More Russian commodities expected to come into China www.chinadaily.com.cn

HARBIN - More Russian commodities are expected to come into the Chinese market, a Russian trade representative said.

High-level inter-regional conference against terrorism taking place in Ulaanbaatar www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ On June 20, the High-Level Inter-Regional Conference on ‘Whole-of-Society Approach’ to Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism and Radicalization that Lead to Terrorism kicked off at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The conference is being co-organized by the Government of Mongolia, OSCE Secretariat’s Transnational Threats Department (TNTD) and the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism.

Mongolia's possibility to become Eurasian integrated logistics hub discussed www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ A seminar themed ‘Logistics trend in Eurasian Continent and Role of the Mongolian Transport Sector’ took place on June 19 at Construction Development Center. The Ministry of Construction and Urban Planning organized the consultation in partnership with JICA.

Mongolia ranks 42nd in Global Peace Index www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Institute for Economics and Peace released its thirteenth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness.

Mongolia Rapidly Moving Out of Russian World, Raising Concerns in Moscow www.jamestown.org

For most of the Soviet period after 1945, Russians informally viewed Mongolia as “the 16th Soviet republic” not only because it tried to become one during World War II, but also because, even more than Bulgaria, it slavishly copied Soviet laws and practices. Notably, Mongolia introduced a Cyrillic-based alphabet close to Russian in 1941 (Asiarussia.ru, April 1, 2018). Moreover, it promoted Russian in its media and educational system to the point that, in many sectors, Russian displaced Mongol as the most frequently used language (Cod15.ru, May, 10 2018).

This pattern partially had its roots in the fact that Imperial Russia played a key role in Mongolia’s acquisition of independence from China just over a century ago. But additionally, it stems from the history of the Soviet Union using this large (one-third the size of the United States) but underpopulated (just over three million residents now) Northeast Asian country to put pressure on China, which still controls Inner Mongolia. Moscow further sought to use its dominance in Mongolia to prevent Beijing from using the Mongols against their co-ethnics inside Soviet Russian borders, the Buryats (or Buryat Mongols as they were known until 1958) (Fergananews.com, September 11, 2008). However, with the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989 and then of the Soviet Union itself two years later, all that began to change. And now, in the words of one Russian specialist, “an entire generation has grown up in Mongolia that does not know Russian” (Rossyiskaya Gazeta, June 11, 2019). Indeed, some in Mongolia even want to do away with the Cyrillic alphabet entirely and go back to the vertical script Mongols had used for centuries (Vb.kg, May 11, 2017; Gtrkchita.ru, April 17, 2018; 161.ru, May 16, 2019).

From Moscow’s perspective, such moves on language and alphabets in Mongolia are just as offensive and dangerous as similar policies in the former Soviet republics (see EDM, January 28, 2019; Commentaries, March 5, 2018). Indeed, they may be even more worrisome for two reasons. On the one hand, they introduce a new complexity to Russia’s relations with China, further undermining Moscow’s confidence that it can reliably expect Ulaanbaatar to be on its side in talks with Beijing. And on the other, changes in Mongolia in this regard are likely to have an impact on the already-restive Buryats within current Russian borders, who, to this day, follow closely what happens in Mongolia (Gazeta-n1.ru, March 17, 2017).

While Russian does remain the most widely known foreign language in Mongolia—Chinese has so far not made massive inroads as many had predicted—it is now very much a foreign language rather than a national one. It has not been a requirement for entry into Mongolian universities since 1990, and it has not been a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools since 2003, the year in which English replaced Russia as the required foreign language. What this means—and what anecdotal evidence appears to confirm (Quora.com, October 18, 2014)—is that while most Mongols over 35 know Russian, most below that age no longer do. This pattern suggests the role of Russian will continue to decline unless radical measures are taken, something Moscow would like to see but which Ulaanbaatar presently has no plans to introduce.

Just how dire the situation of the Russian language and, with it, of Russian cultural and political influence in Mongolia has become was recently described by Nyamzhav Naymdavaa, a Russian-language teacher in the Mongolian capital. In a paper for delivery at a Moscow competition on Russian-language use outside the Russian Federation, she recalls “the golden times of the end of the 1940s, when Russian was studied in all the schools of the country four or five hours a week, or the end of the 1970s, when a Pedagogical Institute of the Russian Language was established, an institution that, over the decade of its existence, graduated 1,847 Russian teachers.” Those times, she says, are not likely to reappear. Worse, Naymdavaa argues, in 1989, Ulaanbaatar canceled the contracts of all Russians teaching Russian in Mongolia. As a result, 500 lost their jobs altogether, and “more than 200” stopped providing Russian-language classes and began to teach English instead (Rossyiskaya Gazeta, June 11, 2019).

