New Mongols

Political Trouble Brewing

2006-01-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

There's trouble in the land of the eternal sky. Unfortunately, I don't have time to cover it. But a few other great blogs are, including Mongolian Matters and ….yuu bna? Some background may be found at Chris Miller's blog. Registan has a roundup plus a string of comments. Perhaps most informative is Tom Terry's blog, where Tom is liveblogging the situation.

There are also a few news sites that are devoting a lot of coverage to it, including Mongolia Web and The UB Post. Lastly, here are a few news stories that came to me through Inside World:

8.54pm Fury at Mongolian political crisis
Theaustralian.news.com.au - Thu Jan 12, 01:43 pm GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Demonstrations in support of Mongolian PM
Rnw.nl - Thu Jan 12, 11:03 am GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Hundreds of protesters storm Mongolian political ...
Wvgazette.com - Thu Jan 12, 11:57 am GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Hundreds of protesters storm Mongolian political party's headquarters
Www1.wsvn.com - Thu Jan 12, 12:05 pm GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Mongolia's cabinet near collapse
Dw-world.de - Thu Jan 12, 11:16 am GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Mongolia's largest party quits government
Washtimes.com - Thu Jan 12, 12:03 pm GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Mongolian Govt in crisis after mass resignations
Abc.net.au - Wed Jan 11, 03:19 pm GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Mongolian party agrees to rethink government pull out after protesters storm headquarters
Www1.wsvn.com - Thu Jan 12, 08:08 pm GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Protesters storm Mongolia govt. HQ
Read full story for latest details.
13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Protesters storm Mongolian political party’s headquarters
Article.wn.com - Thu Jan 12, 09:02 pm GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Protesters storm ruling coalition party office in Mongolian capital
Monitor.bbc.co.uk - Thu Jan 12, 11:21 am GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Thousands protest as Mongolia's govt teeters
Stuff.co.nz - Thu Jan 12, 04:43 pm GMT 13 January 10:30 FULL STORY

Bush's speech: text

2005-12-07T22:36:00.000-08:00

I know, this is waaaay late, but I thought I'd post it anyway if only for the sake of completeness.

Geography 101

2005-12-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

Someone had better remind the folks over at The New American of their 4th grade geography. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this short piece, reprinted here in all its fact-challenged glory:

President Bush Showers Mongolian Reds With Praise, Aid
by William F. Jasper
December 3, 2005

President George Bush stopped in Mongolia on November 21 during his China trip to praise Mongolia's "democracy" and to drop off $11 million in U.S. aid, the first installment of a larger package still to come.

“You are an example of success for the region and for the world,” Bush said in a speech to Mongolia’s President Nambaryn Enkhbayar, military leaders, and legislators in the capital of Ulan Batur. “As you build a free society in the heart of Central Asia, the American people stand with you.” Referring to the 160 troops Mongolia has contributed to the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq, Bush declared, “Mongolia and the United States are standing together as brothers in the cause of freedom.”

President Enkhbayar is a “former” communist and head of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, which is the renamed and (supposedly) reformed Communist Party of Mongolia. Red China pretended to grant Mongolia full autonomy in 1990 — and the United Nations and the U.S. government (along with the rest of the world’s nations) pretend that Mongolia is now truly independent of Beijing’s communist control. Over the past five decades, Red China has carried out a systematic program of repression of the Mongols, including the forced transfer of Mongols from their ancestral lands, to be replaced by ethnic Chinese. As a result, ethnic Chinese now outnumber Mongolians in Mongolia by a ratio of five to one. Thousands of the nomadic Mongols who live off their herds of sheep and goats continue to be driven from their lands by the central authorities, who cite environmental excuses, such as the need to protect the grasslands from overgrazing.

Good one, huh?

(Okay, for those of you who are scratching your heads, Mr. Jasper confused Mongolia, the independent country, with Inner Mongolia, an "autonomous region" in northern China, and attributed many characteristics of the latter to the former.)

Update: Guido's got his hackles up, too, as has Mongolian Artist (rightmost column).

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

2005-12-07T22:09:00.000-08:00

China and Mongolia have finally agreed upon a mutually-acceptable border and each other's full independence. Something tells me that it wasn't Mongolia that was slowing things down on the mutual-recognition bit. Anyway, how very neighborly of China. It would make Mr. Rogers proud.

Why Mongolia (5)

2005-12-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

Here's another view. Why Mongolia? The Bush Doctrine. In a recent American Enterprise Intstitute paper entitled Bush to Asia: Freedom is more than Markets, Dan Blumenthal and Thomas Donnelly write:

The president's just-concluded Asian trip bore signs that his devotion to democracy is beginning to shape American strategy beyond the "greater Middle East," calling into question the policy of economic engagement and the belief in the democratizing power of free trade that Washington has followed up until now. And military preparations are underway to give substance to the rhetoric of liberty.

After summing up some of Bush's words in recent speeches in Asia, AEI continues:

All this would just be high-flying rhetoric were it not for the fact that the Bush administration is coupling it with a realignment of U.S. forces in Asia and in the western Pacific. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has been something of a reluctant warrior in the Middle East, but he and his lieutenants in charge of Asia are deeply engaged in the transformation of U.S. posture along China's periphery.

This sounds like a fair assessment to me. Bush has struck me as being a true believer when it comes to democracy. So the fact that he's strengthening democracy in places like Mongolia, while helping out America's own interests, seems entirely logical. And considering that democracy = relative stability, then democracy in Mongolia and elsewhere = American interests.

Wildlife in Peril

2005-12-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

From UPI. I'll comment throughout.

Mongolian Wildlife Face Extinction Crisis

There's an attention getter. But how accurate is it? I think my headline is better. Might not get as many views, though :)

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Wildlife Conservation Society scientists say they are deeply concerned about an alarming decrease in general wildlife populations in Mongolia.

The New York-based organization blames overhunting and excessive trade in skins and other animal products for the problem, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

This stands to reason. Hunting is one of the things that draws folks to visit Mongolia. That hunters are bagging animals faster than they can replentish themselves comes, alas, as no surprise.

A WCS study of Mongolia's wildlife says by some estimates, the populations of endangered species -- marmots, argali sheep, antelope, red deer, bears, Asiatic wild asses -- have plummeted by 50 percent to 90 percent.

What do other folks say the numbers are? Just wondering. It'd be nice to have some opposing views here. In the event that everyone agrees, it'd be nice to be told that, too.

Two exceptions are an apparent increase in the number of wolves and a gradual increase in the number of endangered Przewalski wild horses.

Again, though, more views on the numbers would be nice. Regardless, this stands to reason. When I was there last (January), wolves were wreaking havoc on nomads everywhere (or at least in the part of the country I was in). Wolves were once known to be a tad less populous, but they're becoming alarmingly common. Driving from UB to Erdenet one evening, I saw three wolves along the side of the road. When I asked the driver if there were wolves in those parts, he said that there were more wolves than anyone wanted, by far. Stories of missing children and all that. Granted, to a herder or a parent, one wolf is one wolf too many. Later that month, I was visiting relatives and they were constantly building fires in the mountains near their gers to keep the wolves away from the sheep and goats. The only dead wolf I saw was strapped to the hood of an SUV--blood still fresh (though frozen) from the recent kill outside of town.

"The country is facing a quite extraordinary and unnoticed extinction crisis, or at least the threat of one," Peter Zahler, assistant director for Asia at the New York-headquartered Wildlife Conservation Society, told the newspaper.

Well, a crisis and a threatened crisis are very different. Given the hands-in-the-air, the-end-is-coming nature of many eco groups, I'm not sure what to make of this kinds of claims. (But if I didn't think over-hunting were a problem at all, well then I wouldn't be posting this.)

The WCS said the nation's independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 "was the undoing of Mongolia's century-long effort to control wildlife trade."

You know, the trains ran on time in Italy until Mussolini got hanged from that bridge. But that's not enough to make Italians get all misty-eyed about the early 1940s. I mean, come on. And you wonder why I take many eco groups claims (and the media that promulgates them) with a grain of salt.

The WCS says nearly all of Mongolia's annual $100 million in wildlife trade is illegal.

I have no way of knowing if this last claim is true or not, the Mongolian hunting statues not being at my fintertips. But the rule of law being what it is in the far-flung parts of Mongolian wilderness, I wouldn't be surprised if the report is about right.

Anyway, over-hunting in Mongolia is a problem that should be addressed sooner rather than later. America nearly out-hunted its beavers, muskrat, bison, etc. I think that American wolves (the Gray Wolf?) were hunted clean out of existence (??) because they were thought to be so plentiful. Similar problems have been repeated the world over. So there's a lesson to be learned by up-and-coming countries not to make the same mistakes.

One thing getting in the way is the sense that Mongolians have of the spaciousness and inexhaustibility of their land. It's seemed eternally large for millennia now, and the thought that people can exhaust the land, the trees, the animals, seems absurd to many Mongolians. I was once talking with someone who said of logging ventures in Siberia. She, a Mongol, said, "Siberia will never run out of wood. I've been on the train from UB to Moscow. It's trees the whole way." Well, eventually even a great quantity of natural resources can be exhausted. So, it's an uphill battle for the hearts and minds of the locals. Anyway, here's to the hope that Mongolia works on a sensible and enforced hunting code.

UPDATE: Here's the story from which the UPI story was evidently edited. This New York Times piece also has a very informative (and depressing) graphic. This fuller story is worth the visit should you be interested.

Why Mongolia (4)

2005-11-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

To continue this thread and perhaps clarify what I seem to have left ambiguous, let me note the following in response to the always thoughtful Yan:

The other day, I wrote: "As should be known by now, I'm with Double Toothpicks here: there are reasons for the US's cozying up to Mongolia that are for the US's own national interests." I didn't mean to imply that the airbase angle is the SOLE reason that the US is friends with Mongolia. Obviously, there are several reasons:

1) Support for Mongolia's contribution to the War on Terror

2) Building friendship with a country, an alliance with whom would add considerably to the US's own regional and global positioning.

3) Support for Mongolia as a new and successful democracy in that part of the world

4) Giving Mongolia a shot in the arm by giving it good press and bringing it into the international spotlight.

But note: the two dominant ones (#1 and #2)--those without which Bush wouldn't have visited Mongolia in the first place--are strongly American interests. If it weren't for #1 and #2 on the following list, #3 and #4 would never have been sufficient to earn Mongolia a presidential visit. In other words, American self-interest (which may be and are shared by other countries) are the driver of American foreign policy. This is the case with just about every country everywhere (one notable exception is Europe, where countries are apparently giving up on their own national interest for those of a greater Europe), so I don't see why this should be a surprise to anyone.

Of course, there are also altrusitic motives that the US apparently has with re: democracy and freedom. But even then, if democracy and freedom abroad were sharply against American interests, I sincerely doubt that America would be quite so involved in promoting them in the world. Eventually, everything in politics (and perhaps beyond) boils down to some kind of self-interest. I'm not saying that this is the way things should be, but that's the way I think they are. There you are. I hope I'm clear this time.

Note: This response is also posted in the comments section of the post that prompted it.

Why Mongolia (3)

2005-11-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

Double Toothpicks fleshes out what he thinks could be Bush's idea in making friends with Mongolia:

Look at the map again. Mongolia is just a KC135-tanker-load away from North Korea for any of our jets. If we make nice with the Mongols, we might gain a non-Japanese strategic basing option that could be used to keep Kim Jong Il in check. Thus, the President continues to place his chess pieces to cover the three key points on the Axis of Evil. The guy's no dummy.

