Mongolian diplomat says China’s new import fees an overreaction to Dalai Lama’s visit

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Mongolian diplomat Gonchig Ganbold.
Mongolian diplomat Gonchig Ganbold.

(TibetanReview.net, Dec08, 2016) – By imposing new tariffs on transport of goods coming from Mongolia in response to the to the Dalai Lama’s visit to Ulaanbaatar over Nov 18-23 China is over-reacting, breitbart.com Nov 6 cited Mongolian diplomat Gonchig Ganbold as saying. He has said the visit was only a religious one.

“We have not changed our ‘One China’ policy, so Beijing’s response to Mongolia hosting the spiritual leader is really not justifiable,” he was quoted as saying.

The diplomat is said to have issued a statement, requesting India to speak out against the fee.

The report cited a Financial Times report as saying the new fee particularly affected copper and coal exporters and that one such company had already suspended its operations on the border. The Rio Tinto corporation has suspended coal shipments into China out of its Oyu Tolgoi mine because the new fee “has led to safety and security concerns as well as unreasonably long waiting times to cross the border.”

The Financial Times report has noted that the official reason for the new fee was “mainly for the repayment of principal and interest of bank loans taken out for port infrastructure construction as well as port facilities maintenance, management and other normal operating costs.”

CNBC report was cited as having reported, however, that the Chinese Foreign Ministry had refused to deny that the tax was a punishment for Mongolia’s reception of a prominent opponent of Beijing. It noted that Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had reiterated that “China has expressed its position many times” on the Dalai Lama.

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