BEIJING: Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsuh is paying a state visit to China just two days after the Zuunbayan-Khangi railway, the third railway to connect Mongolia with China, started operations on November 25.
Apart from boosting connectivity, the two neighbors joined hands to fight the COVID-19 epidemic by gifting one another with sheep and tea as well as deepened cooperation and exchanges in various fields.
The two countries have set a good example for state-to-state relations, Chinese President Xi Jinping noted on Monday during his meeting with President Khurelsuh.
In the face of the rising instability and uncertainty in the international environment, China is willing to work with the Mongolian side to build a community with a shared future and promote the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership so as to better benefit the people of both countries, Xi vowed.
Xi urged the two sides to deepen the three alignments between the Belt and Road Initiative and Mongolia’s Prairie Road development strategy, the Global Development Initiative and Mongolia’s New Revival Policy, and China’s “two-stage” strategic plan and Mongolia’s long-term development policy, so as to create three engines for further development of bilateral relations.
In 2013, Xi proposed the Belt and Road Initiative to improve regional connectivity and economic integration. The Prairie Road development strategy, an economic plan introduced by Mongolia, aims to boost trade with neighboring markets.
Mongolia’s New Revival Policy covers comprehensive reforms in the areas of port, energy, industry and green development, among others. While Xi on Monday voiced China’s willingness to deepen bilateral cooperation in areas such as economics and trade, energy and mining, connectivity, information technology and deep processing of livestock products.
Xi said China supports Mongolia’s “Planting One Billion Trees” plan and is willing to explore the possibility with the Mongolian side of setting up a Sino-Mongolian cooperation center for desertification control. The Chinese president also called for promoting the construction of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor and the project of laying the China-Russia gas pipeline traversing Mongolia.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
