All over the world, when dealing with developing nations, the economic giants of the West continue to adhere to their normal neocolonial policies. The tendency to treat sovereign states as colonies and sources of raw materials, ripe for asset stripping by Western capitalists, is particularly marked in the case of Mongolia, which has a relatively small population but significant mineral wealth, which, even during the colonial period, was not directly exploited by the Western powers. It therefore serves as a fairly rare illustration of a new predatory phase in the West’s economic expansion, which began around…

On June 22, the visit of the Speaker of the Parliament (State Great Khural) of Mongolia to the Russian Federation ended. It is important to note that this is the first top-level Mongolian visit to Russia since the start of the Special Military Operation; the country’s president last visited Russia on an official visit in December 2021, the foreign minister in the summer of the same year, and Parliament Speaker Gombojavyn Zandanshatar himself in 2019. Even though there was no meeting between the speaker of the parliament and the Russian president and foreign minister, the visit can be considered one of the most significant events in Russian-Mongolian ties in the last year. Gombojav Zandanshatar is a member of the Mongolian political elite who has personal memories of Russia; he was educated at Baikal State University…

Mongolia is currently putting the finishing touches to its preparations for a visit by the Speaker of the House of the People, the lower house of India’s Parliament, which will take place from July 6-9 this year. The visit was announced in a meeting between India’s ambassador to Mongolia and the speaker of the State Great Khural, Mongolia’s unicameral parliament. The two countries have a long history of mutual relations, despite the geographical distance separating them. Both countries consider that their diplomatic relations can be traced back…

In 2022, Russian business faced…

The rapprochement between China and Russia in the last few decades has been a very significant development for the entire system of international relations. The partnership between these two major countries is developing at a rapid pace and without let up, in many different areas and taking many different forms, and it is also managing to resist considerable pressure from external factors – from the waves of sanctions imposed on Russia in 2014 and again in 2022, to the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the country most affected…

The “third neighbor” for Mongolia is a set of the large states that do not have a direct geographical boundary with Mongolia and are distinguished by a high level of socio-economic development and a democratic political system. The very concept of the “third neighbor” dates back to the events of the early 1990s, when US Secretary of State James Baker, during his visit to Mongolia (1990), called his country “Mongolia’s Third Big Neighbor.” The idea of balancing between Mongolia’s two enormous direct neighbors (Russia and China) by building intense and deep partnerships with…

In March-April 2023, an annual “Politbarometer” was conducted in Mongolia – a comprehensive survey of public opinion on a variety of issues related to politics, the economy, and the public welfare of the country. In May 2023 the processed results of the survey were posted on the web site of its organizer, Sant Maral. Many milestone events have occurred in Mongolia over the past 12 months: the largest corruption scandal in the country’s history, accompanied by major social unrest; the recovery of coal exports to China; the commissioning of the deep mine at Oyu Tolgoi deposit…

Recently it became known that the Pope will pay an official visit to Mongolia this year. The statement following the meeting of the Secretary of the Holy See for Foreign Affairs with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia even mentioned the exact date of the visit – from August 31 to September 4, which indicates the intensity of his program. This is a state visit – the Pontiff was invited by the President of Mongolia Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh. However, it is wrong to assume that the idea of the visit entirely belonged to the Mongolian side – back in February, the Pope himself mentioned Mongolia…

On May 21, 2023, the first official visit of the President of France to Mongolia in the almost sixty-year history of relations between the two countries took place. The visit was accompanied by a number of “rituals of respect” – in particular, a solemn ceremony in the main square of Ulaanbaatar, as well as a trip by the French leader to the Genghis Khan Museum. At the end of the visit, a joint declaration was presented and the desire of the countries to achieve the level of “comprehensive strategic partnership” in bilateral relations was expressed…

The Ukrainian situation is still being actively debated in Mongolia. However, a trend has emerged in Mongolian writings on this topic from the beginning of 2023: the Mongolian media and experts are increasingly talking about the prospects for resolving the crisis rather than the current crisis situation itself. Simultaneously, the ideas of Mongolia mediating a peaceful conclusion to the conflict are steadily gaining traction in the country. Currently these ideas are only circulated within the media and the community of experts, but they already have a big presence in the country’s media space. On March 23, 2023, The Diplomat published…

Mongolia is increasingly in the sights of most major geopolitical players, according to modern experts in the field of international relations. For example, the United States intends to establish an Indo-Pacific region in which Mongolia will play an important ideological and political role. Mongolia is regarded as an important East Asian…

There are numerous evaluations of the development of Mongolian attitudes towards significant global players by the international media. According to a number of international experts, the Russian Federation’s foreign policy actions since 2014 have allegedly pushed the Mongolian public away from Russia, forcing them to look increasingly hopeful…