In the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the MMS Green Building has achieved Platinum certification under the LEED for Building Design and Construction rating system. As Mongolia’s first LEED v4 project and first Platinum project, this building has set the standard for the entire country’s green building future as a LEED Earth recipient.

LEED Earth is a campaign that offers certification at no cost to the first project overall and first LEED v4 or LEED v4.1 project at the Platinum level in countries where the rating system is still emerging. These projects’ leadership brings more sustainable and thoughtful construction to emerging markets.

The project owner, MMS LLC, is a Mongolian-based specialized supplier of advanced technology products, engineering and technical consulting services in the agriculture, mining, construction and energy sectors. The company brought on USGBC Gold member and LEED Proven Provider BEE Incorporations as a consultant to assist with the complications sometimes associated with a country’s first LEED project.

Sitting in the capital city’s newly planned smart growth and urban development zone, the multi-use MMS Green Building covers nearly 28,000 square feet of space that incorporates office spaces, showrooms, a workshop and a warehouse, connected by integrated technology systems to monitor output and efficiency. The building sits on a 107,600-square-foot plot of land that includes landscaping, green space and a garden.

Designing for occupant well-being

The project team focused on creating the highest possible indoor air quality and occupant health through an open design that allows high-quality views, natural ventilation and daylighting through highly efficient, triple-glazed glass windows, along with using low-emitting materials with the lowest possible VOCs. The HVAC system works in tandem with the building management system, which regulates performance to ensure superior indoor air quality and thermal comfort by using energy-efficient technology solutions for considerable cost savings on the overall operating expenses of the building.

A building with a glass facade set into a grassy hillside.

Using creative energy solutions

One of the highest-impact decisions made by the MMS Green Building team was to install a rooftop solar PV system with integrated battery energy storage, which provides 100% of the building’s energy. This curbs demand-response by load-shifting against peak demand hours through a hybrid solar inverter system, which separately regulates both on- and off-grid PV operations and redirects excess energy under the contracted feed-in-tariff to the central grid network.

“Our MMS Green Building is not only healthier, but [is] also setting a benchmark for how buildings should operate cross-industry in Mongolia. Our collaboration with BEE Incorporations established a momentum that will support the global goal for creating more sustainable future,” says Erdenebayar Jigmeddorj, head of the business development department at MMS.

As USGBC works to bring the environmental and human health benefits of green buildings to all, LEED Earth recipients put that into practice across the world by building spaces that raise the quality of life for their occupants.

Dulamsuren Demberel, a 58-year-old herder who lives an eight-hour drive from Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, finds it harder each month to make the household budget work.

Prices of flour and rice, among the basic staples Mongolia’s herders cannot produce themselves, have soared due to the war in Ukraine, with overall inflation running at an eye-watering 14.5 percent.

Even worse has been the 40 percent jump in the price of coal, as well as shortages recent protests have blamed on corrupt officials’ alleged theft of 385,000 tonnes of coal for sale in China.

In Mongolia, where winter temperatures often dip below -35°C, about 60 percent of the population lives in gers – traditional tents – that are not connected to the country’s Soviet-era heating and water grid, but instead heated using coal-powered stoves. More than one-quarter of households are made up of herders like Demberel, who relocate their flocks and gers several times per year.

“Last time when I went to the soum, they weren’t even selling coal,” Demberel, who shares her ger with her husband, her second-eldest son and his wife and five children, told Al Jazeera, referring to the provincial district nearby.

Meanwhile, Demberel, whose husband’s poor health leaves him unable to work, finds it hard to justify making the trek to Ulaanbaatar to sell sheep, wool and milk, the prices of which are in decline even as gasoline prices soar. Mongolia produces oil but, without a cost-effective means to refine it into gasoline, exports almost all of it to China.

While exports to China have declined in recent months as Mongolia’s economy slows under strict COVID-19 curbs, gasoline prices have risen as much as 65 percent since Russia launched its war in Ukraine in February.

