/ world today news/ “The United States is not just our trading partner, it is the North Star of Mongolia’s market economy and democratic values,” such a compliment was made to the American partners during a recent visit to Washington by the Prime Minister of Mongolia Luvsannamsrein Oyun – Erdene, chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (ex-communists). Given that our Far Eastern neighbor is a parliamentary republic, we are talking about the position of the country’s leader.
Probably Oyun-Erdene himself believes what he says. The current leader of the country, whose border with Russia stretches for 3,500 kilometers and which in Soviet times was unofficially called the “Sixteenth Union Republic”, received a degree from Harvard in 2015. Given Mongolia’s geographical position, between two adversaries of the US , Russia and China, the former communist leader’s pro-American sympathies are very important to Washington.
“Mongolia’s prime minister sent a message to Washington from the Biden administration and corporate America: Although Russia and China are his country’s ‘forever neighbors,’ Mongolia sees its economic future with the West,” Politico noted on August 8.
The Mongolian Prime Minister’s talks with US Vice President Kamala Harris and State Department Secretary Anthony Blinken were not limited to praising American democracy.
What does the “third neighbor” need.
During the visit (which lasted several days and ended this Saturday), Oyun-Erdene signed several agreements to expand the work in Mongolia of US NGOs and, more importantly, the US government’s Agency for International Development, which is under the supervision of the State Department and the Senate. English, which this spring received the status of a major foreign language, is studied in Mongolia with the same intensity as Russian, at the initiative of American partners. The number of assistant English teachers has been increased by 50%.
In addition, according to Politico, the prime minister signed documents “aimed at facilitating US access to Mongolia.” More precisely to the richest Mongolian subsoil and mining industry, which was directly stated by State Secretary Blinken in a meeting with Oyun-Erdene. Earlier in June, the Mongolian Ministry of Mines and the State Department signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of critical minerals.
The “third neighbor” – as Oyun-Erdene called the US by analogy with two traditional neighbors Russia and China – intends to receive rare earth metals from Mongolia. By the way, Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX received permission to operate as an Internet provider in Mongolia, recently discussed the issue of purchasing rare earth elements with Mongolian officials.
Rare earths are valuable — needed, among other things, in the manufacturing of microcircuits and the nuclear industry — and the United States was getting most of them from China. Who clearly does not consider America to be his “guiding star”.
In the spring of this year, Beijing decided in response to the sanctions to tighten controls on the export of rare earth elements. And here the partnership with Mongolia was very useful. The benefits could be huge, “given Mongolia’s rich mineral resources, including copper and uranium, as well as rare earth elements,” the Washington Post notes with satisfaction.
“Americans must protect themselves. And here, probably, Mongolia would be such a promising potential market,” said Boris Kushkhov, an employee of the Department for Korea and Mongolia at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
American business is really actively entering the country – for example, “Wood Capital Partners” is already conducting exploration work there in search of copper. Mining giant Rio Tinto operates one of the world’s largest gold and copper deposits in Oyu Tolgoi.
At the same time, the French are watching the country. Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene, while in Washington, mentioned the desire of Orano, the leader of the French nuclear industry, to conclude a deal with Ulaanbaatar for the extraction of uranium for 1 billion euros. Given that the French lost uranium from Niger and want to get rid of dependence on Russian nuclear fuel, this is also important.
But the activity of the allies clearly does not prevent the growth of American influence. “Today I welcomed Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene to the White House to continue our work to promote a free and open region that benefits American security and prosperity,” said Vice President Kamala Harris.
Common friend
Democratic Mongolia “has been a trusted friend” of the US for the past thirty years, Harris said. The country, which until the beginning of the 20th century was a province of China, and from 1921 to 1991 – the closest ally of Soviet Russia and the USSR, is often cited as an example of a “post-communist transition”.
The country survived lustrations of former party functionaries, privatization and inflation. In the zero years, an impressive economic recovery began, but local politics shook in 2008. After another election for the Grand Khural, something similar to the color revolutions that took place in the post-Soviet space happened in Ulaanbaatar. The ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MNRP, reorganized in the 1990s, abandoned Marxism-Leninism but not the name) claimed victory in an election contested by the opposition liberals from the Democratic Party. The headquarters of the MNRP was captured and burned, then President Nambarin Enkhbayar declared a state of emergency.
