Vladimir Tavridi, international observer

If one looks at the map of Eurasia from the point of view of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, you can see a vacant space in its very center – Mongolia, which was the first observer state in the SCO, but does not aspire to become its full member.

Mongolia is an amazing country, located between two great powers – Russia and China – and has no other borders, as well as access to the sea. This is one of the largest states in the world, occupying an honorable eighteenth place in this rating. At the same time, Mongolia is in last place in terms of population density – two people per square kilometer of the country’s area.

Nature has not deprived Mongolia of natural resources. Mongolia is one of 16 countries in the world with uranium reserves. It possesses 2% of its world reserves. The country has the largest deposits of copper, coal, molybdenum and tungsten. The main commodity of Mongolian export today is fluorspar, which is used mainly in the metallurgical and chemical industries, more than half of the supply of which to the foreign market is provided by Mongolia.

Mongolian society, being the spiritual heir of the Great Moghuls and one of the pillars of Buddhism, has been drawn into the orbit of Chinese influence for many centuries. And only after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 in China, the northern part of the territory inhabited by the Mongols began to form its own statehood, in which the Russian Empire took an active role first, then the troops of Baron Ungern and, finally, Soviet Russia. It was the USSR that had a decisive political, military, ideological and, mainly, economic influence on the development of Mongolia as a sovereign state.

The social experiment of building socialism in a feudal-theocratic state allowed society to get rid of religious dependence, in which more than half of the male population was celibate Buddhist monks, which led to a demographic catastrophe. The military presence of the Russian army, then white formations and subsequently Soviet troops made it possible to expel the Chinese colonial administration, defend independence during the period of Japanese aggression in the 30s and stop the attempts of the Maoist leadership to return Mongolia to China, as happened with Tibet and East Turkestan.

Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mongolia was drawn into the close economic, military and cultural orbit of its northern neighbor. GDP grew, industrial production developed, and an educational program was completed. Of great importance was the transition from the medieval vertical Tibetan writing of religious books to conventional writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

It is a curious fact that in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, a wide belt enveloping Outer Mongolia, literary works published in the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet are in circulation as a kind of reaction to the assimilation of the Mongols living there by the Chinese. In modern Mongolia, they do not forget that throughout almost the entire 20^th century, China sought to “unify” the Mongolian ethnos by absorbing the entire territory inhabited by this people.

After the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the weakening of Russian influence, Mongolia has been trying to demonstrate a multi-vector foreign policy since the early 1990s, balancing between immediate neighbors and a “third party”. In Mongolia, this is called the “third neighbor” concept. This refers to the states of Western Europe, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the USA and some others.

Ulaanbaatar quite skillfully used the international assistance of Western countries to create a virtually new liberal economy. At the same time, in recent decades, the “Steppe Republic” has become an object of active American policy, including the military-political sphere. The Mongols, albeit nominally, participate in all humanitarian US military operations. Mongolian-American exercises are held annually, code-named In Search of the Khan. True, at the same time, the Mongolian leadership, regardless of party orientation, rejects Washington’s proposals to create a network of military bases on its territory.

In such circumstances the interaction of the Mongols with the partners in the SCO is maintained, and in some areas even strengthened. In 2014, within the framework of the SCO, a historic meeting of the leaders of the three neighboring countries took place. Its uniqueness lay in the fact that in recent history the leaders of the three countries have never met officially together. The only and very distant historical analogue was the Kyakhta Conference of representatives of tsarist Russia, China and Outer Mongolia in May 1915. In the post-Soviet period, there was not even a hint of the implementation of projects in a trilateral format. Therefore, such a meeting was a very serious geopolitical breakthrough. In 2022, the sixth meeting of the leaders of the three countries took place at the Organization’s summit in Samarkand.

Russia actively supported the idea of creating an economic corridor Russia-Mongolia-China. It was also emphasized that during the period of work in the trilateral format, the total Russian trade with China and Mongolia increased by almost 60%.

The Chinese side actively supported the wider use of settlements in national currencies, as well as an increase in the number of Russian and Mongolian enterprises included in the yuan payment circuit.

It was especially emphasized that the strengthening of comprehensive ties between Russia, China and Mongolia fits well with the development processes of the Eurasian Economic Union, with the work on the implementation of the Chinese One Belt One Road initiative and the Mongolian Steppe Road initiative.

However, behind the loud political statements one can clearly see the problems that hinder these processes. During Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow in March this year, the construction of the Soyuz-Vostok gas pipeline, which will have to pass through the territory of Mongolia to China, was not put to rest, although its construction should begin next year.

The development of the raw material sector of Mongolia, which is heavily dependent on foreign investment (Mongolia ranks first in the world in terms of foreign aid per capita among countries with economies in transition), is a big question mark. Moreover, this happens by the decision of the Mongols themselves: due to the numerous accusations of officials that they are selling the country, laws were passed that complicate the work of foreign companies.

There were also frictions with Chinese businessmen, for example, in the coal industry (suffice it to recall the corruption scandal associated with the sale of Mongolian coal to China, which affected the very top of the Mongolian political elite). The Chinese were offended in earnest and even declared that they would no longer buy a single bag of Mongolian coal. Nevertheless, Ulaanbaatar clearly expects to receive a generous sponsor in the face of Beijing. At the same time, the Mongolian leadership is trying to turn a blind eye to the growing anti-Chinese sentiment in society.

Mongolia also remains a neighbor of Russia, and it is important for it to restore the role and benefits of a key partner for our country. The Mongolian side will have to take into account that with all the investments from China and the political support of the “third party”, such important resources as gas and water will always come exclusively from Siberia, and alternative routes for the Chinese output of Mongolian products to seaports are possible only through Russian territory.

After the closure of the project called the Mongolian People’s Republic, its permanent political leader, the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, returned to power at least three times and has now lost it once again. Attempts to follow the Chinese path were unsuccessful. The desire to join the Western values also did not give fruitful results. The political leapfrog in the country after the collapse of the USSR does not allow maintaining a stable domestic and foreign policy.

Participating as observers and associate members of major regional organizations such as the SCO and APEC, Mongolia does not even come close to considering itself in any capacity with respect to the BRICS. In fact, it has turned into a kind of Central Asian similarity to India and, balancing between the interests of the leading political powers, it is trying to use its strategic and natural-economic position in order to extract the maximum benefit with minimal obligations.