“Unless you sell more than 30 sheep or something, it’s not worth it, even though we can sell in the city at a higher price,” Demberel said.

“It’s too far. Paying for gas and other expenses would just make it the same as selling it in the soum, unless you sell a lot.”

Mongolia, one of the world’s most sparsely-populated countries, is being squeezed economically by China and Russia, its two giant neighbours, which have historically dominated its vast landmass.

While Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused energy prices to skyrocket, China’s weakening economy has dampened trade even as some Mongolians question their government’s export of coal and other valuable resources to their southern neighbour.

Mongolia depends on Russia for electricity, gasoline, aviation fuel, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and diesel, about 60 percent of which comes from its northern neighbour.

China accounts for more than 80 percent of Mongolia’s total exports, 60 percent of imports and more than 40 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). Mongolia’s dependence on its bigger neighbours is immediately obvious when visiting any store, where packaging is covered with Chinese and Russian writing.

“Of course, we’re fully dependent on China and Russia,” Narangerel, a 57-year-old businessman in Ulaanbaatar, told Al Jazeera.

“We’re dependent on China in terms of our economy, and we depend on Russia for electricity. Also, we buy 90 percent of our coal and petrol from Russia. All other consumer goods come from China.”

Mongolia gained independence in 1921, after nearly 300 years of rule by China’s Qing Dynasty. Until the collapse of communism in the early 90s, the socialist Mongolian People’s Republic operated as a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

The former Mongolian territories of Tuva, Buryatia and Altai are part of today’s Russian Federation, while China controls the geographic area of Southern Mongolia as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

While Mongolia is independent, Moscow and Beijing continue to exert significant influence over the country. After the Dalai Lama’s visit to Ulaanbaatar in 2016, China punished Mongolia by closing off the border. Although he is the spiritual head of the Tibetan Buddhist faith, practised by the majority of Mongolians, the Dalai Lama has not been invited back.

Mongolians experienced a taste of what decoupling from China would look like in 2020 when the borders were closed as part of China’s COVID-19 lockdowns.

Mongolia’s economy shrank by 4.4 percent, prompting businesses to lay off tens of thousands of workers. Unemployment peaked at 8.5 percent in April of 2021 before declining to 5.4 percent in the third quarter of this year. Herders were not considered unemployed, although many could not get to the city to sell meat or milk during the height of the pandemic.

While the economy has rebounded, the recovery remains shaky due to China’s economic slowdown and the uncertain global economic outlook.

Mining revenue, which accounts for more than 20 percent of GDP, dropped by nearly one-quarter in the first two months of 2022, compared with the previous year.

Despite rebounding since October, resource export revenues remain well below pre-pandemic levels, with iron ore exports to China, one of the biggest money-makers, down 38 percent in the first eleven months of this year.

“We used to export fluorite to Ukraine, Russia and China. Now, we’ve stopped exporting to Ukraine. And because the border is closed with China, we can’t export to China,” M Uuganbaatar, a 40-year-old executive director at mining enterprise Bayan Jonsh Co, told Al Jazeera.

Previously, China accounted for 70 percent of Uuganbaatar’s business.

“Due to inflation, transportation and logistics, costs have increased,” he said. The one upside is that his exports are purchased in United States dollars, which he can use to hedge against a declining tugrik, the local currency.

So far this year, the tugrik has lost about 18 percent of its value against the dollar.

Oyuntsetseg Togoodorj, a kindergarten teacher in Ulaanbaatar who earns a salary of 800,000 tugriks ($234) a month, said feeding her four children is becoming increasingly difficult.

“Two hundred thousand tugrik ($59) a month, was enough to buy all we needed before but now it should be at least 600,000 ($176) to make barely enough to survive,” Togoodorj told Al Jazeera. “For the whole winter, we used to spend 400,000 ($117) for meat. Now it is 800,000 ($235).”

