Donkeys, mules cross border, find new destination in Nepal, China: The demand of donkeys and mules has gone up in Nepal and China. These animals are the good mode of transport even in the adverse weather on the hills of these countries, they are also being imported from Nepal for past one year, importers of Nepal are sending them to China.

Talking to Nepali traders the author learnt that about 90% of these mules were exported to China where the price for mules allegedly quadrupled.

Against the background of the fervent construction of roads in the Himalayas, the surge in demand for mules may seem strange. But the roads bring more goods and these goods still need to be carried across passes where the roads have not yet reached. In this sense, it may well be that more roads mean more mules – at least for the time being.

Channel NewsAsia sees a direct link between the two stories:

China has stopped sending fleeing North Koreans back across the border, in retaliation for Pyongyang failing to consult its ally over last week’s rocket launch, a Japanese report said Wednesday.

The Yomiuri Shimbun quoted two Chinese officials as saying the long-standing policy of swiftly returning any North Korean who made it across the border and into China — despite the punishment they face — had been put on hold.

Beijing based The Economic Observer published a report by Chen Yong that highlight economic aspects:

The textile industry in Pyongyang and other cities grew substantially after South and North Korea held a joint summit in June 2000 and trade restrictions were loosened, said an executive from a Dandong trading company.

However that commerce dried up after the sinking a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in March 2010 and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November that year.

Since then many North Korean workers have been made redundant, and the textile firms that employed them have been trying to export workers to China, with the tacit consent of their government.

Finally, Victor Cha (Huffington Post) searches for the deeper reasons for China’s North Korea policy:

In terms of strategy, the policymakers in Beijing do not see a tough line, which could lead ultimately to a North Korean collapse, as being in China’s strategic interests. This is because the decision makers on North Korea are not in the foreign ministry in China, they are in the party and in the military. And for both groups, a collapse of North Korea would leave a united Korea, that is a military ally of the United States, directly on its border. Such an outcome would only reinforce in Chinese minds an important lesson of history – instability on the Korean peninsula has never redounded to Chinese interests.

Speaking at a regular meeting of leaders from Mongolia’s private sector on Monday, Graeme Hancock, the chief operating officer of Erdenes-Tavan Tolgoi, suggested that the Mongolian government would not be able to appease the diverse foreign investors hoping to invest in the project.

“In my view, this is a very difficult group to put together into a consortium,” said Hancock. “We’ve got a pretty good chance it will never happen.”

If that were the case, Erdenes-TT was likely to reassume control of the property and lead the western block of the project itself, he said.

For an anthropological view of Mongolian mines and geopolitics, listen to the keynote Uradyn Bulag delivered last month at our conference “The Art of Neighbouring”.

is expected to balloon the Central Asian country’s GDP — an estimated $13.28 billion in 2011 — by more than 30 per cent when it starts full production later this year.

But the economic boon is also, for some, an environmental nightmare as the project will allegedly soak up valuable water resources in the already-arid Gobi. While reports vary, the mine plans to use up to 920 litres of water per second.

This is the Gobi Desert and water is scarce. Yet, Rio Tinto – the majority owner of Ivanhoe who has a 66% stake in the mines – says that there is nothing to worry about. The water used will be taken from a non-replenishable groundwater source, which would only be depleted by 20% over the course of 40 years.

This would create surplus reserves for the local population, a company spokesperson said. The company contends that by using Gunii Hooloi, it will not have to deplete limited surface water reserves used by herders.

Things in Mongolia happen at such a mind-blowing speed that making sense of such claims is very difficult. For sure, this is an issue to keep an eye on.

The Afghan government has relocated residents from Ainak to make way for the development of the mine. And once again there is the promise of jobs.
But five years after MCC won the contract, there is no sign of the railroad the company pledged to build to get the copper out.
“It will obviously be built before 2014, because they have to start commercial production somewhere in 2014,” says Tamim Asey, director of public affairs for the Afghan ministry of mines. He says that by 2014 the Chinese company will have built not one, but two railway lines, as guaranteed in the contract. But the fact is the Chinese contract has not been made public. A secret U.S. embassy cable published by WikiLeaks quotes Chinese officials as calling the promise to build railways “flexible.” Mining experts in Afghanistan are wondering what else in the contract might be flexible, says Haseeb Humayoon, a partner at QARA Consulting in Kabul.

I never read anything official from the Chinese government on the affair. But Wong found a commentary by Xiao Jie (China Tibetology Research Center in Bejing) which gives us some indication of how the Party sees the event. This year’s Kalachakra

… was not a political gathering, it was a political show staged by the Dalai Lama and his clique in the name of Tibetan Buddhism.