I'm not part of the crowd that thinks that the reason Bush went there was to give an "emerging democracy" a pat on the back. Neither do I run with the folks that say that Bush went to Mongolia to make positive headlines in the face of "disaster" at home--you know, "wag the dog." And, for that matter, the idea that Mongolia is Bush's next stop on a path toward World Empire is good only for a laugh. As should be known by now, I'm with Double Toothpicks here: there are reasons for the US's cozying up to Mongolia that are for the US's own national interests.

And, by the way, the idea that Mongolia may figure in the US's thinking re: North Korea is not a new idea. Col. Wilhelm, America's man in Mongolia, said as much in Robert Kaplan's article in the Atlantic (original link here):

One might wonder why the United States would ever need an air base in Mongolia. In the 1990s Wilhelm wondered the same thing about Tajikistan. Then came September 11, 2001, and suddenly back-of-beyond Tajikistan, with its southern border facing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, became a crucial staging area for American operations. "That's when I learned never to say 'never,'" he told me. With Mongolia's eastern border only 500 miles from North Korea, and with the strategic environment unpredictable and fast-changing, an air base here could be an important asset.

Whatever the reason, we think that America's increased involvement in Mongolia is a good thing for all involved--and perhaps for the North Korean people as well.

Elbegdorj: In His Own Words

2005-11-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

Prime Minister Elbegdorj penned an editorial for the Washington Post a few days ago. I'm late in linking to it, but here it is in its entirety. I'll refrain from editorializing, for reasons of temporal exigencies, except to bold a few things that caught my attention and in general met with my approval.

Mongolia: Moving Mountains
By Elbegdorj Tsakhia
Monday, November 21, 2005; Page A15

ULAN BATOR -- Mr. President, welcome to Mongolia. Welcome to freedom.

Those are the words with which I will greet President Bush when he arrives in Mongolia today. They represent an extraordinary odyssey for my country, one that has taken us from totalitarianism to free-market democracy in just 15 years.

When Mongolia shed the yoke of communist rule, thousands of us took to the streets and rallied outside our government building demanding democracy. Never again did the Mongolian people want to suffer under a system of government that oppressed the people and denied the fundamental rights provided to each of us at birth: the right to life, individual liberties and freedom of expression.

We enshrined these principles in Article 2 of our constitution: "The fundamental purpose of state activity is the ensurance of democracy, justice, freedom, equality, and national unity and respect of law." Many of us had tears in our eyes when we voted to adopt our constitution in 1992. Without a bullet being fired, without tanks in the streets, we laid the groundwork for building a new society based on democracy, the rule of law and free-market economic reforms. It has served us well, as Mongolian voters have used the ballot box to transfer political power in several parliamentary elections. Our people are working hard to consolidate our freedom. They have made Mongolia an open, free and vibrant society.

Since our transition, Mongolia has faced many difficult hardships. Thanks to support from the United States, as well as from other countries and international financial institutions, we were able to make the transition to a free-market economy. More than 80 percent of our gross domestic product is derived from the private sector. This is critical.

The national security of our landlocked country has less to do with military power than with economic growth. Last year, through unleashing the potential of foreign investors and our business community, Mongolia experienced a growth rate of more than 10 percent. We need this to continue. I want to move forward and expand our relationship with the United States by implementing a free trade agreement between our two countries.

This is a good start, but much more remains to be done. Without question among the greatest challenges facing our democratic institutions are poverty and corruption. Parliamentarians in both parties of our ruling Grand Coalition are working to provide the legal framework and resources to ensure that civil servants remain exactly that -- servants of the people.

With a population of just 2.5 million, many of whom are nomads, our strategy to fight poverty is through education. My government is seeking to use wireless communications -- the Internet, cell phones and data transmission -- to build an information bridge to the outside world. It is now not uncommon to see a satellite dish outside a herdsman's ger -- our traditional dwelling. Exploring educational opportunities through U.S.-Mongolian educational exchanges and student scholarships will be an investment in our greatest resource, our youth. To give our students an advantage in international business we have made English our official second language.

Further strengthening our development efforts is the inclusion of Mongolia in the Millennium Challenge program. When we sign our compact to begin project implementation, it will add a new level of transparency, "sunlight" and public participation to this critical poverty alleviation program by supporting economic growth. The mechanics of putting together our Millennium program have involved public input and solicitation of proposals from the people. This is grass-roots governance at its best.

Mongolia's experiment with democracy is far from finished, but perhaps there are already lessons for others in what we have accomplished. There is no reason or excuse why economic and political reforms cannot go hand in hand. The concept that democracy is a Western value is a fallacy. It is a universal value inherited by each and every person in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America.

How we share those values abroad is as important as institutionalizing them here at home.

Mongolians are standing shoulder to shoulder with their U.S. and coalition colleagues to create free societies and fight terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. The recent bombings in Jordan and attacks in Iraq are a warning that defeating terrorism will take international cooperation and dedication.

Mongolians are justifiably proud of the country we are building. Many within Asia can find examples in our economic and political successes as well as learning from our failures.

President Bush's historic visit to Mongolia will give us much-needed encouragement. It will also help us recall our past while rededicating our efforts to build peace, freedom and prosperity in the volatile regions of Northeast Asia.

The writer is prime minister of Mongolia.

Dilbert on Mongolia

2005-11-27T19:43:00.000-08:00

Posted without comment except to say that Dilbert has never once been funny to me. Link.

First-hand impression of Bush in Mongolia

2005-11-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

Carrie has a few interesting comments, especially about the event itself. She has a few editorial comments as well. Her anti-Bush comments leave a bit to be desired. Regardless, the post is worth the visit for a first hand account.

Mongolian Blogging Universe Expands

2005-11-27T19:20:00.000-08:00

...and given the quality and frequency of yan's comments at our own blog, ...yuu bna? ("What's up?") may well become the brightest star in it. Everybody, do yourself a treat and check it out.

I've bloglined you, yan, and will check in frequently for your always insightful comments. Best of luck.

Bush Visits and We're Off-line

2005-11-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

Oy. We're out of town and have been forced into ultra-light blogging due to our Internet access. It's a bummer, since Bush just visited and there's lots to be said. In the mean time, here's Registan and Mongolian Matters with some news/blog roundups. We hope to weigh in later. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving.

Greener Pastures

2005-11-16T14:54:00.000-08:00

Summer evenings like this are a distant memory now that the steppe has given way to sub-zero temperatures.

Surprise!

2005-11-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

It's understandable that more folks don't really know what's going on in Mongolia. It's not like it's in the news (mainstream or otherwise) every day. So it's good to see when reporters with a broad readership travel there and share their revelations with a bit of wide-eyed wonder and genuine surprise. George Lewis, correspondent for NBC News is there now in advance of Bush's visit, and he's pretty astonished that Mongolia isn't a failing state in which people surpress their women, loathe America, and wish to be secluded from the rest of the world. Surprise!

And thought it might be news to NBC (see headline), none of this is likely to surprise Mr. Bush.

Re: Mr. Lewis's first point, though, a gentle correction: Yes, Mongolians are quite friendly toward Americans. But as any foreigner who's been to Mongolia can tell you, Mongolians give warm hospitality to just about anyone who happens by their ger regardless of the traveler's passport.

Critiquing the Critic: Bikales on Rossabi

2005-11-13T21:58:00.000-08:00

Mongolia Web prints a blistering review by William Bikales of Morris Rossabi's book Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists (via Mongolian Matters). Well worth the read for its brief economic history of Mongolia and its point by point criticism of what he judges to be Rossabi's underlying point:

Rossabi...arguesthe foreign donors who came to Mongolia’s aid following the 1991 termination of Soviet support forced the country to follow “pure market” policies of shock therapy, minimal government and privatization. The disastrous results, supposedly, were poverty, corruption, environmental degradation, cultural decline and economic dependence on China.

He also sums up (and dismisses) Rossabi's proposed solution to poverty.

The government must pay higher wages and pensions, maintain other social expenditures, and hold down electricity and heat prices. Environmental degradation? Hire lots of park rangers and enforce those laws. Industrial decline? Support companies with budget funds and low interest bank credits, and with high import tariffs and export bans on raw materials. Difficulties in the lives of the herding population? Maintain the heavily subsidized herder cooperatives of the communist era. And so on.

That's some plan. Just thinking out loud here, but perhaps Rossabi would be interested in a reconstituted USSR to fund such a project.

Anyway, like I say, the entire review is exceedingly interesting. While you're at it, please check out Mr. Bikales's informal yet important addendum to his review at Mongolia Matters.

Spelling Disaster?

2005-11-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

This is the second time I've heard about this, so I thought I'd post a quick link to it--though there must be a more complete treatment of this somewhere:

The [Mongolian] government also is working with the United States on a project to change the Mongolian language from the Cyrillic to the Roman alphabet.

I mentioned this to Mongol, who was outraged about the whole thing. I must admit I'm scratching my head about it, too. I mean, I'm a dyed in the cashmere conservative (with a small c). Change doesn't come easy to me (read my thoughts on land-privatization in Mongolia here and here to see what I'm talking about). If it works one way, why tinker with it and in the process blow everything up?

From a purely practical standpoint, I can forsee any number of problems tied with this: Everything in modern Mongolian history/government/society/culture, etc. is in the Cyrillic alphabet. Switching to the Roman alphabet seems like a recipie for a disaster of discontinuity between Mongolia's past century and the years to come. How much will quite literally lost in translation? How does one bridge the gap that will inevitably open? What will happen when older people can no longer read the "new" Mongolian? For that matter, what will happen when young people can no longer read the "old" Mongolian? Mongolia was robbed once of their history when the USSR russified everything. Is Mongolia going to lose it again when the most recent 100 years of history become locked behind a Cyrillic alphabet that no-one but older generations and scholars can decipher? Besides, hasn't Mongolia already tried to make a switch to the classic Mongolian script, only to have it founder and for the most part disappear?

This isn't to say that I don't understand the arguments in favor of the switch. Indeed, those arguments are formidable, especially from a pragamatic standpoint. Let's face it--English is the new lingua franca of the world, and anything a country can do to make its language accessible to English speakers, so much the better. Success (economic, political, etc.) is in large part due to how integrated one is with the world as a whole, and the world speaks English. Still, though, the whole idea seems too dismissive of heritage (no matter how recent, no matter how Russian, no matter how imperialist) and the way things are on the ground to be very appealing to me.

Having said all that, I hope with all my heart that the change is more successful than my admitedly narrow mind can imagine.

For another perspective, I'd be interested to read Mongol's thoughts about this if time permits posting.

More American Visitors

2005-11-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

Aparently, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also on the way to Mongolia. Rumsfeld, Rice, Bush. Mongolia scores a hat-trick.

The Complete Bush-ETV Interview

2005-11-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

From the White House website, here's the complete interview that President Bush did with Eagle Television. As everyone loves to remind everyone else, Bush is not the most nuanced man in the world. Frankly speaking, I think that's more of a positive than a negative. For one, it makes things like his his conviction about democracy and its importance in emerging nations such as Mongolia is as apparent as it is deeply held:

Q So, there are many developing countries in Asia. So why did you choose to visit Mongolia at this time?

THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I am really looking forward to going. This is going to be an exciting trip for me and Laura. Mongolia has got a certain fascination for me. I grew up in the west of the United States where there's -- where we like wide open spaces. And when you think about Mongolia, you think about a big country with a lot of space. But what's interesting about Mongolia is it's more than geography now, as far as I'm concerned. It's a people that have worked hard to become free, a democracy.

We kind of consider ourselves -- and we like the slogan, "the third neighbor" of Mongolia. And so I've chosen to go there because of the spirit of the people, and a leadership that shares our desire to let the -- to have a government of and by and for the people.

Q Great. So, Mr. President, let's talk for a moment about America's foreign policy.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

Q Democracies change leaders every few years, so in that change often comes a change in a nation's foreign policy. So what steps has your administration taken to ensure that the foreign policy initiatives you have taken will continue to be guiding principles for the U.S. after you leave the White House?

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, that's a very interesting question. First of all, there are certain values that are inherent in our country that any leader will bring to the White House: the value of human rights, human dignity, freedom to worship, freedom of the press, freedom to speak your mind. And so foreign policy will have inherent in it those values.

The other thing is, is that once democracy takes hold -- it's hard work to make it work, but once it takes hold, it's hard to change it. Because democracy really speaks to the people and says, we listen to you, you're free, you can realize your dreams. And so one of the things my administration is doing is working in places where there hasn't been democracy. I think of the Palestinian Territories, or Iraq. We're working in places where there's a new democracy to help strengthen those democracies. Lebanon is a good example -- Georgia, Ukraine. We're working with countries that have dedicated themselves to democracy but want the friendship of the United States to help them even further democracy. And Mongolia is such a case.

And so one way you leave behind a foundation that others can't undo is to give people -- help people develop a form of government that just can't be unwound unless something catastrophic were to take place inside the country.

Q Okay, great. So as part of our new relationship, Mongolia has contributed our peacekeeping troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. So in the future, if there are any military threats against Mongolia by its neighbors, would the U.S., under your administration also rise to our defense?

THE PRESIDENT: That's a very good question. We're close friends. And by being friends, I think we can prevent any potential military dispute from arising. But of course we would support our friends. We certainly would -- nobody anticipates over the next three years of my administration any force being used against our friend. But my visit should send a signal to the people of Mongolia that you've got a friend in the United States and a friend in George W. Bush.

Q Great to hear it. So during your visit to Mongolia, you will be addressing the nation in a wide televised address. So our nation is experiencing a crisis of corruption.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q So you will be speaking to our leaders and our nation about the dangers that corruption poses to our democracy. Can you give us a preview about it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not going to give you a preview of the speech, because then people may not watch it if they get a preview, see. On the other hand, I will say on your TV screens, there should be no corruption in government, that one of the foundations of any government is the ability for the people to trust the government, itself. And a foundation of democracy, and a foundation of our foreign policy, and a foundation of our Millennium Challenge Account is that there be honest government.

Q Okay. The next related question is going to be to Millennium Challenge.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

Q So how has the issue of political corruption affected Mongolia's status for the Millennium Challenge Account?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we intend to move forward on the Millennium Challenge Account with Mongolia. Mongolia is a friend. On the other hand, we will insist that as a condition of the Millennium Challenge checks being written that there be honest government, that there be investment in health and education of the people, that there be a dedication to rule of law and to the marketplace.

Q Okay, the last question is so important for our television. You might be aware that the Eagle Television was the first independent TV station established in Mongolia, with American Christians, and Mongolians are working together to advance freedom of speech, press and conscience in our country. So, first, how do you feel about the role of ordinary American citizens supporting this kind of work for Mongolia's democracy? And the second, what further role do you think the ordinary American citizens can play in helping to address faith and freedom in Mongolia through media?

THE PRESIDENT: Very good question. First of all, I believe in a free media, and I believe that people ought to -- and a media that is independent from government, like we have in America, is an important part of a society. In other words, government officials should not fear a free media, they ought to welcome a free media.

Listen, in my own media, I don't agree with everything that is said, but I strongly support their right to say it, just like I strongly support the right of people of faith to be involved with helping to spread this concept of freedom.

Secondly, I think investments will help the people of Mongolia. In other words, there's a way for people in America -- businesses, for example -- to invest in Mongolia, because that means jobs and stability and a good future.

But, no, listen, you'll find Americans are very compassionate people that love freedom. And they want to help people be free. And by the way, your form of government is democracy, but it ought to reflect your traditions and your great history. And I know it is.

Listen, I'm looking forward to going to your wonderful country. It's going to be a fantastic experience. I'm excited, I truly am excited to come.

Q Great. Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very good job. Thank you.

Condition for Aid: Eliminate Corruption

2005-11-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

Bush told Mongolia's Eagle Television that American aid depends on the Mongolian Government's cleaning up its act:

President George W. Bush warned Mongolia that there "should be no corruption in government," if it wanted to receive American aid."

I will say on your TV screens, there should be no corruption in government, that one of the foundations of any government is the ability for the people to trust the government, itself," the president told Mongolia's Eagle television....

"A foundation of our foreign policy, and a foundation of our Millennium Challenge Account is that there be honest government," the president added.

"On the other hand, we will insist that as a condition of the Millennium Challenge checks being written that there be honest government, that there be investment in health and education of the people, that there be a dedication to rule of law and to the marketplace," he pointed out.

Millennium Challenge Accounts have been created by the Bush administration as part of reform of US foreign aid programs.

I don't know how much a televised call to clean up government will be, even if it's issued by America's president and is backed with a threat to withhold aid. Ultimately, the only way to clean up government is to clean up people. Still, though, the more light on the subject, the better.

Why Mongolia (2)

2005-11-10T11:33:00.000-08:00

Guido at Mongolian Matters reports the word on the streets about Mr. Bush's visit:

I heard the joke that he is jealous at Rumsfeld for getting a horse, and wants one too. A more serious rumor I heard is that he might promise import tax exemptions for Mongolia, what could potentially mean a boost for the Mongolian economy. The return favor being most probably continued support in Iraq, because the official statement doesn't make much of a secret about that being the most important topic.

Re: the horse: he'll probably get one.

Re: the rumor: interesting, and exciting, and if true, a great idea.

Re: Iraq: right on.

New Blog Alert

2005-11-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

Mongoliac is written by a Brit in Mongolia about everything and anything there that strikes her fancy.

Update: OK, OK, it's not all that new, but it is new to me.

Speaking of Slaughter...

2005-11-10T08:20:00.000-08:00

The leftover knuckles could be used for this traditional Mongolian game. (From The Golden Road to Samarqand.)

Cuisine Mongolien: avec Photografs

2005-11-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

There's my from the hip attempt at French. Which should be an indication of just how little I understood over at this page. But each of the pictures there are worth a thousand words (and ten thousand words in French). This should give you a good idea of how a goat or lamb is slaughtered in Mongolia, as well as different types of Mongolian food. Fascinating if you've never seen this kind of thing. Some pictures are definitely not for the squeemish.

Note: in case you're wondering about the first pictures (slaughter), the way they kill a goat is to make an incision in the animal's belly (picture 2) and then reach in and up to pinch a critical artery (picture 3). This (a) kills the goat, (b) insures that no blood leaves the goat's body, and (c) makes the slaughterer's arm exceedingly messy.

Mmmm....makes me hungry.

Presidential Travels: Why Mongolia?

2005-11-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

Well, today just that question was answered over at "Ask the White House"--"an online interactive forum where you can submit questions to Administration officials and friends of the White House." Dr. Michael Green was doing the honors today, and this was his answer:

In Mongolia the President will congratulate the Mongolian people on the progress they have made to become a mature and stable democracy and he will thank them for their role in Iraq. Per capita only two other countries have sent more of their soldiers to help the Iraqi people establish a democratic and stable nation. It is young democracies like Mongolia's that often understand freedom the most, and the President wants to say thank you. He also wants to demonstrate that even remote countries have a strong friend in the United States when they embark on the path of reform and good governance.

Interesting note about the per capita involvement in Iraq. I hadn't considered that before.

In response to whether the American President will take in any cultural sights and sounds in Mongolia, Dr. Green mentioned that "the President and First Lady will visit a traditional Ger (felt tent) village to see Mongolian traditional throat singing, horse-head fiddle playing and other cultural events."

We look forward to the actual trip and to seeing what comes of it.

After all, it's not every day the leader of the Free World visits the Central Asian steppe.

"Third Neighbor"

2005-10-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

Via Elephants in Academia (which is via Publius Pundit in turn), a story by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times (reg. required) re: Rumsfeld in Mongolia.

Mongolia is focusing its defense efforts on building close relations with its neighbors rather than undertaking a large-scale military buildup, the official said. It considers the United States its "third neighbor" after Russia and China.

"We have a strong bilateral relationship based on shared values," the official said.

(bold mine) Nice, huh ?

Mongolia is doing this mainly out of self interest. And that's a good thing. That's what countries are supposed to do. Anyway there's a lot that can come with this kind of relationship. For one:

The United States is providing Mongolia's forces with $18 million to upgrade outdated and aging equipment. Part of the money will help pay for setting up an international peacekeeping training center under the Global Peace Operations Initiative. The center is under construction at the Five Hills Training Center outside Ulan Bator.

Publius makes a good observations as well.

Economic help for Mongolian Private Sector

2005-10-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

Good news from the Asian Development Bank:

ADB will support the Mongolian Government in promoting higher private sector-led growth and inclusive social development, in a new Country Strategy and Program (CSP) for 2006-2008.

The CSP proposes assistance from ADB's concessional Asian Development Fund totaling about $85 million over the three years, averaging about $28 million a year. This will be supplemented by an additional $40 million from ADB's regional fund and cofinancing sources. The lending program will be supported by technical assistance grants averaging about $1.9 million a year.

The CSP aims to help Mongolia maintain stable broad-based economic growth and address priority goals of reducing disparities in development between urban and rural areas, while improving access to jobs, incomes, and higher quality public services.

Planned for the period are projects to address urban development, public administration reform, agriculture, transport, and health.

Of course, the intractible problem here is the amazingly primitive state of Mongolia's population. And I mean that in a proudly positive way. As I've noted before, Mongolia's singular for its success (largely accidental) at presrving its historical way of life, which consists mainly of herding on wide open, non-private (and non-government) land. One of the problems has been people migrating to the cities to seek work as the economy isn't strong--or developed--or even really existing at all--in the countryside. After all, there are not all that many Mongolian towns in the sense that a westerner might understand the term. Herders live a fairly independent and transient life, so it's hard, even impossible, for shops and garages and barbershops and manufacturers to pop up and have much logevity. If you can't make money (or even survive) herding, there's very little option than to move to a city (esp. Ulaan Baator). But there are so few jobs in the cities, that people fleeing to the city for work (1) doesn't help them and (2) doesn't help UB and even (3) doesn't help the Mongolia economy all that much. There are many factors for this. And people have been working on solving the problem.

With the ADB doing what they're doing, it looks like help is slowly and surely on the way. But agian, as I've noted (I'll add links later; sorry), the change that it seems must happen will happen with a heavy cost: the ending of traditional Mongolian life. Indeed, permanence and a departure from the age old nomadic way of life may be the only way for Mongolia to ever take economic flight. More on this later.