In addition to increased grocery bills, she is also dealing with higher school fees. “We’re paying four times what we used to pay last year.”

Anger and frustration over Mongolia’s dependence on its powerful neighbours is not hard to find.

Many Mongolians believe China and Russia discourage the construction of power-generation plants and factories in Mongolia for fear of losing their influence over the country. In one notable source of tensions, Russia has opposed the construction of a dam and hydropower generation plant along the Uldza River, claiming it would damage the ecology of Lake Baikal, which lies on the Russian side of the border.

While Moscow has protested the project on environmental grounds, many Mongolians believe its opposition is really motivated by a desire to keep their country subservient.

“Historically Russia claims to be our brother but they seem to keep us under thumb,” Ariunjargal Andrei, a 52-year-old construction engineer, told Al Jazeera. “We buy our electricity from Russia, so it isn’t beneficial for them if we build a hydropower plant. Therefore, they’re not allowing us to build it, claiming it’ll have a negative effect on Lake Baikal.”

“Russia is not allowing us to build the Enkh Gol power station,” Narangerel said. China is … we are getting so many loans that we are in really serious danger.”

For many Mongolians such as Narangerel, the answer to the country’s economic troubles lies in achieving greater independence.

“We’re not a producing country, we’re consumers,” he said.

Batmunkh, a 43-year-old accountant at the country’s fifth largest bank, Khas Bank, who, like many Mongolians, goes by one name, summed up the country’s economic problems simply: “The central cause of the success or failure of the Mongolian economy is the Chinese economy and China’s anti-COVID policy.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

This year marks the 57th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and Mongolia. France has long been a major supporter of Mongolia’s independence, sovereignty, and modernization; the French have demonstrated a keen interest in Mongolian culture, traditions, and anthropological research.

Sebastian Surun, the ambassador of France to Mongolia, spoke with The Diplomat’s Bolor Lkhaajav on France-Mongolia bilateral relations, short-to-medium term bilateral activities, and his personal views on regional security issues involving Mongolia’s neighbors.

During your appointment as ambassador of France to Mongolia, in which sectors is France aiming to enhance cooperation? What outcome do you expect in the medium term?

When we established diplomatic relationship back in 1965 – or you could say re-established, because from the 13th century there was a very dense flow of contacts between the French kings and the Mongol rulers – the global context was a cold war between the Soviet Union and the West. We are now in a different world, one which is both more open in terms of state-state cooperation, with more individual, civil society, and state agency; and also more challenging, as we see with Russia’s war against Ukraine.

So, we look through the prism of that different world at what France and Mongolia share. Mongolia and France share values of international law and the peaceful settlement of differences. We share our understanding of the importance of freedom, open society and democratic rule; and we share an appetite for cooperation, connectivity, exchanges.

From the French side, all of that is reflected in our Indo-Pacific Strategy – where Mongolia definitely has a place

Last year we celebrated 60 years of Mongolia’s admission to the United Nations. I believe this is a significant milestone for Mongolia. In Mongolia’s pursuit in seeking international recognition, France not only supported Mongolia’s membership in 1961, we were also among its earliest supporters, when the prospect of membership was first debated in summer 1946.

Moreover, multilateralism is, of course, a central component both of Mongolia’s foreign policy and of the many values we share. And multilateralism is at the heart of France’s three priorities towards Mongolia.

Our first priority is supporting Mongolia’s sovereignty. A practical example of France supporting Mongolia’s sovereignty, through enhancing the service a democratic government delivers to its population, is in our major civil society program. For example, we have 42 fire trucks delivered and trained hundreds of personnel from the National Emergency Management Agency, and have already assisted 50 operational helicopter flights and dozens of victims. France’s efforts in supporting Mongolia’s sovereignty also have seen growing links between our two parliaments, our judiciary, and academic communities, including think tanks.

Our second priority is fighting climate change. Our focus, including through B2B [business-to-business] exchanges, is in supporting energy independence through renewables, boosting food security, and developing agriculture exchanges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance the income of herders who produce sustainably. Mongolia joining the Global Methane Pledge during COP27 was a significant commitment.

