An economic minnow but a geographic titan, Mongolia is of growing strategic interest to both the US and China, writes J Berkshire Miller.
‘Economic powerhouse’ isn’t a term usually associated with Mongolia—lack of development, political uncertainty, and limited resources continue to restrict its growth. Nor is ‘strategic pivot’—Mongolia is, after all, a landlocked country with no ports, a small army and an underdeveloped infrastructure. And yet numerous countries in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond are starting to recognize that this geographic titan (it’s larger than France, Spain, and Japan combined) has real potential to become a key strategic partner.
China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Vietnam all already maintain missions in the dusty capital, Ulan Bator. But interest extends beyond regional neighbours—the United States, Canada, Australia, and several European Union states have also indicated they are keen to boost bilateral ties.
Why the interest? In the cases of China and Russia, shared history and geography make Mongolia an essential strategic partner for a country wanting to hedge against one or the other (or both). In addition, Mongolia’s eastern border with China is less than 1000 kilometres from North Korea, making it an intriguing potential partner on security issues. Mongolia may not have the aspiration—or capacity—to develop a strategic weapons defence system, but a collapse of Kim Jong-il’s regime could mean all bets are off.
Either way, Mongolia has been developing increasingly close security ties with the United States. Through the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Mongolia contributed about 150 soldiers from the elite Mongolian Expeditionary Task Force (METF)—a sizeable number considering the country’s population—to help train the Afghan National Army in mobile field artillery techniques.
While nearly two-thirds of the METF in Afghanistan have now returned home, such moves have bolstered the broader relationship with both NATO and the United States. This deployment has also built on the US goodwill Mongolia secured through its troop contributions to the Iraq War, which prompted visits by then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then President George W. Bush—the first sitting US president to visit the nation.
And the Obama administration has indicated that it intends to build on this progress. Last August, the Mongolian Armed Forces (MAF) and the US Pacific Command conducted its annual joint-training exercise, ‘Khaan Quest,’ which was first undertaken in 2004 and is aimed at further enhancing the MAF’s expertise in peacekeeping and counterterrorism. Khaan Quest continues to attract observer and participating nations from across the globe, with South Korea, Thailand, Canada, India, Japan, and Fiji all in attendance recently.
Photo Credit: US Navy
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Alan
Russia occupies parts of traditional Mongol tribe territories, and fought with them for centuries and there is no complains from the Mongolian nationalists.
It does sound like propaganda from the past Cold War mentality. Americans will never like the Russians even though they never fought against each other in any war.
I have visited inner Mongolia as a visitor. I like the Mongolian culture. It is very romantic to be a nomad, riding horses, living in tents.
China is a big melting pot, consisting of mostly Hans, and smaller races, of which Mongolians is one. Mongolian people who live on the grassland still speak Mongolian, but they understand Mandarin from school. They are friendly toward the Han Chinese, as Han Chinese are friendly to them. That is the fact.
How one feels toward China is personal, influenced by political, religious, and sometimes wrongfully racial bias.
I do think as China becomes more and more modern, democratic, and militarily capable. It will win more countries over. For example, there are more and more people learning Mandarin due to the success of Chinese economy.
I hope the next generation of the people in this world will see that we are not that different given genetically we are 99.99 the same. There is no need to hate each other for the outward differences and 0.01 different genes.
As for religions, there has to be room for reason and restrain or we may as well not have it at all.
Bat
@chinese
I repeat again: As long as China and Han Chinese illegally occupy, brutally colonize and mercilessly exploit traditional Mongolian lands and peoples (Inner Mongolia, other places and ethnic Mongols) in the so-called People’s Republic of China, there will be no respect and trust for the Chinese! When 40 percent of your land and 50 percent of yur peoples are colonized by others, what will be your reaction except hatred and dislike?
