnic minorities are meant to be granted a degree of autonomy in designated regions to run their own affairs and preserve their language and culture.
But in practice, critics say it is the Hans who have the real say and hold key positions. And in places like Tibet and Xinjiang, ethnic language, culture and religion have come under increasing restrictions.

That shift has accelerated under Xi, who has unleashed a heavy-handed crackdown in Xinjiang, where US officials say up to two million Uyghurs have been detained in internment camps where they are forced to denounce Islam and learn Mandarin Chinese. Uyghur activists have accused the campaign of "cultural genocide."
And now, some ethnic Mongolians worry that Inner Mongolia will be the next in line for the so-called "second generation of ethnic policy."
"It's not at all promoting ethnic harmony," said the overseas Mongolian scholar. 'It is creating much more trouble than promoting harmony. It's really counter effective."
Togochog, the New York-based activist, said people in Inner Mongolia are merely defending their legal rights guaranteed in the constitution and the regional ethnic authority law. The Chinese constitution says "all nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages."
"People are merely pushing the government to fulfill (its) own promise," Togochog said. "They are not saying 'we want to overthrow CCP rule' or 'we want independence.' They didn't even mention human rights...(all) they want is to save their language."

But coercion and intimidation have already kicked in, according to residents.
Qiqige, a 38-year-old mother in Xilinhot, said some chat groups of Mongolian parents on WeChat, China's popular messaging app, have been shut down, and authorities last month blocked Bainu, a Mongolian-language social media site.
She said police have detained some protesters, and Party members and civil servants have been told to send their children back to school or risk losing their jobs. Some parents have already bowed to pressure, she added.
At the meeting on Tuesday, the regional government ordered officials and teachers to "proactively promote the policy to students, parents and the public, and dispel their concerns and misgivings" to "ensure students return to schools as normal."
On Wednesday, the public security bureaus in several districts of Tongliao city in eastern Inner Mongolia released wanted lists of people accused of "picking quarrels and provoking troubles" -- a charge routinely used by the Chinese government to suppress dissent, with individual photographs showing them in crowds or gatherings. Some photos appear to show parents outside schools, and some wanted lists specifically mentioned that the incidents happened outside schools. In Horqin district, the list has so far included 129 people.
But Qiqige, the mother of two in Xilinhot, has vowed to continue to protest against the policy until authorities give in.
"As long as we're Mongolians, we'll resist to the end," she said.

PM U.Khurelsukh visits construction site of oil refinery plant infrastructure www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On September 3, Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh along with four of his cabinet ministers became acquainted with the construction progress for the infrastructure of the oil refinery plant as well as the apartment villa for workers being built in Altanshiree soum, Dornogobi aimag.

Chinese Police Offer Cash Rewards in Hunt for Inner Mongolia Protesters www.bloomberg.com

Chinese police are offering cash rewards for clues that could lead them to more than 100 people, as public demonstrations swept through cities in Inner Mongolia over the introduction of the Mandarin language in some school lessons.

Mongolia urged to sell stake in Rio Tinto mine www.afr.com

The Mongolian prime minister who allowed Rio Tinto to kickstart a $US5.3 billion expansion of the Oyu Tolgoi mine says the developing nation should sell its stake in the giant copper project in a bid to accelerate cashflow and soothe political tensions with Rio.

Five years after he struck a deal with Rio chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques to restart the expansion, former Mongolian prime minister Chimediin Saikhanbileg said it was time for the "arrogant" miner and the government to resume constructive talks and realise they were "in the same boat".

The relationship between the Mongolian government and Rio - the nation's biggest employer, foreign investor and an important lender - has soured since Khaltmaa Battulga was elected president in July 2017 on a platform of reducing foreign control over Mongolia's natural resources.

The two parties are bound for arbitration over a tax dispute and the Mongolian government has flagged a desire to revise aspects of the seminal legal agreement that underpins Rio's work in Mongolia - the 2009 Oyu Tolgoi Investment Agreement.