Our third priority is the most visible: promoting our shared values through education, studies, and sports. Given Mongolia’s young population – median age of 28 – we have particular focus on youth-based projects. One example: The Olympic & Paralympic Games 2024, which will take place in Paris, will be a great opportunity for Mongolia’s capable sports teams. I have taken personal enjoyment from seeing the women’s and men’s basketball, cricket, rugby, and judo teams in action.

Moreover, within our third priority, we are also promoting our shared heritage. Next year, in October 2023, there will be an opening of an exhibition on Chinggis Khaan and the Mongol Empire in Nantes, France.

In your latest interview, you mentioned that France is interested in developing Mongolia’s natural resources – particularly, uranium. What challenges do you foresee for Mongolia to export its uranium either to China, Russia, or third countries, such as France?

Nuclear energy indeed makes up more than half of the electricity production in France, and 25 percent more comes from renewables. This is one of the reasons why we were less affected than other countries by the global energy crisis caused by Russia and its war in Ukraine. We see nuclear as one of the key components of energy transition, because nuclear energy production doesn’t emit carbon. French companies are also the only ones in the world to handle the whole cycle of nuclear fuel, including managing waste and spent fuel. Nuclear technology has many other uses, in which we partner closely with Mongolia: from medicine, archaeology and the manufacturing industry, all the way to smoke detectors.

In Mongolia, the French company, Orano, and the Mongol company, Monatom, are developing a mining project to extract natural uranium. The technology is called In Situ Recovery and is designed to be very protective of the environment. The same technology is used in Kazakhstan. As you would expect, Mongolia’s Academy of Science has engaged in detailed study of the environmental impacts.

I visited the site myself earlier this year. With the technology cleverly located underground, it’s simply the beautiful Gobi landscape and herds of camels that you see. When production of natural uranium from Mongolia starts – among the top ten deposits in the world – the uranium will be exported to one of the few facilities in the world that can manufacture fuel out of the mineral. How and where this happens is still very open.

And, with our long expertise in nuclear energy, France is ready to go further and support Mongolia too. Small Modular Reactors are a new technology that would probably best suit the size of Mongolia’s electricity and heat needs.

In the meantime, there is still a lot to be done to enhance Mongolia’s energy independence. Developing renewable energy should be a priority, given Mongolia’s huge potential: its 2.6 TW of renewable energy [potential] is the total electricity consumption of China today. With the right calls made in terms of relations with the private sector and cooperation on issues like grid improvement, a lot more could happen soon.

Making the most of Mongolia’s renewable potential will enhance the country’s green energy supplies, serve as an efficient way to fight climate change, provide better air quality, and ensure energy independence from its neighbors.

France has been one of the leading countries to assist Mongolia’s natural disaster management capabilities. What other assistance and training France will be implementing during your appointment as ambassador?

I must stress that much of what goes on between our two countries is not government-driven, but business-to-business. This is a tribute to the maturity of private enterprise in both countries, driving our exchanges in every regard and understanding how potent economic exchanges and free enterprise can be.

Our cooperation with Mongolia’s National Emergency Management Agency is ground-breaking. The many trainers who come here from a diverse range of French Civil Security Units consistently tell me of the fantastic spirit, creativity, and responsiveness of their Mongolian counterparts.

Taking this opportunity, I am delighted to announce that year, we will have a Civil Security officer based in Ulaanbaatar. We want to take our cooperation in emergency management to the next level.

France is also assisting Ulaanbaatar to fight traffic congestion. We need to develop an urban transport system. The only mass transit project with financing, and where studies have properly started within the governor’s office and engineering bureau, is the French government-financed cable car project. Cable cars are used widely in urban transport, they operate specifically in cold and windy conditions, and they have a very light footprint on the ground. We want the cable car project to be an affordable and practical means of travel for the capital’s whole population.