Rumsfeld's Visit

2005-10-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

So, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld's come and gone. And he got a horse in the deal, too. (He named the horse Montana, so much does Mongolia remind him of Montana.--Ah, how that warms the cockles of my Montanan/Mongolian heart!) .

Anyway, the US-Mongolia relationship seems to be ever tightening--something that's mutually beneficial to both. Mongolia's a rising star in peace-keeping, and one that's unabashadly friendly to America--somehwat of a rarity these days. From a WaPo story, we learn of the benefits to both. For America, there's the need for allies who are proactive with regard to active peacekeeping and (see more on this in the article) anti-terrorism:

On what he said was the first visit by U.S. defense secretary to Mongolia, Rumsfeld sought to encourage Mongolia's efforts to build a peacekeeping force with global reach.
"If there's anything that's clear in the 21st century it's that the world needs peacekeepers," Rumsfeld said at a news conference with his Mongolian counterpart, Sharavdorj.

..."I congratulate the people of Mongolia, the government and the armed forces of Mongolia for selecting that (peacekeeping) as a principle aspect of their military focus, and certainly the United States is anxious and willing and ready to be of assistance," Rumsfeld said.

For Mongolia, there's the need for foreign assistance and constructive attention from movers and shakers in the geopolitical realm:

A contingent of six U.S. Marines is working closely with the Mongolian Army, which numbers 11,000. The Pentagon is planning to supply the army with body armor and other equipment to help Mongolians design a more modern force proficient in peacekeeping duties.

Sandwiched between Russia and China, Mongolia is eager for closer military-to-military relations with the U.S. and a measure of international prestige for a focus on peacekeeping. Peacekeeping can also prove lucrative; those missions placed under U.N. control pay relatively well.

Also of note in the story, Rumsfelds comments regarding two recently-minted Mongolian heros:

Rumsfeld also spoke to a group of 180 Mongolian soldiers who had served in either Iraq or Afghanistan in recent years.

He told them that history would look kindly on their efforts and he thanked them for their contributions.

"It's a privilege to be able to look you in the eye and say thank you," Rumsfeld said.

He singled out two soldiers, Sgt. Azzya and Sgt. Sambuu-Yondon. They were on a patrol near Hilla, Iraq, in February 2004 when they fired on and killed the driver of a truck who turned out to be a suicide bomber. Their action apparently saved a number of lives of Mongolian and other coalition troops.

Rumsfeld's visit is no doubt heartening to many Mongolia watchers. But the next state visit looks to be billed even better. President Bush himself. Mongol's eyes were bright upon hearing this news. Perhaps a trip to Mongolia to see Bush in Mongol's homeland? Depends on how much our readers donate :)

New Blog!

2005-10-21T14:03:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, Mongolian blogs are really popping up these days. And it's a good thing, since we've been posting so little of late. Anyway, stepping into the now-not-so-yawning vacuum of Mongolian blogs is Alex Batbold. Alex was born and raised in Mongolia and has been living in the US for the past seven years, so I'll be anticipating some interesting observations from him about Mongolia, etc.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Alex!

Rummy to Mongolia

2005-10-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

Looks like the US Secretary of Defense is on the way to Mongolia. Via acyyx.

Investing in Entrepreneurs

2005-09-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

This is exactly the kind of thing we'd like to see a lot more of in Mongolia. I'll let Mercy Corps's press release speak for itself (italics mine):

MANDALGOVI, Mongolia -- Small-time cashmere trader Davaasuren suffered through Gobi Desert droughts and freezes while dreaming of starting a business. He wanted to supply his town with eggs, but he lacked money for chickens. Portland-based Mercy Corps aimed to help Mongolians out of poverty, but the humanitarian organization avoids handouts that foster dependency. So Mercy Corps introduced Davaasuren -- who like many Mongolians, goes by one name -- to XacBank, a commercial bank that the nonprofit launched four years ago.

Now a loan from XacBank, pronounced "hassbank," enables the 29-year-old entrepreneur to sell fresh eggs, replacing those trucked in from the capital under the former socialist system. More XacBank loans allow scores of Gobi Desert herders to survive by launching small shops, factories and gas stations.

The idea of a humanitarian organization establishing a for-profit bank might seem as far-fetched as the presence of a tree in the harshest region of Mongolia. But nonprofit development organizations have funded commercial enterprises in places ranging from Romania and Haiti to Aceh, the tsunami-battered area of Indonesia.

Humanitarians may be new to the profit ethic, but they like the idea of creating incentives and of founding banks and businesses that last far longer than one-time grants. They acknowledge the commercial approach bypasses the poorest of the poor, but they say other conventional programs already address those needs. "The reason you own the for-profit companies is because you want to make something sustainable and last forever," says Ed Epp, Mennonite Economic Development Associates vice president for resource development.

Instead of awarding grants in Nicaragua, for example, MEDA bought a bank and redirected it to make small loans. In Haiti, the group founded a credit union that's become the nation's largest.

Mercy Corps goes a step further. It trains Mongolian herders and others, helping them prepare business plans and apply for loans. Then Mercy Corps guarantees some of the collateral so that XacBank, or a competing bank, can assume less risk and charge lower interest.

In an added twist, Mercy Corps links some of its global beneficiaries -- including Davaasuren, the egg man -- to donors with business experience. Western entrepreneurs who donate $10,000 shares to Mercy Corps' Phoenix Fund can advise on business plans and visit projects financed by the fund....

Mercy Corps' objective is not to move nomads off the range. It aims to diversify incomes, stemming migration to Ulan Bator, the nation's swelling capital. "Herders realize they can't afford to be a single-product kind of business," says Steve Zimmerman, Mercy Corps Mongolia country director. "They can produce dairy goods, make furniture, run gas stations."

This is great, great news. Among other things, it addresses a number of problems in Mongolia. Namely,

It seeks to foster financial independence instead of dependency. In other words, it helps foster an ownership society, at least in a small way.
It has a long-term view: don't give them a fish--teach them how to fish.
It addresses the problem of exorbitant interest charges by lowering risk to local financial institutions. I've heard reports of people in Mongolia borrowing money to start businesses and paying well over 100% in yearly interest on it.
It links local entrepreneurs to experienced business people and has what looks to be something like a business mentoring program.
It seeks to preserve Mongolian culture intact and stemming the unsustainable tide of job-seeking migrants to UB from the countryside.

While large scale business investment in resources, etc. are great (see previous posts), small scale investment in ground-level business people is just as critical. I look forward to seeing where this takes us.

A Study in Frustration

2005-09-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

I can't describe how galling it is to read this item from Xinhuanet. It would hardly be more ironic if France became the leading center of British studies.

HOHHOT, Aug. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- China is the leading center of Mongolian studies in the world, according to experts convened at the International Symposium on Mongolian Studies, which closed in the capital of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Sunday.

More than 330 scholars of the Mongolian studies from 13 countries and regions attended the three-day academic meeting, which collected 240 thesis papers covering linguistics, translation, culture studies of the language as well as the latesttrend of economic, military and archeological development in the Mongolia-speaking regions.

Professor J. A. Janhunen of Helsinki University said China is in a very important position to offer materials for Mongolian Studies.

Janhunen witnessed that Chinese scholars in the sector have hadincreasing contacts with their foreign counterparts in recent years. "Many scholars from China's Inner Mongolia University studyin Germany, Britain, France and also in Finland. I had two doctoral students from the university in my institution in Helsinki."

The Finnish professor, who first visited the Inner Mongolia Region in 1986, said that the international meeting held in Hohhotwas better organized and larger than most previous ones, which showed that the Mongolian studies had received more attention fromthe Chinese government and also the regional government of Inner Mongolia.

One anticipates the day when Mongolia becomes heralded as the academic center of its own heritage. Perhaps I'm giving too much credit to this report, but I don't think it's that far off base. Regardless, I wonder how scholars who are Mongolian would weigh in on this. Baabar, are you reading this?

Ties strengthen with the UAE and Turkey

2005-09-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

Connections between Mongolia and oil-rich Middle Eastern states are more than apparent in Mongolia. One more connection was recently formed when the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Mongolia presented his credentials.

Turkey is also continuing to show interest in Mongolia, particularly in the textiles and food sectors:

ANKARA - Turkish Labor & Social Security Minister Murat Basesgioglu stated regarding his visit to Mongolia, ''we want to prepare an infrastructure aiming to help Turkish workers who will work in Mongolia as well as Turkish entrepreneurs who will invest in this country.''
''We will also rapidly arrange basis of working life and social security for these initiatives,'' he added....

Basesgioglu stated, ''11 Turkish companies have made investment worth of nearly 1.4 million USD in Mongolia. Annual foreign trade volume between Turkey and Mongolia is nearly 3.1 million USD.''

''Foreign trade volume between the two countries is not at desired level. We aim to provide necessary infrastructure to help Turkish entrepreneurs who will invest especially in mining, construction, textile and food sectors in Mongolia,'' he added.

I've always thought that the food sector (especially livestock) is something that a smart investor in Mongolia could captitalize on. Mongolia really ought to develop this market. It could be a potential source of sustainable growth that fits well with something the Mongol nomads have been good at for thousands of years.

Mongolia and Kazakhstan to Strengthen Ties

2005-09-14T22:43:00.000-07:00

News from Kazakhstan:

ASTANA. September 13. KAZINFORM./Dulat Moldabayev/ Today Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Mongolia to Kazakhstan Ravdangiin Khatanbaatar has handed credentials to the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. We have intentions to develop trade and economic relations of the states, Mongolian Ambassador said. "We will purchase petroleum derivates and grain in Kazakhstan”.

“There are many Kazakhs residing in Mongolia and lots of Kazakhs from Mongolia are living in Kazakhstan. This fact will contribute also to the development of mutual benefit collaboration,” the diplomat added.

Here's to more cooperation between the Kazakhs and Mongolians, Mongol brethren.

Mongolian in Vietnam War

2005-09-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

I just discovered here that a Mongolian, Cpl. Enver Bajin, was killed in the Vietnam War:

Cpl. Enver BAJIN116426657/6055 USMC was from College Point, New York. He was born on Dec. 27, 1948. He arrived in Viet nam on July 23, 1970. He was 21 years old at the time of his death on Nov. 18, 1970. He died as a result of a Helicopter crash on land, in Quang Nam Province, due to Hostile fire. His body was recovered. He was single. His race was Mongolian.

His name can be found at The Vietnam Veterans Memorial (official page here; unofficial page here) in Washington, D.C. on panel 06W, line 67.

Semper Fi.

Still Busy

2005-09-09T16:41:00.000-07:00

Things are still boiling. When they simmer down, I'll turn up the gas on blogging again. Thanks for the patience.

Why I Love America: Follow Up

2005-09-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

United News of Mongol apparently reproduced all of Mongol's post, "Why I love America." The reprinting elicited a number of interesting comments over at their blog. Check it out.

New Mongolia Blog: Mongolian Matters

2005-08-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

A new Mongolia blog is up and running in English, Mongolian, and, potentially at least, in Dutch. Mongolian Matters (Mens in Mongolië) is covering "life in the land of the blue heaven" and looks to be interesting.

(Via this site, I also discovered that the Mongol Messenger is back.)

Mongolia Disappears?

2005-08-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

I was catching up at The Marmot's Hole when I stumbled upon the fact that Mongolia has--well, how to put this delicately?--vanished. What a surprise. I'm pretty sure it was there when I checked a few weeks ago. And just when we got the Mongolia blog going, too!

