China has imposed sanctions on Mongolia in retaliation for their welcoming Tibet’s spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama to their capital Ulaanbaatar last month. The visit went ahead despite warnings from Beijing, who have now reacted to the situation by raising tariffs on Mongolian trucks passing through Chinese territory.
Mongolia’s Ambassador to India, Gonchig Ganbold, has asked for India’s support. “India should come out with clear support against the difficulties that have been imposed on Mongolia by China, which is an overreaction to the religious visit by His Holiness Dalai Lama. We have not changed our ‘One China’ policy, so Beijing’s response to Mongolia hosting the spiritual leader is really not justifiable,” he said.
He also said that with winter temperature already around minus 20 degrees an arbitrary transport obstruction caused by China is likely to create a humanitarian crisis in Mongolia.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said, “The erroneous action taken by the Mongolian side on Dalai’s visit hurt the political foundation of China-Mongolia relations and exerted negative impact on the development of bilateral relations. The Chinese side requires the Mongolian side to genuinely respect China’s core interests and major concerns, take effective means to remove the negative impact caused by its erroneous action and bring China-Mongolia relations back to the track of sound and steady growth.”
Following the four-day visit by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Ulaanbaatar, China has frozen all official ties with Mongolia, postponing all bilateral interactions and cancelling scheduled talks –ignoring Mongolia’s assertion that His Holiness’s visit was purely religious.
China labels His Holiness the Dalai Lama as “separatist”, saying that he promotes separation of Tibet from China. His Holiness visited Mongolia for a four-day trip from November 18.
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