regarding genes: I repeat again: Modern genetic sciences proves that Mongolians and Chinese have nothing to do with each other: Mongols are Eurasian stock related to Turks, Kipcahps and other Eurasian peoples whereas the Chinese come from Pygmy tribes in Polynesia and Micronesia in the South Pacific. I know that many Chinese like to claim Mongolian heritage because Mongolians are brave, strong, smart, and with lighter skin, higher noses and attractive compared to shorter and darker Chinese with broad noses and thick lips. It is socially prestigious in China to have a MOngolian heritage. However, the Chinese have no Mongolian heritage whatsoever, and the Chinese remian tranformed Pygmies genetically.
regarding racism: Who is racist here? The Chinese who attack Tibetans, His Holiness Dalai Lama, Uighurs and Madam Kadyr with racist slurs day and night? or Mongolians, Tibetans and Uighuirs who respond and defend their dignity? By the way, I remind you that we-Mongolians are Tibetan Buddhists in faith, and His Holiness Dalai Lama is our ultimate spiritual leader. And you-Chinese insult and humiliate our spiritual leader – His Holiness as “wolf in monk’s rob”. You-Chinese worship your Mao Ze dong who killed more Chinese than the entire human death during WW2. How about if someone calls Mao as “beast and devil in Chinese hanfu”? Do you like it? of course not.
Therefore, you-Chinese deserve to be at the receiving end of insults and humiliations!
Some of you doubt if I was Mongolian and read the following respond:
Huuhedee iddeg lalaryn hujaa min huuhdee ideed amaa tataad suuj bai, novshoo!
John Chan
@Bat, the way you rant seems you are not a Mongolian, more in the style of an Indian, like John, Johnny, milton, etc. Their ranting is totally off base, history and reality. Their comments are not to discuss issues in the article or issues facing the people in life. The sole purpose of their comments are to incite hostility between people they think they can benefit it from, it is their speciality to trick somebody to fight for their war, because they are so corrupted and incompetent to do on their own.
Bat, if you are real Mongolian, then good luck for you, because China will move on its peaceful rise, Outer Mongolia will fall in line like the rest of people in Asia, together with China Asians will become genuine politically independent from the West, and become equal partners in this global village.
Mark
Glad that we have people like John Chan who is calm and knowledgeable enough to keep readers see rational commments/responses here. Young lads like @Bat are just the pathetic victims of this propaganda carried out by some of the Western governments/medias to refrain Asia from reviving. Hopefully, when they grow up, they know how prejudicial and silly they were to rant like this.
Xian
Intersting topic going on here. Don’t know where to start but will Asians become independant from west along with China? Most likely not. Globalization is the new peaceful way of conquering nations and we all know that America is the leading nation in globalizing. Everyone that’s posted on this site is using English. And speaking of surrounding nations of China, we all know they would rather be independant rather than dependant on China. Vietnam and Mongolia uses alphabets for written communication and I believe Korea and Japan has their own and they all currently study English as their second language so I highly doubt the peaceful rise will go far. No hate or racisim intended, just laying down some facts. Cheers.
classic
But according to the newest 2000 census, 79.1% of the population of inner Mongolia is han chinese. It’s really too late to take it back. That part is no longer Mongolia anymore. ISBN 7-105-05425-5 This is the census, go check it if you want. The economic structure is also really different from mongolia. I wonder why inner mongolia have a stronger economy. Guess you guys shouldn’t separate in the first place. You guys don’t seem to know how to build a modern nation without the help from Russians and now Chinese.
Bat
@chinese
You complain that Mongolians hate the Chinese and China: Put yourselves in Mongolians’ positions when 40 percent of your country’s land (Inner Mongolia, Bayan-gol and Bor-tal districts in Xinjiang, Northern and Western parts of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shaanxi provinces) and 50 percent of world’s Mongolian population – 4.5 Mongolians in China, are brutally colonized and mercilessly exploited by 21 million Han immigrants in Inner Mongolia, 1.34 billion Chinese and Chinese Communist Party, WHAT WILL BE YOUR REACTION except hatred and distrust?
If the Chinese leave Inner Mongolia and other Mongolian lands and leave Mongolians in China free, then, Mongols may have certain respect for the Chinese people. As long as China and Chinese colonizes and exploits Inner Mongolia’s resources and people, there will be no trust and respect from Mongolians. This is as simple as that.