Also, I am proud of what our embassy is achieving in Mongolia. But the critical thing is supporting and facilitating capable and dynamic businesspeople on both sides to have free exchanges and cooperation.

How do you view Mongolia’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war? Some countries (like India) have come under more pressure for not denouncing Russia, while other countries (Kazakhstan) have gotten less pressure. In your view, where does Mongolia fall in that spectrum?

In a region lacking integration and cooperation, Mongolia develops into a more established and mature democracy. Former President Elbegdorj Tsakhia’s “flame of freedom” is a powerful image of Mongolia. To me, that flame is burning ever stronger in Mongolia, even as democracy has been coming under strain in every part of the world.

France understands Mongolia’s geography: Mongolia is truly between a rock and a hard place. This can lead to vulnerabilities, which some countries feel they can use to exert pressure. And that can impact how the government sees Russia’s war in Ukraine, and what it chooses to say publicly. But it’s also important to note that in an open society like Mongolia, these things are debated in public, where decisions can be challenged and scrutinized.

From my observation, Mongolia’s population has a deep understanding for what is at stake in Ukraine. They understand that this is about the fundamental values of international law and sovereignty. And it’s about a country’s agency, by which I mean that country’s foreign alignment is selected by its people, not by force, not by its neighbors, not by another foreign power’s misguided historical revisionism.

Finally, I’d just say that Mongolia is clearly very capable at creating political space, and in making pragmatic decisions in pursuing its multilateral-oriented foreign and security policy. This is a view shared by France and the European Union.

There are many books written on Mongolia by French scholars. And you have been in Mongolia for a year now. What was something that surprised you about modern Mongolian society?

There are indeed very good books written by French scholars in different fields, for example, most recent, by Antoine Maire. The French academic community on Mongolian studies is hugely active and cross-disciplinary.

Since arriving, I have been impressed by the quiet way in which both the government and the private sector create space to act and develop Mongolia’s sovereignty and its economy, even during COVID-19.

I have also been struck by the energy emanating from Mongolia’s population. I believe its youth, the level of education, but also faith in the country’s future play a major role. As the speaker of the Mongolian parliament (The Great Ikh Khural) Zandanshantar told me when I first met him, the challenge for all of us is to prove that democracies can deliver. It’s clear that Mongolia’s democracy delivers – maybe not as quickly or as evenly as its people might want, but the development has nonetheless been nothing short of spectacular over one generation. Just look at infant mortality, access to higher education, size of the road network, and e-Mongolia.

As a diplomat, we try to identify, understand, and bridge cultural differences. I see how Mongolia’s ancient traditions are kept alive even among young urban Mongols. For example, the reflex of shaking someone’s hand when you inadvertently stumble on their foot in the street or raising a gifted book to your head as a sign of respect for books and knowledge. These are beautifully symbolic gestures still practiced every day. I am enjoying learning them too!

I also see many similarities between the Mongols I work with every day and the traditional French spirit called esprit gaulois, from our pre-Roman ancestors the Gauls, who were supposedly a sympathetic, rebellious, and feisty lot – if you know the cartoon character Asterix you will know what I mean!

GUEST AUTHOR

Bolor Lkhaajav

Bolor Lkhaajav is a researcher specializing in Mongolia, China, Russia, Japan, East Asia, and the Americas. She holds an M.A. in Asia-Pacific Studies from the University of San Francisco.

An earthquake was recorded on the border of Russia and Mongolia 1,284km away from Almaty city, Kazinform reports.

A quake measuring 6.0 on the MPV scale rocked the Russian-Mongolian border 1,284km northeast of Almaty city at 5:56am Almaty time today.

Mongolia will need to create more and better jobs than created over the past decade while increasing opportunities for women, young people, and urban residents, according to a World Bank report released today.