Seriously, though, when I first began blogging this, I had hoped that the omission of Mongolia from the China National Tourism homepage's list China's neighbors was simply an editorial oversight or at most geographical illiteracy on the part of one of the website's flunkies:

China has shared borders for centuries with Korea, the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Burma, Laos and Vietnam.

Then again, a commenter at The Marmot's Hole noted that neither is Tibet mentioned (understandable, perhaps). Suspicions raised, I took a look through the list again. And a very interesting list it is, too (click here for a map of the region): North Korea is identified on the list simply as "Korea." Did I miss reunification? Also, Sikkim is counted as an independent country. Sikkim was independent, but that ended in 1975, when a successful referrendum made it India's 22nd state. It's also puzzling that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are not named--instead "the former Soviet Union" is. Aha! Perhaps the explanation for Mongolia's nonmention is this list is that it got lumped into the "former Soviet Union" along with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan--something that didn't even happen in Soviet times. While Mongolia was under aggressive Soviet influence, its independence was always recognized (cf. old Czechoslovakia, Hungary).

Anyway, I have written a [polite] e-mail to the webmaster of the site in question (webmaster@cnta.gov.cn) kindly requesting a correction with regard to Mongolia. If that goes well, I might follow up re: Korea, Sikkim, etc. I'll be sure to blog any responses.

Out of Pocket; Quick Roundup

2005-08-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

Life has sped up a few notches and I've been left with very, very little time to blog. Many thanks to those who have commented. I'll try to respond sooner or later--whenever things calm down again.

In the mean time...

Andy from Siberianlight.net was kind enough to send me an interesting link about Jews in Mongolia. Actually, there were 3 or 4 such stories on the wires when he sent it. Very interesting. Check it out. I'd be interested to know if any Mongolians have converted to Judaism.
Always wanted to go to Mongolia, but never have? Here's more fuel for the fire.
It's a bad summer in Mongolia for animal diseases that can be contracted by humans--Anthrax (another story here) and Avian Flu. Hopefully this doesn't cancel out your desire to visit Mongolia.
Here's something on the Mongolian gold rush. I haven't commented on it in the past, but it's a growing issue there and is constantly in the news (mining in general is, too).

That's it for now. Signing off...

Why I Love America

2005-07-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, we had our friend (an American) over for dinner. Of course, the conversation went on and on about US policies in foreign countries. Our friend kept insisting and trying to convince us that America is doing everything wrong by trying to "help" other countries and by “telling other countries what to do.”

After much listening him and Nabetz talk, I could not but ask them to be quiet for a little bit. The first thing that came to my mind was to ask our friend whether he had ever lived (not traveled, not visited, but lived!) in a communist country or in a country with totalitarian regime? Of course, he hadn’t it (otherwise he would not talk like he did). And rivers of feeling flooded my being when I thought of how appreciative I am to what America believes in and to what America tries to carry out throughout the world. Politics is not my arena of strength, so I will not go into details about American foreign policy. However, I know that America believes in Democracy and believes in making the world free.

I grew up in a Communist country and came to US when I was 22 years old. And I could not believe my eyes when I saw how free and care-free people could live. On my first day of college in America, the professor asked me to write an assay about what I wanted to be in five years. I had never thought about what I want to be in five years! In Mongolia, we never wrote a paper on "what I want to be" or "how I see myself in 10 years". In communist Mongolia, you were always told what to be and what to do.

But the main reason I love America is for giving the world freedom, which comes with the true meaning of democracy. In 1990, Mongolia opened up for the first time. And one of the first things that came with democracy was the freedom of religion. We all grew up under the influence of Buddhism, because there was nothing else offered. (All religion, even Buddhism, was strictly controlled by the communist regime). The people usually would go to the temple to worship idols, and offer a little of what they had (usually money) or invite over the monks (lamas) and spread a feast for them. However, in the early 90's many different missionary groups came to Mongolia and began to preach. For the first time we had a chance to openly ask questions and to choose to believe for ourselves.

Often I wish that many Americans would go out and live in a third world country. Many of them, of course, would “break” in the harshness and unfairness of life there. But some might return full of inward strength and with deep appreciation that a country like America exists!

Welcome, Corner Readers

2005-07-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

How flattered we are that a quick comment to Mr. Derbyshire on his post re: barbarism vs. civilization would result in a link to this lowly blog from no place other than The Corner. We are deeply honored.

More than anything, we hope that this blog gets people thinking about, travelling to, and investing in, Mongolia. The Land of the Eternal Sky is making rapid progress out of the mess that the Soviet Union made of it, and the backwardness from which it had hitherto been. We're here to chronicle that progress and to give the world a place to watch it happen.

Thanks to the Derb for posting, and and to you, gentle reader, for stopping by.

Historic Day

2005-07-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

On this day in 1991, Secretary of State James Baker (US) became the first Western diplomat to address the Mongolian parliament. (source via Google News)

Perhaps more interestingly, James Baker had previously visited Mongolia briefly on August 2, 1990, which happens to be the day on which Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait. At the time, he was at a USA-USSR summit. Gwendolyn Stewart, in her yet to be published Russia Redux, picks up the fascinating story, in which Mongolia plays, admittedly, only a cameo.

The atmosphere of the entire ministerial "summit" was good-natured and rather casual. For Baker and Shevardnadze, it was their sixteenth meeting in eighteen months.

Arms control was the official focus of their working sessions in the nearby half-million strong city of Irkutsk, with Afghanistan and Cambodia also prominent on the agenda. There was bargaining over the Soviet desire for another Bush-Gorbachev summit that year. The get-together broke up on its second day, August 2, 1990, with a morning press conference featuring the two foreign ministers standing above us on a veranda in Irkutsk, and with the sudden, startling news just afterwards that Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. The Iraqi ruler's move put paid to all the questions the reporters had been so focused on a moment before. Now it was: How would Moscow respond to U.S. military action against its Iraqi ally? Baker dutifully made his scheduled way a few hundred miles to the capital city of Ulan Bator on an abbreviated mission to Mongolia, yet another "emerging democracy," then flew back to Moscow to nail down a joint statement with Shevardnadze. They met at the Moscow airport August 3 to visually and viscerally fix into people's minds the jointness of their actions.

James Baker has gone so far as to pronounce August 2, 1990, "The Day the Cold War Ended," and to assert that "the world as I had known it for my entire adult life would no longer exist." Since he was one of the principals, he may be forgiven for thinking that the real end of the Cold War came on his watch. Even Bush's National Security Adviser, Brent Scowcroft, who was not there, and not un-competitive, also acknowledges its significance. The Baker-Shevardnadze joint declaration condemning the invasion, he writes, "dramatically put the two superpowers on the same side of a major crisis for the first time since the Cold War began." The prospective payoff was the possibility of UN resolutions against Iraq, free of the risk of Soviet vetoes.

Interesting what one happens across on the Internet, no?

Further Thoughts on China

2005-07-25T21:32:00.000-07:00

In answer to a bit of skepticism voiced by a frequent and faithful commenter, I thought I’d write out more fully my thoughts about the US-China situation and Max Boot's comments on it. My argument (if indeed that's what it is) is not airtight, but it should give you a sense of where I'm coming from and why, to boot, I didn't give Boot the boot.

I fully own that some of the stuff Boot wrote about seems a bit iffy and smells strongly of what might be conspiracy theorism. But I think that Boot is right about the direction China isheaded. In fact, I think that eventually it's going to come to push and shove between China and the USA. We're talking about the general idea here.

It's not like we haven't seen this kind of conflict, even in recent history. The Soviet Union, anyone? Admittedly, China is a vastly different beast with vastly different intentions. But that doesn’t mean that it won't still be a threat of international proportions. Let me explain.

First, from what I’ve read and been told, China has never really had any designs on empire ...beyond it's own region, that is. Today as yesterday, China is at heart an introspective nation that basically wants to do it's own thing and be left alone. It's been like this for thousands of years and I can't imagine things changing. The problem is that while China hasn't changed, the world around it has. To simplify grossly, China used to have its own sandbox and could do pretty much as it wished without any greater power interfering (or being interfered with, for that matter). When Europe started to project it's power into the region in the 18th and 19th century, Chinese aspirations began to be limited by international actors, and the Middle Kingdom, which since time out of memory had generally been able to maintain it's own sphere of uncontested influence (Mongols, etc. notwithstanding), no longer held total sway its backyard.

Despite the change of international dynamics, China's ambitions today remain as they always have been: regional dominance/empire and a desire to not be bothered by outsiders. Now, couple this deep, traditional aspiration with its growing demand for resources and economic influence with which is can fuel it's recent industrial and economic growth and what you get is an empire hungry country that now must, somewhat paradoxically, look abroad in order to (and before it can) fulfill its domestic dreams.

Right now the United States happens to be, on balance, helpful to China as China seeks to realize its economic and industrial purposes. In fact, until last week, the Yuan was pegged to dollar, meaning that China's economic future was tied to US economic success. While the US is assisting China's growth today, however, it is also in many ways stifling it--especially with regard to empire building (or at least hegemony-retention). Hence, when the US completely outgrows its usefulness to China and China no longer relies on the US as it has in the past, it should be no surprise to anyone that China will desire to eliminate USinternational influence, which by that point will the biggest hurdle between China and it's dreams. When that tipping point comes in the China-US relationship, why should anyone be surprised if the way that China elects to get the US out of its way is to engage in warfare, conventional or otherwise, perhaps even in the way that Boot describes? I, for one, would not be surprised in the least. War has a long and illustrious history in the conflict resolution department.

By all accounts, that tipping point is fast approaching. One of the indications, I think, is the recent change in China’s monetary policy. No longer is the Yuan pegged to the US dollar. Instead, it’s pegged to a “basket” of international currencies. This is an indication that China’s starting to get it’s economic sea legs and feel a bit more independent from the US in terms of economic prosperity. And then there’s China’s major military buildup and increasingly bellicose stance toward the US over the past few years. The news in the past few weeks has been full of the new military threat that China is presenting to the world. Now China’s generals are rattling sabers and polishing the red button. Could it be that China’s getting ready to rumble once the time is right? To me the answer is clear.

I think it high time we face the music and begin to realize it's very, very possible that the dragon is getting ready to turn the tables and slay the knight. China doesn’t want US territory. China doesn’t really want anything beyond its historic sphere of influence, which is to say, East (and some Central) Asia. All it cares about is ending the limitations that the one remaining superpower in the world is creating for China’s Asian empire. Once the US is defeated and sent home licking its wounds, no one (let alone any superpower) would be left to stop China from doing whatever it has a mind to in Asia (goodbye, Taiwan). And the ancient dream of an undisturbed Chinese empire could be fulfilled.

Speaking of the Turks

2005-07-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

There's what looks to be a great new book about them and the Turkic people as a whole by Hugh Pope and a fascinating review of the book here (via The Corner).

Turkish Delight (Second Helping)

2005-07-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

More on the family reunion that is Turkish-Mongolian relations (from Turkey's Zaman online newspaper:

Turkey revives its historic relations with Mongolia to have closer ties with Central Asian countries.
Turkey will assist in the economic development of Mongolia. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan conducted a visit to Mongolia together with State Minister Besir Atalay, Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Hilmi Guler and Minister of Agriculture Mehdi Eker. Erdogan and his entourage were welcomed by Mongolian Minister of Education Punstag Tsagaan at Ulan Bator Airport. "Welcome to your motherland esteemed prime minister!" Tsaagan said. Erdogan first held meeting with his Mongolian counterpart Tasahia Elbegdorj. The two countries signed industrial, commercial and technological cooperation agreements and an agreement regarding the appropriation of land for embassies was also signed.

