Mongolia is seeking greener pastures with the US and India to balance China’s influence

Mongolia, with its large, resource-rich land mass and small population, is economically dependent on China. Will its courtship of India and the US pay off?

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US President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as he welcomes Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on July 31. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:00pm, 17 Nov 2019Updated: 9:44pm, 17 Nov 2019

While being sandwiched between China and Russia, Mongolia regards the United States as a “third neighbour” and crucial to its destiny.

Modern Mongolia was established in 1921 as the second communist nation after the former Soviet Union but transitioned into a democracy with free elections in 1990. Having failed to find true friends in its two immediate neighbours, democratic Mongolia looked further afield. It found the US, which came to consider Mongolia as a democratic sanctuary between Russia and China. Earlier this year, the US and Mongolia declared a strategic partnership as part of Washington’s Indo-Pacific framework.

Mongolia is also exploring diplomatic opportunities with its “fourth neighbour”, India, the world’s largest democracy. Around a week before China’s Communist Party celebrated its 70th anniversary, Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga paid his first state visit to New Delhi on the invitation of Indian President Ram Nath Kovind. It was a subtle but clear message to China.

In India, Battulga met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and signed memorandums of understanding on a wide array of bilateral issues, both regional and global. Modi was the first Indian prime minister to visit Mongolia in 2015, also seen as a coded message to China, which is has border disputes with India.

Like China and India, Mongolia has a long history of civilised culture and Mongolians view their neighbours through a historical lens. Genghis Khan, who conquered much of the Eurasian land mass, is very much a part of Mongolia’s national identity. The Mongol empire extended from the Korean peninsula to the Carpathian Mountains and from Siberia to the Indian subcontinent and Indochina. Genghis Khan’s grandson Kublai Khan was the first Mongol to rule China, establishing the Yuan dynasty.

Though the Yuan dynasty never enforced interracial marriages with Han Chinese, the Khan DNA spread widely, as Genghis Khan had had more than 500 concubines across the empire. For the Chinese, both the conquest and the earlier brutal invasions into the Middle Kingdom are part of the subtle psychological wounds of history.