Mongolia’s sustained economic growth of 5.4 percent on average between 2000 and 2019 powered job growth and an increase in real wages. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought real challenges, with employment dropping by around 5 percent in 2021, though the government’s recovery package mitigated a potentially steeper decline, according to the Mongolia Jobs Diagnostic.

“Mongolia’s current challenge is that the labor market is not strong enough to create sufficient quality jobs for a growing labor force and reduce unemployment,” said Andrei Mikhnev, World Bank Country Manager for Mongolia. “There is a continuous supply of a young and increasingly educated labor force, but more and better jobs need to be created to meet their aspirations. This calls for a more conducive policies for business environment to encourage quality job creation in the private sector.”

The report highlights that less than 60 percent of the working-age population (ages 15 and older) participated in the labor market, and only about half were employed in 2021. Women, urban residents, and people with an intermediate level of education have the lowest participation rates. The transition of young people into the labor market is not going well, especially for the less educated. Even young people with tertiary education have high unemployment rates.

Skills mismatches pose another challenge as an inadequate number of skilled workers are prepared in strategic sectors, according to the report. In addition, many recent graduates do not have the skills needed in the labor market, especially to fill higher-skilled jobs.

The Mongolian labor market challenges require a diverse set of interventions that include all parts of government, especially those responsible for private sector development. The report recommends more dynamic job creation in the private sector, upgrading the workforce via reforms to improve the skills development system, and enabling social assistance beneficiaries to work. Other recommendations include improving the functioning of the labor market via a comprehensive labor market information system, transforming active labor market programs into effective tools for employment, and improving the protection offered by unemployment insurance.

Support for the Mongolia Jobs Diagnostic report was provided by the Korea-World Bank Group Partnership Facility.

Mongolia exported 4.39 million tonnes of iron ore in January-November 2022, down 38.1% or 2.7 million tonnes from a year ago, showed latest data from the Mongolian Customs General Administration (MCGA).

The total export value slumped 61.09% on the year to $370 million during the first 11 months, data showed.

China was the only destination of Mongolian iron ore during the period.

MCGA didn't release the specific figure for last month, yet Sxcoal calculated the exports at 512,100 tonnes based on the overall exports published by the customs authority, down 4.12% year on year and 24.33% on the month.

The iron ore exports amounted to $32.84 million in November, with average price at $64.13/t, down $18.81/t from a year ago and $3.13/t from a month earlier, data showed.

(Writing by Alex Guo Editing by Tammy Yang)

For any questions, please contact us by inquiry@fwenergy.com or +86-351-7219322.

The Minister of Energy, Choijilsuren Battogtokh, led the working team in the western region’s Khovd, Uvs, and Bayan-Ulgii aimags.

Specifically, the working team visited the Erdeneburen Hydropower Plant construction site to get acquainted with the project’s progress on December 7-9.

This project is being implemented across four soums of three aimags. Thus far, 22 boreholes have been drilled near the port, water transfer tunnel, and power station, and the construction of utility access roads in the project area is in progress. Henceforth, the training of Erdeneburen Hydroelectric Power Plant staff, placement of families and citizens in the new settlement area, compensation, construction work, and other related research work are expected to continue gradually.

Minister of Energy B. Choijilsuren also met with the residents of Erdeneburen and Myangad soums while working in Khovd aimag.

During the meeting, the officials said that to ensure the continuity and reliability of electricity in the western region, the Erdeneburen Hydropower Plant project will be advanced and special attention will be paid to intensifying the construction work.

Local citizens raised issues such as receiving compensation for being relocated as the area was taken as state special use for the implementation of the Erdeneburen HPP project, ensuring their normal living conditions, reducing negative environmental impacts, building roads, and improving agricultural irrigation systems.

The western region where more than 390 thousand people reside imports 75 percent of its energy needs from Russia and China, which means it uses five or six times more expensive energy than that being produced at Durgun HPP. The establishment of the hydropower plant will create the possibility to provide the country’s western region with domestically produced energy.