Erdogan expressed pleasure to be in the country of the Mongolian sovereign Cengiz Han (Genghis Khan). The parties discussed military, economic, commercial and tourism issues. "May our relations continue not only at business level but also at cultural level and may my visit become the start of a new era and synergy between our countries," declared Erdogan.

The Turkish Prime Minister referring to the importance of the deep historical ties between the two countries said these relations should be reinforced in many aspects. Turkey aims to increase its mutual trade volume from three million dollars to $50 millions, Erdogan added. This medium term target is highly important for Mongolia. The country's budget is $500 million and it has a population of only 2.7 million. The Turkish Prime Minister encouraged fellow businessmen to invest in organized industrial zones specifically for the leather manufacturing and production that will be established in Ulan Bator.

Mongolian Prime Minister Elbegdorj informed Erdogan about the Genghis Khan Complex that they plan to build and asked, "support from friends". Erdogan responded positively to his Mongolian counterpart regarding this request.

Erdogan and his delegation will travel to the Karakurum province, where the Orhun Inscriptions (ancient Turkish Monuments with Turkish inscriptions) stand. The foundation of a 46-km long highway that will be built connecting Karakurum and Kultigin and Bilke Kagan Monuments was laid. Turkey will meet all construction costs of the five million dollar project in addition to building a museum and collecting artworks, historical artifacts belonging to the Mongolian's ancestors for protection and preservation in the museum. Construction of the highway and the museum is expected to contribute Mongolia's tourism.

The Southern Threat

2005-07-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

Oh, and let's keep an eye out south of the border, too. This article is mainly about Sino-American relations, but a China that's looking at sinking the US probably woudn't be that safe to resource-rich Mongolia just up the road.

Cols. Qiao and Wang write approvingly of Al Qaeda, Colombian drug lords and computer hackers who operate outside the "bandwidths understood by the American military." They envision a scenario in which a "network attack against the enemy" — clearly a red, white and blue enemy — would be carried out "so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network and mass media network are completely paralyzed," leading to "social panic, street riots and a political crisis." Only then would conventional military force be deployed "until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty."

This isn't just loose talk. There are signs of this strategy being implemented. The anti-Japanese riots that swept China in April? That would be psychological warfare against a major Asian rival. The stage-managed protests in 1999, after the U.S. accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, fall into the same category.

The bid by the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Co., to acquire Unocal? Resource warfare. Attempts by China's spy apparatus to infiltrate U.S. high-tech firms and defense contractors? Technological warfare. China siding against the U.S. in the U.N. Security Council over the invasion of Iraq? International law warfare. Gen. Zhu's threat to nuke the U.S.? Media warfare.

And so on. Once you know what to look for, the pieces fall into place with disturbing ease. Of course, most of these events have alternative, more benign explanations: Maybe Gen. Zhu is an eccentric old coot who's seen "Dr. Strangelove" a few too many times.

Read the whole article by Max Boot if you don't have enough in your life to worry about (via the Corner, BTW). Combine this article with the ones I linked to here and here, and you might be able to say that there's a lot of potential for the world to fall apart before our very eyes. And for Mongolia to be smack dab in the middle of it all.

Have a nice day.

The Northern Threat

2005-07-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

It's probably worthwhile to keep keep and eye north of the border. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser have written a new book, Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of the Revolution, that details Putin and his path to power. James M. Goldgeler of George Washington University reviews it:

In their brilliant study of Vladimir Putin’s rule over contemporary Russia, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser come back again and again to the current Russian president’s eerily Stalinist rhetoric about the need to avoid looking weak so as not to be beaten and his resulting Bolshevik-like obsession with control. Putin’s aim has been to pursue economic growth and recreate a strong state to rebuild Russia’s place in the world.

...At the heart of this tale is “Project Putin,” the president’s crusade to remove all challenges to his authority. It includes the elimination of independent TV networks and elections for regional governors, as well as the jailing of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the destruction of his private company, Yukos. To get a sense of how obsessive Putin can be, consider his behavior in the run-up to his re-election in 2004. After he ensured that he faced no serious opposition, Putin’s only fear was that turnout might be below the 50-percent threshold required to validate the results – which would trigger a new election, making Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who had served as Boris Yeltsin’s finance minister, acting president in the interim. So Putin fired Kasyanov and gave the job to Mikhail Fradkov, who was unknown and unthreatening.

...Methodical in its approach, as riveting as a novel in its depiction of modern Russian life, “Kremlin Rising” is a powerful indictment of Putin’s years as president. In his quest for control and a stronger Russian state, Putin is undermining Russia’s future just as Soviet leaders did in their own repressive days. Given how often President Bush has spoken of Putin’s commitment to democracy, one can only hope that this book is on the must-read list for those vacationing in Crawford, Texas, this summer.

And those vacationing in Hovsgol for that matter, too.

New Ambassador to Beijing

2005-07-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Canada's Embassy Magazine reports that Dr. Galsan Batsukh, Mongolia's Ambassador to Canada is becoming ambassador to China. If you haven't already guessed, this is a big job (scroll up to see why).

Among other things he'll have to take care of are trade and investment (China's #1 when it comes to investing in Mongolia). Also key to both China's and Mongolia's national existence (industrially for China, economically for Mongolia) is mining. We wish Dr. Batsukh, his family, and his staff all the best.

EU Heart China?

2005-07-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

What an inauspicious couple. Beaurocratic, arrogant, and increasingly undemocratic Europe on one hand; empirialist, militarist, and anti-human rights China on the other. Both major world players by themselves, together this ugly couple could do very scary things. Ugh. And evidently, some would like to see Mongolia and Kazakhstan be the point of geo-physical union. Sick. But it's just the kind of thing the folks in Brussels dream about.

The president of the European Union Commission, Jose Barroso, has just completed a visit to China, which this year celebrates the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Brussels.

Fifteen to 20 years from now the EU, enlarged further eastwards, more integrated and more independent, might prove to be the model for the governance of macro-regions, paving the way for a global political architecture that can cope with technological, economic and business globalization.

China 2020, a booming platform, will be the link between Eastern Eurasian sub-regions, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and Northeast Asia. With this anticipation in mind, we now have to shape the relationship between these two matrices of civilization.

In the post-Cold-War world, the relationship between Europe and China has gained momentum. However, as the world dramatically changed for a second time in a decade in the fall of 2001, Beijing, a model for developing countries (paving the way to poverty reduction), and Brussels, a model for cooperation between countries (paving the way to articulate sovereignty and globalization), have to take greater responsibilities to work as the main architects of a cooperative Eurasia.

In the post-September 11 world disorder, the EU and China have to conceive a genuine strategy to act as Eurasia's structuring poles, making them into the pillars, with the US, of a stable world order.

...The attitude of Central Eurasia's rising power, Kazakhstan, and of a democratic Mongolia - whose intellectual and political elite understands better than others Eurasian dimensions - complete also the picture of a Eurasian arc where a momentum for closer cooperation is gathering.

Read more about this disastrous plan for the new world order at the Asia Times (via Joel J. Legendre's Asian Gazette).

Turkish Delight

2005-07-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

From Turkish Digest (via Technorati):

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the first Turkish Prime Minister to visit Mongolia. When I asked him about the importance and the meaning of the visit, I am reminded of promises previously made to Mongolia but not fulfilled.

"Decades have passed. Those in power have always spoken about the Turkish world although no steps have been taken. After we came to power, we took serious steps concerning the Turkish world; we are working to develop present projects. State Minister Besir Atalay is conducting very important projects together with the TIKA (Turkish International Cooperation Agency), and an example of this will be seen in Mongolia, responded the Prime Minister. Erdogan will today participate in a ceremony for the laying of the foundations for the Bilge Kagan Highway in Kharkorin that will create a link to the Orhun inscriptions. "We will finish this road as soon as possible," says Erdogan.
Turkey has built a museum in Ulan Bator and that they are planning to open another museum in the region near the grave stones, too, to which Erdogan gives the good news, he also says: "Mongolia thus will be a field of attraction, more people will come here and Mongolia will become an important place in the world of tourism. It will draw attention as a symbol of the Turkish world. The most important factor in tourism is the road. While there is no road, nobody can go there. We are building permanent works for the Turkish world."

Turkey and Mongolia share historical and cultural links, so this bit of news comes as no real surprise but nonetheless as a delight.

The more things change...

2005-07-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Disheartening news from the UB Post:

L.Baigal, who was convicted of corruption in 1998 in connection with the operation of an illegal casino, has been appointed chairman of the department for monitoring state budget income of the General Department of National Taxation. The appointment was made on July 18, at the decision of the Minister of Finance N.Altankhuyag.

Baigal replaces N.Chimid, who Zuunii Medee newspaper reported was forced out of the post because he uncovered illegal activity whilst head of a group to examine Erdenet Mining Corporation.

The newspaper suggested that Altankhuyag might have been involved in the misconduct, as he made the decision to replace Chimid with Baigal at short notice.

For the life of me, I don't know how people in power (such as the folks who appointed this crook to his new position) can put their own self-interest ahead of their entire country. Does not compute.

In the News

2005-07-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

I've been busier'n all get out the last few days and will be for a while to come yet. While I'm occupied, here are some of the things to take a look at:

1. Taiwan-Mongolia business interaction is expanding and accelerating:

For most Taiwanese companies, Mongolia is a novel market they have never considered exploring. That is until the last few years when pioneers started to break into the exotic place. Their sporadic investments and trading activities have provoked substantial business interaction between the two economic entities.
The two years of 2002-2003 marked a critical period for bilateral relations as the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) set up the Taiwan Trade Center in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, in June 2002, followed by the inauguration of Ulaanbaatar Trade and Economic Representative Office in Taipei in December 2003.

As the first Mongolian representative in Taipei, Mr. D. Batmunhk has seen a satisfactory progress in Taiwan-Mongolia economic relations. "The annual bilateral trade grew to nearly US$5 million in 2004, around 1,000 Taiwanese tourists traveled to Mongolia in the same year, and there are over 30 Taiwanese-run companies there," he quoted the official data as saying. Meanwhile, an estimated 70 Mongolian workers have immigrated into Taiwan, among the hundreds of Mongolian people on the island.

"Though these figures look small when compared to those of other countries, they denoted a steady development in the initial stage of Taiwan-Mongolia economic relations," noted Mr. Batmunhk. Actually, he added, "the numbers are growing from zero two or three years ago."

2. Tehran and Moscow spar over Mongolian natural resources:

IRKUTSK - The Siberian economic news service, FIS, has just announced that over 80 people will particpate in the 11th meeting of the Russian-Mongolian Intergovernmental Committee for trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation to be held on July 18 in Irkutsk.

It is no coincidence this is taking place right after Iran announced making overtures to Ulan Bator to establish economic, industrial and energy cooperation between the two countries.

This is all out competition between Moscow, its Western financiers, and the Council of Guardians of Iran, working with Beijing, over who will control the majority of raw materials in Central Asia in the post-World War III world.

Ulan Bator will take advantage of all the attention.

(BTW, did I miss something? World War III? I know I've had a busy week and all, but...)