We-Mongolians still remember Our Mighty Lord Chinggis Khan’s words:
“Remind me every morning that the Chinese are many and China is not yet defeated”. This is the ideological foundation of our strategy with the Chinese!
mongol
Mongolia – lack of development, political uncertainty, and limited resources continue to restrict its growth??? Dusty Ulan Bator…
For your information Mongolia’s huge reseources and mining boom attracting foreign investors that willing to pay and bribe the authorities, where the country’s real GDP growth was 10% last year and its highly educated population grew up to 3 million. While most of us driving Range Rover and living in houses, amateur analysts like yourself produce stupid useless article like this one based on your oudated data and messed up ideas.
John Chan
@Bat, the West and its lackeys want to exploit Asians like in the old imperial days without resistance, the best way to exploit is to make Asians at each other throat for ever, they can come along and act as a nice guy to claim they are siding the weak against the strong, and play Asians against each other. Meanwhile they can rob Asians at ease, and all Asians will compete to sell themselves to the West and its lackeys in order to kill the next-door Asians.
Look at the hostility in the Indian subcontinent, it is a classic handy work of the British, divide and conquer. Such endless hostility created by the West is all over the world. Now they are bombing Libya in the name of human right, but they have been supporting Gaddafi more than 40 years. If Mongolian does not behave to the liking of the West and its lackeys, the way they bomb Libya is Mongolia’s example.
Your behaviour is exactly the West and Japan wants, so Mongolians will let them exploit willingly, because your hatred of China. This is also the reason why the West is doing utmost best to split Taiwan away from China with all kind of reasons. The West also have bigger design for China, they want to break China up for good. To preserve itself, China has to be strong enough to defeat the West and Japan’s conspiracy and hideous attempt. China’s military buildup is a forced response to those aggressors’ assaults.
While Mongolia was part of China during the Qing Dynasty, it was a big multicultural society; Mongolians never displayed the hatred and hostility like you. Even nowadays the Mongolians in China are enjoying better life than those in Outer Mongolia. It’s pity that you let your blinding hate of China cloud your wisdom that Chinggis Khan won’t approve, that is never make enemy with your stronger neighbour and expose yourself to unnecessary danger. Chinggis Khan would use intelligence, alliance and diplomacy to grow instead of knocking his head against wall.
BTW not all tribes in Out Mongolia agree with people in Ulan Bator.
This site is for people to present different opinions due to their different background and experience, we practice freedom of speech here, it is not a place for you to rant mindless racial slur and incite racial hatred.
Vinny
Bat, I’ve read your posts thoroughly and I am sorry to hear what is happening to your homeland (not sure if you’re really living there now). You seem to have a great passion for this issue which from what I can infer appears genuine. Have you perhaps considering devoting this energy to changing the status quo in the real world? I’ve been visited China several times, and visit the U.S. on regularly basis and they are both great nations. However, I truly do not believe that forming an “alliance” with the U.S. is the golden ticket to transforming Mongolia into the utopia you are imagining. Not sure if you’ve been there before, but if you have… you’ll know exactly what I mean (I’ve been to L.A., Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, San Fran, Dallas, etc.)
At any rate, I wouldn’t worry about Mongolians being overrun… if you really believe what you wrote earlier, I’m sure Mongolian genes are floating freely and are thriving in the Chinese genetic pool just fine after centuries of fighting in both directions.
Your posts are somewhat of an eye-opener, I will read up more on what China’s policies are for inner Mongolia and am now interested in perhaps visiting the area someday. Word of advice for you, if you want to add to the legitimacy of your posts, try to refrain from employing racial undertones. At the end of the day, it can be offensive to some people and this may ultimately undermine what you are attempting to accomplish here…. that is, to make Mongolia a better country. Best of luck.
Moses
@ monsieur Bat. I would suggest you to develop critical thinking as well as critical reading. Without doubt your heart beats for Mongolia. Do not blindly throw away unnecessary words, have reason. Your response will illuminate your face to me.
