With more than 50% of its population constituting Buddhists who follow and worship the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader, Mongolia risked it all for his visit to the country last month. Despite being highly depended on China economically and politically, Mongolia invited the Dalai Lama on a religiously visit to the country despite total objection and warnings of grave consequences from China.
Though it was not very unusual situation as the Dalai Lama was making his ninth visit to the country, China has put itself in a very peculiar position to ensure that it can dictate rules to any country today.
“There was actually no apparent reason for going hyper since this was the ninth visit of Dalai Lama to Mongolia. But then China’s comprehensive national power (CNP) has risen since, even as the economy is slowing down. China perhaps also wanted to signal strong resolve on Tibet to US President-elect Donald Trump, other than the Communist Party of China (CPC) indicating to the Chinese public that it is in total control and can dictate terms to any country.” says a report in the First Post.
Post the Mongolian decision to prioritise its Religious Rights in front of the economic necessity, China indefinitely suspended all its official interactions with Mongolia.
“But this is not all: Mongolian trucks crossing into China’s autonomous province of Inner Mongolia are now charged a toll tax of Yuan 10 (Rs 97.9) per truck, and 0.1 percent of the worth of the cargo if it is beyond Yuan 10,000.” said the report.
“Mongolia says China has closed a key border crossing, creating huge congestion, nearly a week after the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, visited the country. Hundreds of truck drivers for the mining conglomerate Rio Tinto are stuck at the Gants Mod crossing in southeastern Mongolia in freezing temperatures.” said another report in Aljazeera.
However, in this time of difficulty, India has offered its assistance to the country. “Assuring Mongolia that India is sympathetic to the problems being faced by it, Delhi has said it will help the country utilise the $1 billion financial assistance offered in 2015 to tide over the economic sanctions imposed on Ulan Bator by China in retaliation for inviting Dalai Lama.”