3. Here's an article I've only had time to scan: "The Former Soviet Union's Next Wave of Democratization"

4. Mongolia gets $3 million from China to develop power plants. Seems to be linked to Chinese ambitions for Mongolian natural resources.

5. Korea goes wobbly; Mongolia steps up to play key role in Iraq:

The U.S. government has asked Korea's Zaytun Division to provide logistical support including housing, food and vehicles to Mongolian troops protecting a UN office planned for Irbil, Iraq. Washington initially asked Korean troops themselves to guard office staff but drafted in Mongolian troops when Korea showed reluctance.
A ruling party source said the U.S. had been saying since last year that the Zaytun Division’s reconstruction role was too limited and wanted them to guard the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) office that will go up in Irbil in September, as well as provide convoys to protect office staff.

But the source said Korea only agreed to guard the UN office while tasking Mongolian troops with staff protection. "We are considering a plan to provide logistical support to the Mongolian troops," a government official said. Mongolia has about 180 men in Najaf in south-central Iraq.

6. Asashoryu, despite a blip, remains the hottest thing in sumo.

7. Joshua at One Free Korea has an enlightening interview (esp. vis-a-vis North Korea) with the Mongolian ambassador to the US. (Via registan.net)

8. Last but not least, Nathan over at registan.net has the coolest thing since fermented mare's milk on a hot summer's day. That's right, WICKED COOL POST-APOCALYPTIC MONGOL BMX RAIDERS! (Insert the Dean Scream here)

Manly Games, Childish Journalists

2005-07-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

Five years old and a fearless horseman.

Naadam, one of the world's oldest games festivals, recently ended for this year. One western journalist, Oliver August of The Times (London), finds something to complain about. The children jockeys don't wear helmets. Here's a bit from his article, "It's the world's longest race, and child welfare is last - as always" (um, by the way, why is this artcle called "news"; shouldn't it be "opinion"):

When the punishing cold on the Siberian border briefly lets up, the nomad population celebrates the world’s second oldest “Olympics”. Since the days of Genghis Khan more than 800 years ago, they have come together to compete in the “three manly sports” — archery, wrestling and the all-important horse race.
Families arrive from across a country the size of Western Europe to enjoy more than 300 contests with the atmosphere of a medieval carnival. For most nomads, these are the only social events of the year. The other eleven and a half months, they are camped on the endless, frozen grasslands. The biggest contest, or naadam takes place near the capital, Ulan Bator in a vast green valley lined with 100,000 spectators, some of which have spent a week on horseback getting there. This week more than 2,300 mares and stallions raced down the 20-mile-long valley lined with food stalls and carpet sellers in white felt yurts known as gers.
Clouds of dust on the horizon announce the racers’ arrival well before they are visible. As they approach, hooves make the ground tremble and whips and bridles lash the air. At the finish line, the horses are tackled and halted by men in striped robes so that the horses do not carry on into the next valley.
“Some horses arrive riderless. They have been trained not to stop when the rider falls off. To win, only the horse has to cross the finish line,” says Ganbaatar, a 40-year-old catcher.
Inexperience is the main reason so many jockeys fall off. The oldest are only 11 or 12, after which they are deemed too heavy to ride. “Of course, they can’t control the beasts as well as older riders,” Ganbaatar concedes.
About 5 per cent of Mongolia’s thousands of child jockeys fall off each year, some sustaining lifelong injuries. Unicef, the international children’s agency, has now called on the Mongolian Government to make helmets mandatory. “We have strong reservations with regards to the racing because it poses a threat to the health of the children,” a spokesman said.

There's a lot I could say. But has this guy ever been on a horse? Does he know that nomad kids start riding before they can walk? They're practically born on horses. But Oliver August knows better than they. And so do does UNICEF. They want helmets for the racers. This is only a 20 miles race and lasts only a few minutes--but a infinitesimal fraction of the time and miles that the kids have and will spend on horseback as part of the family livelihood. Does UNICEF want kids to wear helmets when they're herding the family sheep, too? When they're riding out on the steppe to visit friends? What about the kids who ride camels? They might fall further, no? Should they have to wear a safety harness, too?

If folks want to start wearing helmets, they will do it themselves. In fact, the story indicates that this is happening:

For the first time this year, some jockeys at the main Naadam near Ulan Bator wore helmets, knee and elbow pads. But elsewhere races remain unchanged from centuries past. On the banks of the Orkhon in central Mongolia, nomads barely know what a helmet is. “I saw one in a shop in Ulan Bator once,” said the father of a six-year-old girl jockey. “It looked very uncomfortable. We have sun hats instead.”

This is the way it should be. The Mongolians just recently got out from under a system in which people's lives were controled down to what you did, what you read, what you thought, how long you lived. It was a system called communism. It's over now, and now the Mongolians are living freely and easily as they did since time out of memory. If this horse-mounted culture wants to start wearing helmets, it's up to them. It's their country.

The story ends with what must be a sad ending for the medling "child welfare" people, but it's a beautiful ending for the proud Mongolians and freedom loving people everywhere:

The thought of government intervention is anathema to most nomads. Property rights are unknown on the grasslands, as are fences or signs on the few roads. The Government is absent from their lives and always has been.

China: the 800lb Gorilla

2005-07-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

I just read a great article by Alicia Campi, president of the consulting and marketing company U.S.-Mongolia Advisory Group (USMAG), over at Transitions Online. In "Mongolia: The Road Ahead" Campi takes a hard look at Mongolia's treacherous path forward. The article's focus is the key question of Sino-Mongolian relations with with regard both to Mongolia's economy and to its national sovereignty. The analysis of the "realist" and "liberal" views of the relationship is very helpful in defining the various views of how Mongolia should handle itself vis-a-vis China:

The former would warn Mongolia against greater Chinese involvement in its economy and society, while the latter tend to see greater integration of the two economies as a way to avoid potential military conflicts.

The realist view is exemplified by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago in his prize-winning book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and by the Taiwan specialist Denny Roy of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. In this view, the Chinese seek to use economic expansion to enlarge their sphere of influence and redress the wrongs of history. The late Gerald Segal of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies advocated China’s “containment.” Roy similarly calls for China’s “enmeshment” in a web of security relationships among its neighbors, in order to slow Chinese growth.

Such a position defines the strategic thinking of Mongol officials, including the present prime minister, Ts. Elbegdorj, who returned to office last year. Throughout history Mongolia and China have had a highly antagonistic relationship. Even 60 years of peaceful coexistence has not obliterated the memories and suspicions on both sides. Mongols remember that Mao himself raised claims to Mongolia with Khrushchev in 1954, even though four years before he had recognized Mongolian independence. As Mao's attitude showed, modern Chinese governments have always defined Chinese sovereign territory based on their succession from the Qing dynasty, and Chinese histories indicate that Mongolia was unjustly separated in 1911 at the collapse of the Qing.

The piece also confirms some of my more gloomy predictions about China's growing and aparently unstopable influence in Mongolia.

...Perhaps the most far-reaching change in Mongolia’s trade patterns during the transition era [the early 1990s] was not oriented towards free markets in Europe, the U.S, Central Asia, or Japan, but towards China. Prior to 1991, 80 percent of Mongolia’s trade was with the USSR and 15 percent with other socialist countries. Russia can no longer afford Mongolian products, however, and China has readily stepped in to fill the breach. Since 1999, more private investment in Mongolia has come from China than any other country (38 percent in 2004), and in 2005 over 60 percent of Mongolia’s exports will go to China. Many political and strategic analysts, especially in the U.S. and Mongolia, are concerned about China's growing penetration of the Mongolian economy and caution that this will have negative military and political implications. Over time Mongolia needs to work toward a balance in its relations with China and Russia, they argue, although no one is able to predict when Russia will be able to reassert itself as a major partner. These same analysts also minimize the need for any strong political or economic relationship with the Central Asian republics.

At the end of the article, the question of Chinese domination reappears:

It appears that foreign business and economic development advisers may in fact be advocating trade policies for Mongolia concerning China that could be counterproductive to their governments’ Asian regional interests, as well as harmful to their goals for Mongolian democracy building, market transparency, and national security. During the past 15 years, we have watched China expand into the Mongolian market with a sense of inevitability, and done little to actively support the Mongols in diversifying their trade to partners in Central Asia. Such continued passivity surely will lead to economic domination over Mongolia by the Chinese and other more precarious ramifications which will not enhance stability in the Northeast Asian region.

The article propounds an idea of looking neither West or East only, but of re-establishing the silk road, or some modern variation thereupon:

Could not Mongolia reopen the Silk Road (perhaps modernized as the "Meat and Minerals Road") and look to Central Asia, Tibet, even India, for a third neighbor, thus renewing traditional cultural and religious ties and finding immediate markets for its meat and animal byproducts? This scenario has been promoted by former Mongolian prime ministers Byambasuren and Enkhbayar, and the historian B. Baabar. I myself have been a proponent of Mongolia as a bridge between East and Central Asia. Positioning itself as a regional crossroads could lead Mongolia to higher-end markets in the Middle East and Europe for diversification of its foreign trade. In this way, the traditional economic monopoly of China or Russia over Mongolia could be somewhat balanced by capitalizing on Mongolia and Central Asia’s common nomadic and Silk Road heritage, relatively close geographical position, and similar Soviet-era business structures and experiences. I believe a pro-Central Asian policy would be more realistic than the false expectation of garnering great profits only from integration into Northeast Asia. In fact, in analyzing economic statistics for Mongolia in the 1990s, I found that although foreign companies invested $1.5 billion in Northeast Asia, $520 million was placed in only one Chinese province (Jilin), $530 million went to the Russian Far East, and Mongolia’s share was less than 1 percent – the smallest in the region except for North Korea! It appears that following a Northeast Asian integration policy so far has not benefited Mongolia economically, nor provided a necessary counterweight to China’s growing penetration and control.

Travelling in Mongolia does turn up a good bit of evidence that India is far from a dispassionate bystander to Mongolian affairs, and vice versa. If I recall correctly, the Indians have a quite impressive embassy in UB, and are doing a fair bit of investment or at least investment research in Mongolia. Although there are a number of pitfalls that this plan could lead to, the real problem may be one more of local Mongolian attitudes:

The great majority of Mongolian policymakers, however, remain unconvinced that promoting ties with Central Asian nations will help them. They privately denigrate these countries as too Turkic, Muslim, and "Soviet" in mentality. Many of these beliefs appear to stem from the negative biases against Central Asian peoples promoted by the Russians in socialist times. Today, Mongolian leaders are likely to prefer to look east ("forward") to the Pacific Confucian-influenced nations, rather than west ("backward") to the Central Asia of nomadism and socialism. For example, in his Mongolia’s Foreign Policy in the 1990s: New Identity and New Challenges, Batbayar sees that the choice between Northeast Asia and Central Asia has a developmental aspect: “This choice implicitly concerns the struggle between the nomadic identity of Mongols vs. its road to [the] modern twenty-first century. It also concerns the vital question of sources for necessary technology and know-how in order not only to overcome the transition period but to make the country self-sustainable and competitive in coming years and decades.”

Also of note: a discussion of whether Mongolia is useful for purposes of American military projection in the area.

An altogether worthwhile article.