@ John this hatred, which I’d rather call “misunderstandings and intentional misleadings” between our people is very ancient indeed. But the most recent seeds of hostility were planted during the Sino-soviet split at which the MPR sided with Soviet Union. They were showered with propaganda and fertilized with memories of “Kuomintang Occupation” against whom my ancestors fought and history lessons. The people on the both sides of the Great Wall have lived in friendship and at war for thousands of years. History is already gone, people interpret it differently but we take what is necessary for real-time purposes.
To me race, language, culture etc are to put it simply results of geographical factors. A group of people got separated and moved around. Some decided it was nice place to live and settled some didn’t and moved on. They had to deal with different conditions so they adapted in terms of body, mind, behavior etc.
Vinny
Just another pawn the U.S. wooing corner China into the wall. India, ROK, Japan, ROC, and now Mongolia… who else is next?
I find it hilarious yet equally appalling that some people on this board are trying so hard to draw lines between which race is what and where and how they came to be? (And what’s more silly is who’s better!?) WHO CARES. Bat, Mongolians are GREAT. Indian Bully, South Asians are GREAT. John Chan, Chinese people are GREAT. I have friends from all 3 heritages and I see many more similarities than differences between them. I don’t know where you guys are living, but from where I come from… we all get along JUST FINE. Time to focus on more important things like fighting world hungry, preventing the ice caps from melting, and so forth. China from what I’ve seen so far had made far strides in feeding its 1.3 BILLION people and are at least attempting to stem the tide of spiraling fossil fuel demand with massive investments in renewable energy. Mongolia and India is still, from what I can see, focusing on the first one, which is fine. They will get there eventually. Why all the hate? Don’t you guys have mommas?
Johan Chan
@Vinny, I have no clue why did Bat and Ard start this racist attack on Chinese out of blue. Are they real Mongolians? Or they are surrogated Mongolians by Indian, Japanese, Yankee or any of those anti-China clique who just want to create hatred toward Chinese.
Vinny
That’s a real shame if this is true racism. I am usually very careful to label anyone as being truly racist, especially on the internet where written words can easily be misinterpreted. With that being said, I don’t really know if Bat and the other fellow are truly “racist” in real life but may simply be frustrated with the state of the world of which he lives in. There is not a doubt in my mind that the current governing entity is China has its short-comings. But it seems somewhat presumptuous in my opinion that one can infer that an individual of a certain heritage (Chinese in this case) should bear the burden of all blame for a situation or action carried out by a government which he or she took no part in electing. Do you guys agree? Moreover, John, I would not worry about these postings “spreading hate” towards people with a Chinese heritage, what it really boils down to at the end of the day is who you are as an individual, no more, no less. And for those whom you cannot convince to accept you for who you are because of your background, they are really not friends or acquintances worth having. So be yourself! Be Chinese, Indian, Mongolian, Brazilian whatever! Life’s too short to waste on these internet boards of hate and ranting = ) This will be my last time contributing here.
Erdene
I am a Mongolian. We do “hate” the Chinese, because it’s in our blood. We’ve battled for almost 2200 years,Huns vs Han, Mongol Empire vs Jin dynasty, 1921 Revolution, etc. It is our nature to behave aggressive and hostile towards the Chinese.They never respected our culture.They’ve never thought of us a human beings. When they invaded us in 1919, they made our Bogd Khan bow to the Chinese President, they raped and murdered our women, tortured, and killed our adult men, drowned our children, made our elderly people crawl through ditches, They chained and raped our women in the prison, knocked down our men,then raped our women in front of them, burned the children alive… We will never forget that. You will know how it feels, if you do it yourself.
The Chinese had almost 11000 infantry forces deployed in our city called Khiagt, but our barely 1000 men defeated their garrison in 1 night, on 1921-03-18. We showed them that we are not many, but we will defeat them no matter what.
But in return for that,we mistakenly liberated their country in August,1945, in conjunction with the Soviet Forces. How stupid we are…
from Mongolia
Dear John Chan,
They are real mongolian like me. You are disinformed about mongolians because your communist government hides truth form your nation . Mongolians live much better than chinese . Unfortunately, because of history and the case of inner mongolia, uigar we arenot friends. Honestly speaking , chinese are colonizers who are torturing our brothers in inner mongolia and uigur.