An irregular meeting of the Cabinet was held yesterday and a decision was made to impose an emergency regime for “Tavantolgoi Railways” JSC for a duration of six months. Head of the Legal Department of the Cabinet Secretariat N. Myagmar was appointed as the Government’s Special Representative for the company.

The resolution on the decision was presented by Minister of Road and Transport Development S. Byambatsogt and Deputy Chief of the Cabinet Secretariat U. Byambasuren. During the 6-month special regime, the following measures will be taken:

-Operations of the company will be made transparent and open to the public

-Governance of the company will be improved and operations and financial records and reports will be evaluated and reviewed

-Funding spent by the company on the construction project for the Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait railroad will be reviewed by an independent audit and a review will be issued.

-Contracts and activities that violate the law, conflicts of interest, and are not in line with the interests of the company will be transferred to the legal authorities for investigation.

The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a TV interview in Moscow on Sunday, when asked about where the relationship between Russia and the West is moving, “Well, we are not moving. We have already arrived at a station named ‘Confrontation’, and we have to be reserved, strong, to have underlying strength, because we will have to live in the environment of this confrontation.”

There are no peace talks and no end in sight to the conflict in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin said last week that Moscow’s near-total loss of trust in the West would make an eventual settlement over Ukraine much harder to reach, and warned of a protracted war.

In such an apocalyptic scenario, Russia’s immediate neighbourhood is turning into severely contested zones of superpower confrontation, as the US and EU try to encircle Russia with a ring of unfriendly states.

Such confrontation can take different forms. In the Transcaucasian region, the Western efforts aim to replace Russia as the arbiter between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The EU has presented itself as an alternative to the Russian mediation and peacekeeping.

Moscow viewed such attempts rather complacently initially, but has lately has begun worrying that the ground beneath its feet is shifting in Transcaucasia. The Western ploy is to incrementally elbow out the Russian peacekeeping force deployed to the region following the renewed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan last year over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Moscow plays both sides in the conflict and, quite obviously, the trapeze act is very delicate and taxing. Thus, in the period since Moscow’s special military operation began on February 24, the EU has succeeded in establishing a “monitoring mission” in Armenia and is advancing its plan to establish an OSCE mission to the region, which will challenge Russia’s monopoly in peacekeeping on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

Another active theatre of contestation is Kazakhstan where the West is constantly working to erode that country’s close relations with Russia. Kazakhstan’s multi-vector foreign policy aimed at attracting western investment has created pro-western interest groups among the country’s elites. Kazakhstan’s nationality question also creates sensitivity in its relations with Russia. Kazakhstan is a high stakes game for the West, as it borders China, too.

In comparison, the covert Western role in fuelling the recent clashes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as well as in encouraging Dushanbe to provide a “transit corridor” for the anti-Taliban rebels in Panjshir Valley poses a direct challenge to Russia in the security sphere. But much to the disappointment of the US, as tensions between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan flared last September and soldiers from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan exchanged gunfire along several points of the countries’ undemarcated border, Moscow and Beijing chose to remain on the sidelines.

To be sure, the conflict was among the most serious interstate military escalations in Central Asia’s history since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The conflict posed a big embarrassment to Moscow and Russia-led regional security organisations in Central Asia.

If the Western role in the Kyrgyz-Tajik conflict was a covert one, that is not the case with its increasingly proactive moves to build up the Panjshiris in Afghanistan as a “moderate” resistance movement to overthrow the Taliban government in Kabul, which enjoys cordial relations with Russia. The Panjshiris enjoyed the patronage of the French intelligence during the anti-Soviet struggle in the 1980s and the old links have been revived. The French President Emmanuel Macron has taken a hands-on role to cultivate his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rahmon.

Quite obviously, both in the case of the Kyrgyz-Tajik hostilities and in the spectre of another round of civil war in Afghanistan haunting the region, Russia’s security interests come under profound challenge. Russia remains the dominant presence in Central Asia and at the leadership level, Moscow wields much influence in Bishkek and Dushanbe. But the intra-regional strife and instability provide fertile ground for western manipulation of the ruling elites.