He added: “The assembly was filled with sermons instigating hatred, terror and extremism, and the self-proclaimed ‘government-in-exile of Tibet’ irresponsibly declared that it admired the spirit of the Tibetan people who committed suicide by self-immolation.”

Hundreds had protested in Inner Mongolia on Tuesday. They said a Chinese forestry company had taken their land, and they wanted local officials to help them get it back. (…)

The original protest erupted when locals tried to physically stop an excavator from working on the disputed land. Five people were seriously injured, according to the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center.

Locals had been appealing to authorities for months, according to the center. They said leaders of the protest have been repeatedly threatened.

See the entire report here.

The Chinese government fears that if they changed their policy towards North Korean defectors, it would be a slap in the face for the North Korean regime. There is a face-saving way around this: instead of changing their official policy, all they need to do is to not actively implement it by not instructing local police forces and security agencies to crack down on refugees.

Indeed, stories of forcibly repatriated North Koreans only do harm to the Party State’s reputation — domestically and abroad. On the other hand, quietly turning a blind eye on refugees coming in does no harm to Chinese interests. I have yet to see a convincing explanation for this shift in policy towards North Korean refugees.

Everywhere in Kachin, you see photos or paintings of Myitsone, the confluence of the Mail and N’Mai rivers and source of the Irrawaddy. The iconic image is visible in any public space and is a familiar sight even in non-Kachin areas (a “Myitsone Restaurant” near the Chinese embassy in Yangon is adorned with the image). It seems that Myitsone is to this region what Mount Fuji is to Japan or Mount Kumgang to North Korea: an emblem of the nation.
Why is this place so significant? Kachin legend has it that Father Dragon and his two sons, Hkrai Nawng and Hkrai Gam, were born here. Locals believe that, if the mountains are damaged, the dragons will awaken and bring disaster. Of course, many people don’t believe this, but the point is the Kachin do – and this is their land isn’t it?

In the third part, the author concludes:

I left Kachin state with two clear impressions. First, the people who cooperated most closely with China in the past (former Burmese Communist Party members, for example) are the fiercest critics of China today. They commonly feel that China cannot be trusted and that the Kachin should seek western support.

This is a very informative piece. Highly recommended.

Sita Niroula (Himalayan Times):

Loads of chiraito, a medicinal herb found in the Himalayan mountains, taken by locals of different remote areas in the district to export to Tibet for good income have been stored in Olanchungola as China administration has banned Nepalis to enter Tibet for a month fearing anti-China activities. Taplejung folk have been exporting chiraito to Tibet more than to Nepal and India for the past three years.

Olangchunggola, or Walongchung, is just a small village in eastern Nepal and the storage of some medicinal herbs for a couple of months there would not warrant a post, were it not for a few interesting details not mentioned in the article.

Walongchung was an important hub on a major trans-Himalayan trade route before the salt, grain and wool trade came to a halt in the 1960s. Each and every house has storerooms for salt and grain in the basement, and it is probably the first time in fifty years that these storage facilities are being used again. Also, chiraito — Swertia chirayita or tigta in Tibetan – is not just found in the mountains but actively cultivated in eastern Nepal. In fact, more than 5,000 farmers in the Taplejung area derive substantial cash incomes from the cultivation of this bitter herb, which is used in Ayurveda as well as Tibetan medicine. With the recent industrialisation of Tibetan medicine in China and the soaring demand for herbs, prices have gone up year by year. As a result, trade with Tibet has once again become an important part of the livelihood strategies in this region of Nepal.

Burmese authorities have told hundreds of villagers living near the site of the suspended Myitsone hydropower dam project in Kachin State to leave the area within 10 days or face the consequences, according to a local group monitoring the project.

These are resettled people who came back to their original villages after Myanmar’s president Thein Sein put the dam project on hold last September. China Power Investment (CPI) and Asia World, its Burmese partner, still have good friends in high places, it seems. And they have clearly not given up.

Laos is ending gambling in the former casino enclave of Boten on the Chinese border because of worries about crime, state media said Wednesday.
“There has been speculation over criminal activity in the gambling town, which forced the government to close the casino,” the Vientiane Times reported, without saying when the business was shut.

Donald Frazier (Forbes) was quick to note that the planned $3.8 billion casino complex in Cambodia will be more than happy to accommodate the homeless gamblers. Interestingly, however, the other Chinese-run Casino exclave in Laos, the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone on the Mekong, seems not to be affected by the closure of Golden Boten, according to Bikya Masr. The decision to close Golden Boten appears to have been taken after careful consideration. Bangkok Post cites the Vientiane Times:

The Laos government decided to act when the project’s developer began looking into selling the venture to another Chinese investor, the Vientiane Times said.
The new investors will not operate a casino in the area, the report said, but will instead develop the area into “a tourism destination,” it said.

The most interesting question is, of course, who is the new investor?