L.Purevbaatar,
deputy chairman of the newly established logistics center, has said in The Mongolian Mining
Journal that
talks with China on transit transportation have been stalled since Mongolia
announced its decision to build the railway to Russia, and not China. At
present, Mongolia enjoys no preferential treatment from China as a landlocked
country. “We could discuss railway transit through China only if it offers
discounts, and I personally think we would profit by letting our two neighbors
compete with each other on offering better terms to us. That is what our
negotiation strategy should be. Maybe our decision to take the railway to the
north was an attempt to nudge the southern neighbor,” he has said in an
interview.

If its big neighbors follow the strategy of “moving a big rock by manipulating
a small rock”, Mongolia can also try to “push a large rock with another as
big”. He has said, “We must take advantage of the strategic interests of others
to see that ours are met.”