Russia’s glowing potential as a bastion of stability in the new multipolar order seems endless. When the United States and her European allies waged economic war on Moscow, the conventional thinking was that the Russian people would suffer. Today, geography, cultural considerations, and especially the idea of overall beneficial relations all favour the world’s largest country. A look at Russia-Mongolia ties and recent initiatives is further evidence of this.
Russia has long-standing ties with Mongolia. Besides being neighbors, the two nations have deep-rooted cultural relations spanned decades. For generations, key Mongolian leaders, scientists, and artists have been educated in either Russia or the U.S.S.R. More recently, Russia-Mongolia business ties have also grown stronger. Mongolia plays a vital role in the connectivity between China and Southeast Asia. Mongolia’s geographic location and the ensuing economic relations are now driving the once “trapped” nation’s growth.
One essential facet of this new growth is the connectivity between the Trans-Mongolian Railway, which links China to Russia’s Trans-Siberian railway system. This connection is an incredibly vital link between Eastern Russia and the rest of East Asia. Mongolia’s big plus in this regard is the $3 billion in Russian exports through the country. Some key exports from Russia include oil and natural gas, machinery, chemical industry products, vehicles, and various metal products. Russia imports primarily natural resources such as salt, sulphur, lime, stone, textiles, and other products.
Given the current climate of West-East détente, it’s to be expected that Washington and her allies will do anything to try and derail the burgeoning Russia-Mongolia partnership. A recent Foreign Affairs magazine story shows how adamant and unrealistic the liberal order in the West has become. The authors even pirated a term from Vladimir Putin’s far-reaching economic theory, his Third Way. “Mongolia’s Search for a Third Way” raises the ludicrous question, “What America Can Offer a Country Stuck Between China and Russia?” Authors Tuvshinzaya Gantulga (Rio Tinto Mongolia’s chief advisor) and Sergey Radchenko (See Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs) unwittingly reveal the West’s panic over expanded Asian economic and détente scenarios that more or less exclude American and Europe. That is, except as customers.
A book could be written about how the United States could and would make Mongolia into an Eden-like paradise in exchange for creating a substantial stumbling block for Russia, China, all of East Asia, and even the expanding BRICS group. Unfortunately, Moscow, Ulaanbaatar, and Beijing are already on the road to forging ironclad partnerships not just on trade but also regarding security, cultural exchange, technology, and infrastructure projects, to name a few. If you read the news outside the Western media dome, you see Russia sending 10 million doses of veterinarian vaccines to the Mongolians. Conversely, a proposed $1.6 billion uranium mining deal between France and Mongolia, which is crucial for France’s nuclear energy sector, is now on hold.
Now, FP’s story featuring Rio Tinto’s minion on the ground in Mongolia takes on a new meaning. What’s under the ground in Mongolia is all any Western nation or company cares about. Take the stalled Orano deal Emmanuel Macron and his chums must have been thrilled about. Orano, which has been in Mongolia for over two decades, is a prime example of neoimperialism at work since after WW2. These state- or conglomerate-owned companies go in like America’s USAID, offering peanuts in social initiatives and education grants and then extracting untold trillions in natural resources from the people of Mongolia and other nations. But this is fodder for another report.
To fully grasp the panic the West feels over Mongolia, one only has to read the jargon of Washington think tanks, like the Jamestown Foundation’s most recent prayer for Russian failure. “Three Developments in Mongolia Increasingly Worry Moscow” is a solemn plea to the gods of luck for some natural or manmade disaster to spoil Russia-Mongolia-China relations. I would link you to Paul Goble’s (CIA spook/propagandist), but its transparent lunacy might make the reader queasy.
Goble raves like a lunatic about a so-called Siberian Exodus of Russians to Mongolia and other tidbits from the folks who tell Joe Biden what to do and say. My point is that seeing Russia, Mongolia, and China trade up by a factor of at least 3x and seeing how Mongolia has prospered since the emergence of multipolarity, anyone can see the old order is on the ring ropes.
Like all those “news” stories about Mr. Putin’s gunslinger disease, or cancer, brain tumors, and idiot Russian assassins applying too little of the world’s deadliest nerve agents to doorknobs, Mongolia’s future tied to dying empires is as stupid. The days of hegemonies 10356 km (Washington to Ulaanbaatar) away from their colonies are over. Mongolia will surely never forget Russia forgiving 98% of the country’s debt, and reduced/guaranteed oil and gas prices also bear mentioning here. Russia is also the prime advocate of Mongolia’s full membership in the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Mongolia’s expressing interest in joining ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is yet another indication that a solid Asian block is taking shape.
Mongolia is a crucial block in what seems like an unbreakable Eurasian wall that is home to almost three-fourths of the world’s people. And Russia’s economic expansion is, as it always was, the inevitable future.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