To be sure, the Ulaanbaatar-based teacher writes, Russian instruction did not completely disappear. But even positive steps contain negative aspects. Three years ago, for example, the Mongolian Ministry of Education said schools could reintroduce Russian-language courses but only where each could assemble “no less than 25” pupils who wanted to study the language. In some places, that has effectively blocked Russian instruction altogether. And she said she was encouraged that Ulaanbaatar has restored a Russian-language television program after canceling it 33 years ago.

Moscow has responded to this situation by increasing the number of scholarships for Mongols who want to study Russian in Russian universities, by providing more support to Russian-language instructors in Mongolia so that they can help the approximately 3,000 young people there in such classes continue, and by launching a major propaganda campaign against any further cuts in Russian-language instruction or any consideration of the idea that Mongolia should dispense with the Cyrillic alphabet and go back to its original national one (Russkiymir.ru, June 3, 2019; Vb.kg, May 11 2017; Gtrkchita.ru, April 17, 2018).

Moscow may be on the winning side of efforts to block a return to the pre-Cyrillic national script, as there are many Mongols who oppose such a move; but it almost certainly will be the loser elsewhere. All evidence seems to suggest that the Russian language will continue to decline in importance in Mongolia. And with that decline, Russian influence will wane there as well.

Péter Szijjártó concludes 57-million-dollar vaccine production plant investment agreement in Mongolia www.kormany.hu

“The Hungarian Government has concluded an agreement in Mongolia concerning a 57-million-dollar vaccine production plant investment, and Eximbank has opened a 46-million-dollar credit line to help enable Hungarian water management and mining industry enterprises that have already accumulated a high level of market experience to acquire an even larger share of the market in the Asian country”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI following negotiations in Ulaanbaatar.
“Thanks to the Government’s Eastern Opening policy, Hungarian enterprises are successfully appearing in more and more markets in the part of the world that lies to the east of us”, the Minister stated.

Rio Tinto looks at developing Simandou again — report www.mining.com

Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO) is mulling options to develop the giant Simandou iron ore deposit in Guinea, which almost sold last year to its partner in the project Aluminium Corp of China, or Chinalco, as it is known.

Mongolia Energy : year loss narrows to HK$44.43m www.marketscreener.com

[ET Net News Agency, 19 June 2019] Mongolia Energy Corporation Limited (00276) said its

India to overtake China as the world's most populous country: UN www.cnn.com

(CNN)India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous country in less than a decade, according to a new United Nations report.

Mongolia: Bridge or Buffer in Northeast Asia? www.thediplomat.com

What if you held a big party for 200 people and one of the guests you most wanted to see RSVPed but never showed up? This was the scenario with North Korea’s absence at the sixth Ulaanbaatar Dialogue (UBD) on Northeast Asian Security, a 1.5 level forum for officials and academics, which I attended from June 5-6 in the Mongolian capital. Nonetheless, Mongolia succeeded in making its case as a meaningful interlocutor on North Korean issues and a participant in Northeast Asian economic integration efforts, such as ongoing discussions about expanding the use of wind and solar power in a regional power grid.

Although Mongolia was considered as a venue for one of the summits between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, it was eventually not selected. Of course, it was not unexpected that North Korea would prefer an authoritarian host to a fledgling democracy that had made a transition from socialism. Nevertheless, Mongolia has played an important, if often overlooked, role over the years as a facilitator of Northeast Asian diplomacy with North Korean officials. As Foreign Minister Damdin Tsogtbaatar put it, Mongolia has the potential to be a “bridge for peace” in Northeast Asia, due to its own unique history as a socialist state and more recent development as a democracy.

Mongolia is also one of a few countries to enjoy good relations with both South and North Korea. Mongolia’s relations with South Korea have deep historical and cultural roots, and democratization in both countries has deepened their mutual affinity. Alicia Campi, a former diplomat and scholar of Mongolia’s foreign policy, notes that its longstanding bilateral relations with North Korea are “underappreciated.” Despite the differences in their trajectory after Mongolia’s democratic transition, the two countries have retained mutually beneficial economic ties, including the provision of North Korean guest workers (until sanctions prohibited this in 2018). Then-President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj used the occasion of a state visit to Pyongyang in 2013 to offer his country as a mediator in the nuclear crisis (as well as to praise democracy during his speech at Kim Il Sung university). The annual Ulaanbaatar Dialogue began in 2014 as a means of encouraging regionwide security discussion and reducing distrust among the parties in the aftermath the collapse of the Six-Party Talks.