The Mongolian government has a 34 per cent stake in Oyu Tolgoi but regularly borrows from Rio to pay for its share of construction costs, and Mr Saikhanbileg said Mongolia would be better served by selling that stake.

''I support the idea that today’s complex ownership structure should be simplified. In my opinion, the ideal structure from our side is that we should sell the current 34 per cent stake to Rio Tinto or another third party and renegotiate the tax arrangement so the government can begin to collect taxes and other benefits from the project,'' he told The Australian Financial Review.

The Mongolian government will not receive its share of dividends from Oyu Tolgoi until its debts to Rio are repaid, meaning it could take a decade or more for Mongolia's 34 per cent ownership stake to generate tangible dividends.

Last year's multibillion-dollar cost and schedule blowouts on the Oyu Tolgoi expansion have only exacerbated the Mongolian frustrations, sparking political tensions over whether the nation was getting its share of the mine's wealth.

''The 34 per cent ownership has become the main cause of all misunderstanding and political confrontation in Mongolia. Moreover, with such a change, it would be easier for Rio Tinto as well to manage Oyu Tolgoi’s daily operations,'' said Mr Saikhanbileg.

"In 2009 and in 2015 when Oyu Tolgoi agreements were signed, a majority of people in Mongolia believed Oyu Tolgoi was a good thing. But populist politicians and resource nationalists have succeeded in seizing the narrative, and now some Mongolians are being told that Rio Tinto is fleecing their country.''

The comments come after the Mongolian government flagged in December it was willing to discuss swapping the 34 per cent stake for a special royalty.

Mr Saikhanbileg has spent much of the past year in North America after the current Mongolian regime charged him with abusing parliamentary process over the 2015 deal he struck with Mr Jacques to restart expansion of Oyu Tolgoi.

While the case against Mr Saikhanbileg has been suspended, similar charges have proceeded against several of his top lieutenants who assisted in striking the deal with Rio.

Former Oyu Tolgoi directors Bayanjargal Byambasaikhan and Ganbold Davaadorj were both given jail sentences in July after Mongolian courts found them guilty of charges relating to the deal.

The charges related to process, rather than personal gain.

Mr Saikhanbileg said those jailings were ''a profound injustice and an assault on rule of law'' which showed Mongolia was headed in the wrong direction.

''The current government believes they can change the Oyu Tolgoi agreements or even kick Rio Tinto out of Mongolia by jailing those politicians and experts who negotiated them in the first place,'' he said.

''It is unfortunate that Rio Tinto has never acted in response to these developments, and has never spoken up to set the record straight.

''Rio Tinto and the government should realise they are in the same boat and should work together.

''Rio should also abandon its arrogant behaviour and treat the government as its business partner, while the government should be more reasonable and treat Oyu Tolgoi as a business, removing the politicisation of the project.''

The ownership structure of Oyu Tolgoi has long been complex; the mine is owned by an eponymous Mongolian company, which is 34 per cent owned by the Mongolian government and 66 per cent owned by Canada's Turquoise Hill Resources.

Rio gets its exposure through its 50.7 per cent stake in Turquoise Hill and is the operator of the mine.

Rio said in 2019 that Oyu Tolgoi had a recoverable value of $US8.3 billion, suggesting Mongolia's 34 per cent stake could be worth close to $US2.8 billion.

Turquoise Hill, which has virtually no assets beyond its 66 per cent stake in Oyu Tolgoi, had a market capitalisation of $US2.33 billion this week, but its valuation is depressed amid expectations it will need to conduct a dilutive equity raising within the next two years.

by: Peter Ker

Oyu Tolgoi mine starts sourcing power domestically www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/. Mongolia starts supplying power to Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine. Specifically, ‘Southern regional electricity distribution network’ state-owned company and Oyu Tolgoi LLC today has established a power supply agreement.

Trade and economic cooperation with U.S. to be strengthened www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Deputy Prime Minister Ya.Sodbaatar met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to Mongolia Michael S. Klecheski.