However, the latest wave of unrest in Mongolia carries ominous signs of a colour revolution. As in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the social media is active in stirring up protests. The protests began a week ago against the “coal mafia,” which has been allegedly profiteering from doing business with Chinese companies. But various conspiracy theories are spreading on Twitter, including that there would be an internal power struggle within the ruling party elites.

The government responded promptly with the cabinet deciding to put in the public domain for scrutiny nine contracts related to the state mining company at the heart of the affair and announcing that all future business deals on coal export will be with public knowledge. The government further announced that a parliamentary committee will probe the scandal.

Several hundred protesters gathered in the freezing cold at the city’s Sukhbaatar Square during the weekend and marched to the presidential residence with some people attempting to force their way inside the building, chanting and singing while stamping their feet to stay warm — eerily similar to the coup in Kiev in 2014.

Indeed, what lends enchantment to the view, from the geopolitical perspective, is that China is the destination of most of landlocked Mongolia’s exports of coal, cashmere, livestock and other resources.

The attempt at transforming the protests into an ocular revolution proper is still work in progress. According to the Associated Press, “Economic conditions have deteriorated in the country of roughly 3.3 million as inflation has soared to 15.2% which has been exacerbated due in part to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Coincidence or not, the protests in Ulaanbaatar followed the state visit by the president of Mongolia Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh to Beijing last month. This was the second meeting between Xi and Khurelsukh in two months. Beijing understands that it is also in the crosshairs of the West’s diplomacy in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. All these four countries fall in the first circle of Chinese interests in one way or another.

They give “strategic depth” to China; the economic ties with these resource-rich countries are not only hugely beneficial but also growing rapidly; they are irreplaceable partners from the angle of connectivity and the Belt and Road Initiative; and, regional security and stability are common concerns.

The paradox is, despite the convergence of interests and strong political and economic interests, and although their core interests are involved, it is becoming increasingly uncertain whether Russia or China can deliver on regional security guarantees. Moscow is under Western sanctions and Beijing remains extremely wary of confronting the US or the EU — although Mongolia is one country in Central Asia where the core interests of Russia and China overlap.

The US and EU are calculating that this is the best opportunity to consolidate and expand their influence in Russia’s Trans-Caucasian, Caspian and Central Asian backyard. Clearly, the Western powers are wading into the regional tensions and the probability of the Russian and Chinese opposition to it falling short cannot be ruled out.

The geopolitical stakes are high. Mongolia is the transit country for the proposed Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline channeling up to 50 billion cubic meters of gas from the Yamal Peninsula in the Russian Arctic to eastern China, and the construction work is due to start in 2024. Similarly, China, Mongolia and Russia have extended the Outline of the Development Plan on Establishing the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor by five years, which will unleash great economic potential and upgrade Mongolia’s role as a transit hub.

China-Mongolia cooperation on the construction of transportation routes and corridors has been greatly boosted in recent years, which has strengthened the logistics between China and Mongolia and greatly increased their transport capacity for bulk commodities, especially mineral products. The two countries are looking to dock multiple new railway lines with Chinese ports.

The US and the EU will do their utmost to wean Mongolia away from the Sino-Russian orbit, no matter what it takes. Interestingly, a NATO military delegation from Brussels travelled to Ulaanbaatar last week and held two days of talks with the Mongolian military leaders. Mongolia presents a combustible mix where all the key elements of the US’ confrontation with Russia and China are present, ranging from NATO’s mission creep to the Asia-Pacific to the BRI and Russia’s energy exports and of course the vast deposits of rare earths in the steppe.

By:

MK Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. The views are personal.

44 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in Mongolia on December 13.

19 of them were contacts in Ulaanbaatar, and 25 were registered in the regions. No imported cases were found.

The death toll from coronavirus remained 2,135.