Elbegdorj was the first foreign leader to meet Kim Jong Un, and his successor, President Khaltmaagiin Battulga, extended an invitation to the North Korean leader to visit Mongolia. In December 2018, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho visited Ulaanbaatar to celebrate 70 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Mongolian officials have also participated in a number of less public mediation efforts, helping to facilitate the return of Japanese abductees from North Korea and assisting South Korea in resettling North Korean refugees. As a nuclear weapons-free state and a small developing country surrounded by stronger powers, Mongolian officials believe their experience is highly relevant to ongoing discussions of security on the Korean Peninsula. To this end, at the recent UBD some proposed Mongolia’s participation in future multilateral talks on the nuclear crisis, a position that Russian officials supported in the past.

Apart from North Korea’s no show at the June 2019 UBD, the other hot topic in Ulaanbaatar was whether or not Mongolia should seek full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which both Russia and China have encouraged. Membership was restricted to China, Russia, and the Central Asian states until 2017, when India and Pakistan both joined. Mongolia has been an observer in the SCO since 2004. Some Mongolian officials contend that full membership would enhance trust between Mongolia, Russia, and China, and potentially add new dynamism to their trilateral economic cooperation plans. Others argue that such a move might compromise Mongolia’s “third neighbor” policy and that Mongolia does not share the same concerns as other SCO members over terrorism, extremism, and separatism. Moreover, at a fraught time in U.S. relations with both Russia and China, Mongolia’s membership in the SCO might be construed in Washington and other Western capitals as anti-NATO, despite Mongolia’s history of military cooperation with it. Certainly, Mongolia’s participation last summer in the major Russian military exercise, Vostok, along with a contingent of Chinese forces, raised some eyebrows.

While India has been able to navigate between membership in the SCO and its partnership with the United States and other democracies, it does not face the same economic or geopolitical pressures as landlocked Mongolia, which seeks to balance sustainable development with independence from its two powerful neighbors. Despite expectations of a shift in Mongolia’s position, Battulga’s attendance at the SCO summit in Bishkek did not lead to any change from his country’s observer status. Admitting that SCO membership remained controversial at home, the Mongolian president noted that “Mongolia is exploring levels of increase of its participation” in the organization and supported the additional opportunities at the Bishkek summit for observer states and international organizations to join in the discussions with member states.

Presidents Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Battulga met on the sidelines of the summit to discuss their trilateral cooperation in the framework of the China-Mongolia-Russia-Economic Corridor established as a part of the Belt and Road in 2014. In their individual statements, each president provided a different vision of what this corridor should involve. Given the lack of consensus among the three, it is not surprising that the corridor has made little progress so far, not even in achieving mutually acceptable feasibility studies, not to mention completing planned projects.

Mongolia has enthusiastically supported the trilateral economic agenda with its two neighbors, but bilateral issues have stymied its progress. On the one hand, the slow pace of Sino-Russian regional cooperation has held up trilateral plans for road and rail connections via Mongolia. For example, the bridge from Blagoveshchensk, Russia, to Heihe, China, on the books since 1995 and at long last constructed earlier this month, will be a key link in these new transit routes once road and rail connections are completed. The possibility of a second Sino-Russian gas pipeline transiting Mongolian territory depends on the protracted Sino-Russian negotiations over routing and pricing, as well as China’s view of pipelines transiting third countries as an energy security risk, a concern likely to color its view of a Northeast Asian energy grid as well. Other key areas of China-Mongolia-Russia trilateral cooperation (simplifying customs clearance and rail logistics) also need to be negotiated bilaterally.

On the other hand, the deepening Sino-Russian political partnership makes Mongolia’s effort to balance a good relationship with each of its two neighbors — with the goal of avoiding economic dependence on either one — all the more difficult. Although Battulga, responding to anti-Chinese sentiment in the Mongolian public, appeared to be tilting more toward Moscow in his first year in office, a series of meetings with Xi since 2018 have sought to rebalance Mongolian foreign policy, given the inescapable fact of the country’s considerable reliance on trade and investment from China. Nonetheless, excessive dependence on China for trade and investment creates new vulnerabilities, as economic stagnation in China diminishes its demand for Mongolian minerals, a fact that already worsened Mongolia’s economic woes earlier in the decade. The challenge will be for Mongolia to implement some of its creative foreign policy thinking, which looks beyond the immediate pressures of the two large neighbors and seeks to put Mongolia on the map through a variety of multilateral initiatives as well as its “third neighbor” policy.

Elizabeth Wishnick is a Professor of Political Science at Montclair State University and a Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.