However, the suppressed “yurt revolution” did not lead to the collapse of the political system. Enkhbayar lost the election to a Democratic candidate back in 2009, and in 2012 he was sentenced to four years for corruption. But in 2016, the Mongolian People’s Party, which had lost the word “revolutionary” in its name, returned to power.
Nowadays, Mongolia shows enviable results – economic growth became the highest in Asia and amounted to almost 8% in January-April 2023.
The degree of American influence on the Mongolian economy, we note, should not be exaggerated. As well as the safety of Russian influence on the former partner in the socialist camp.
Yes, Mongolians traditionally treat their northern neighbors well. The issue is not so much in the indefinite treaty of friendship and not in the fact that in 2005 Russia wrote off 98% of the Mongolian debt, but in historical memory. In the 1920s, Russia helped the Mongols in their struggle for independence, in 1939 the Soviet Union helped repel the Japanese attack on Khalkhin Gol, after World War II, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact protected the country from “Chinese hegemony”, and The union helps economically and culturally.
But 86% of current Mongolian exports (half of which are high-grade coal from billions of tons of reserves) go not to Russia or the West, but to the former metropolis of China. Despite the fact that internal hostility towards the Chinese – is highly developed in Mongolia.
Scandal with the Chinese
It was the coal destined for China that caused the unrest in December 2022, which was called an attempted revolution – the second after the events of 2008. The reason was a report in the media that some officials (both Mongolian and Chinese) had stolen 6, 5 million tons of coal that was destined for sale in China. Suspicions are confirmed, the Chinese part of the criminal group in the PRC is tried and sentenced to death, and the Chinese side gives the names of the Mongolian participants to Ulaanbaatar. The corruption scandal caused riots, which, according to established tradition, ended with the storming of the government building.
The protests ended without consequences for the system of power in general and for the current government in particular. The authorities arrested several officials and security officers involved in the “coal schemes”, announced the reform of the Erdenes mining company that figures in the case, formed a task force to investigate the scandalous cases.
The protests, importantly for Americans, were essentially anti-Chinese. “There is a growing concern among the masses that the country is too economically dependent on China, as according to citizens almost 95% of Mongolia’s exports go to China and most of the minerals are imported into the same country,” notes Boris Kushkov. The country is also mindful of the plight of ethnic Mongols living across the border in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said Alexander Lukin, scientific director of the Institute for China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences. But, he notes, “in principle, of course, they cannot escape trade relations with such a large trading country as China.”
How not to lose Mongolia
It can be assumed that the US will play the card of this hostility to Beijing in an attempt to gain a foothold in Mongolia, which is wedged between two hostile powers, experts say. If Mongolia’s balanced policy based on the balance of power between two “eternal neighbors” and a “third neighbor” suits Moscow and Beijing, the development of relations between Ulaanbaatar and Washington will surely make them wary.
The Mongolian prime minister himself commented evasively on the issue of relations with his neighbors and the attempt to get closer to the United States: “We have geopolitical tensions, but I am sure that our two neighbors will continue to respect our choice and partnership that we are developing.”
In order not to turn the “choice and partnership relations” into a reorientation of our neighbor towards Washington, Russia should not only remind of the age-old friendship between the two peoples, experts believe. As we noted earlier, a neutral and stable country with a good reputation on the world stage could be a good alternative for moving Russian production facilities to reduce the sanctions pressure on them. It was suggested that companies working in the field of microelectronics move to the neighbors. Mongolia is struggling with the desertification of its agricultural lands (contrary to popular belief, the country is not purely cattle-breeding; local farmers achieve productivity almost at the level of the Russian south), and here our specialists can help allies.
Finally, the rapid start-up of the Soyuz Vostok trans-Mongolian gas pipeline should help improve the reputation of the “first neighbor”. Mongolia has long sought the launch of this project to continue “Power of Siberia-2” to supply Western China with up to 50 billion cubic meters of gas per year, thanks to which the country will profit from the transit. However, as noted by Kommersant, although the implementation of the project seems profitable for all participants, the final agreement for the supply of raw materials has not yet been signed by the Chinese side.
Translation: V. Sergeev
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
and for the channel in Telegram:
Share on your profiles, with friends, in groups and on pages. In this way, we will overcome the limitations, and people will be able to reach the alternative point of view on the events!?
#Mongolia #sails #west #View #Info