The Horror that is North Korea

2005-07-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

I know that this blog is about Mongolia, but what with the recent Mongolia North Korea detente, I read up on NK a bit. I always knew things were horrific there on account of the criminal malfeasance of the brutal and maniacal--nearly subhuman--communist regime there. But an article I found at the LA Times (registration required) via North Korea Zone brings it home all the more. It's about the North Korean city of Chongjin, a city the size of Boston in terms of population. Read it, and allow your heart to weep with the North Koreans.

Most of the factories in Chongjin, a former industrial port, are rusting into ruin. Those still operating can barely pay salaries; the average worker's wage amounts to $1 per month at current exchange rates.

Even with international aid, many people go to bed wondering whether they will eat the next day. Residents, along with officials of the United Nations World Food Program, say food shortages have grown worse again in the last year.

"Maybe people are not dying today out in the streets like they were before," [a reference to the famine in the mid-nineties when approximately 2,000,000 men, women, and children perished] said a coal miner who lives in Chongjin, "but they are still dying — just quietly in their homes."

The prolonged hardship has left North Koreans increasingly disillusioned with leader Kim Jong Il and the ideology of national self-reliance that once held the nation together. People say the regime has less and less control.

With corruption running rampant, the state is no longer solely in charge of commerce. People hustle to sell anything they can — prohibited videos of South Korean soap operas, real estate and official travel documents. In this free-for-all, some people have prospered. Many more are just a step ahead of starvation.

For years, one of the hallmarks of North Korea's government was its public distribution system, which doled out food and other goods to citizens nearly for free. The regime considered coal mining a strategic occupation, and miners were given extra rations.

But in the early 1990s, the lights in the mines went out, as did the pumps that kept the shafts dry. Beams rotted and equipment corroded. As the mines ceased production, the rations stopped.

The children were the first to start dying, then the elderly. Next to perish were men, who seemed to need more calories to survive than women.

Chongjin residents learned to recognize the stages of starvation.

First, the victims become listless and too weak to work. Their vision grows blurry. They become bone-thin, then startlingly, their torsos bloat.

Toward the end, they just lie still, sometimes hallucinating about food.

While some people seem to fade away, others die in agony, their intestines blocked when they can't digest substitute foods, such as corn powder and oak leaves. Particularly lethal to children's digestive systems are ersatz rice cakes — molded out of a paste made from the inner bark of pine trees.

Among the victims was the miner's 60-year-old father, an otherwise strong and robust man who had never been ill as long as he could remember. The miner's best friend, a co-worker and childhood buddy, dragged himself out to the mountains to look for food and never returned.

This is atrocity beyond imagination. Sorry to be coarse, but stray dogs in third-world shanty towns have a better quality of life than most North Korean humans. I now put the dictatorial Kim family right up their with Hitler and Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. This article did it for me. I can't believe, but I can believe, how this kind of pure evil exists on the earth. For the life of me, I do not know how people can fail to believe that the North Korean regime is a member of the Axis of Evil. If it's not evil, nothing is evil. And something--perhaps something extreme--must be done. People are dying as the world's diplomats are limosined to and from luxury hotels to wrinkle their foreheads over foie gras and bubbly about how to pacify Kim Jung-il. For crying out loud, this cries out to heaven. People are dying by the million. Think what you will of me, but if ever a war of liberation were called for, this is the place, these are the people.

I love America for...

2005-07-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

I took this post down to edit it. See the edited version here.

7/7/2005

2005-07-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

"We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job."--Sir Winston Churchill, 1941

"I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange to taking others ... but I know you do fear you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society ... in the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports and look at our railway stations ... you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world, will arrive in London to become Londoners, to fulfill their dream and achieve their potential … whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."--Ken Livingstone, London Mayor, 7/7/2005.

Deep Trouble

2005-07-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

Mining is good for Mongolia, but it needs to be done oh so carefully to avoid unnecessary environmental impact. Newswise prints a small article on the problem:

Mongolia’s campaign of preservation, however, conflicts with the rapid expansion of the mining industry; already, mining is occurring in protected areas. From 1993 to 2003, annual growth of the mining sector ranged from 8 to 12%, while cold output of mineral ores has increased 15-fold. In 2003, Mongolia’s mineral sector accounted for 8.6% of the gross national product and 66% of exports.
Adding to the problem, Mongolia has a foreign debt at 75% of its GNP. At present, mining is the government’s most important source of tax revenue. The stability of the nation’s economy will depend on the mining industry for decades.

Author John D. Farrington, a Fulbright Fellow, outlines nine basic approaches that have been successful in the past to resolve conflicts between protected areas and mining. Of the nine, Farrington recommends four that would suit Mongolia’s situation: granting land trades and special dispensations in exchange for mineral licenses in protected areas; granting protected status to all lapsed mineral licenses in protected areas; voluntary forfeiting of mineral licenses in protected areas in exchange for positive corporate publicity; and prohibiting all new mineral activities in existing and proposed protected areas.

Farrington's study can be found here in it's entirety.

Land Privatization (2)

2005-07-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Yan, a reader, commented on my article on land privatization:

I don't understand why private land ownership should be crucial for Mongolia's development. Sure, many western world are more advanced, and they do have private property rights on land. But I don't really see the direct conection between the two (except that farming societies tend to be more advanced than nomadic societies, and farming societies do require a concept of land ownership). If you are not implying that Mongolia needs to change towards a farming society in order to develope, I don't see what private property in pieces of the mongolian countryside should be good for.

The case is different in cities, aimag and sum centers, of course. But the way those laws on land registration are implemented at the moment (at least in Khuvsgul) is that people try to grab the most scenic spots in national parks etc. in order to build yet another campsite. Who happens to know the people in the registration office comes first, of course.

Me: He raises some good points. First, land ownership is generally tied to the notion of "improving" upon the land by making it somehow profitable (whether in the short or long term). This includes farming, but is not limited to it. Improving land may mean building things on it, growing things on it, raising animals on it, manufacturing things on it, leasing it, digging things out of it, or attracting paying customers to it. Incidentally, I think that's what De Soto was driving at when he said, "Everybody who feels they have something of value" is free to use it in trade, "either mortgage it, lease it, sell it, develop it, whatever." This principle applies whether you're in cities, aimag centers, sum centers, or the countryside.

I've one or two ideas of how land ownership could be avoided, but they're only possible if herding remains the mainstay of Mongolia. And as Baabar was quoted as saying in his UB Post opinion piece, herding is likely not the pathway to a better economic future in Mongolia. One idea would be for herders, once (or if) an international market for Mongolian animal products (meat, milk, cashmere, wool, etc.) becomes more developed, to cooperate in a way that would allow them to combine resources, transportation, and bargaining power. This could potentially cause herders to become more profitable and as a consequence raise them out of a subsistance hearding existance and help them to improve their quality of life in general. But again, this will work only if there's a market for their goods. (There was a time in the United States where this idea worked--when much of the West and the Great Plains were given to cattle. But it didn't last for long--maybe a few decades before the end of the 19th century. That's when the flood of folks from the East Coast and Europe seeking a better life and turned the grazing land into farmsteads.)

Second, the problem that is taking place in Khuvsgul (and in Kharkhorum, where land was, but is no longer, given away freely to Mongolian nationals) of people snapping up prime pieces of land and then just making them their private campsites could be eliminated by adopting the laws that would stipulate that the land would be yours ONLY if you improve upon it (see above) within a certain period of time. If a claimant doesn't improve upon it, the land would no longer belong to them. This would basically be what is commonly called homesteading. The principles upon which homesteading is based stretch back hundreds of years in the West, and it could, with adjustment, be applied anywhere. A great overview of homesteading as it was applied in America can be found at Wikipedia (also apropos at this link, a brief discussion of what happened when homesteaders came to the open range used by ranchers). Homesteading isn't a perfect system for making public land private--fraud is still possible--but it has largely been successful in America.

Two reasons why a homesteading approach to land-privatization might NOT work in Mongolia is that, first, it's predicated upon the assumption that the people who would claim the land would have the intention of improving upon it whether for residential, industrial, agricultural, etc., purposes. After all, there is not much history of land improvement in Mongolia, a nation historically given to herding and subsistance living. Couple this with the second reason--a huge expanse of land (larger than Texas) and a tiny population (under 3 million), and I'm not sure that homesteading is an idea that would prove efficacious in Mongolia. However the principle may still hold.

We'll see what happens.

North Korean-Mongolian Relations, Continued

2005-07-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

It really seems that North Korea is open to Mongolia in ways that the West can only dream about at this time. B.Enkhtsetseg, a reporter from the UB Post, was recently able to sit down with North Korean Ambassador to Mongolia Pak Jong Do for what was apparently a friendly (if somewhat cold) interview. For reasons beyond me, bloggers and commenters are making a big deal (with tongue in cheek) about the joint NK-Mongolia ostrich farm while ignoring the rest of what is an enlightening article, some of which is reproduced below:

Why did Pyongyang decide to close down its embassy [in Ulaanbaatar]?
Due to the situation of the economy in our country, we had no choice but to close down the embassy in 1999 for a temporary period. Leader Kim Jong Il considered the interests of the people of the two countries and reopened the embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Ulaanbaatar last year.

Mongolia and the DPRK were members of the socialist system. Mongolia has now become a democratic state and a developing free market economy.

How do these changes affect the relationship with the DPRK?
We consider the embassy not just to have reopened, but to have reached a new level of operation. In accordance with the new situation in Mongolia, the relationship between the two countries is developing in the fields of politics, economics, culture, education and health. The [then] President of Mongolia N.Bagabandi paid a state visit to the DPRK in December last year and DPRK government-level representatives for economic affairs made a visit to Mongolia in February this year.

Work has begun in most areas of cooperation that we agreed to develop during these visits. For instance the DPRK Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture visited Ulaanbaatar last month [on May 5-11] and the two sides discussed building a joint farm in Mongolia. They expressed an interest in setting up an ostrich farm in Mongolia. When the then president N.Bagabandi visited Pyongyang in December 2004 he visited an ostrich farm. At his suggestion to our experts, the work of establishing an ostrich farm is expected to start next month in Mongolia. Moreover, U.Barsbold, Mongolian Minister of Nature and Environment, visited the DPRK recently and he expressed a wish to cooperate on the Green Wall Eco-Strip Program, on which we agreed.

Mongolia has been participating regularly and successfully in the [North Korean] Spring Festival held in April every year and this year took many awards from the festival. The DPRK and Mongolia built a joint hospital in Ulaanbaatar last November. The hospital is based on Korean traditional medicine and has Korean doctors working there.

How well developed is the trade relationship between the two countries?
So far, it is as if there is no trade link at all between the two countries. First of all we should study what type of products Mongolians need. To that end a trade exhibition of our country was held in Ulaanbaatar in February.

Mongolian business people are scheduled to go to the DPRK in September to determine possible areas for bilateral cooperation. So I hope the two countries’ trade links will be increased....

How well are the people of North Korea informed about world events and other countries’ lifestyles?
Our people are quite well informed about news and events in Mongolia. The North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun in particular publishes articles about Mongolia quite often. Generally, our two countries have traditionally good relations. Therefore, our press often publishes highlights of the relationship between the two countries....

How do you view the movement of emigrants from the DPRK to South Korea and Japan through Mongolia?
Mongolia officially stated to us that there is no case of our people having emigrated that way. There were some reports in the western media that North Korean refugee camps were going to be built in Mongolia but the government of Mongolia has repeatedly expressed that Mongolia will not receive refugees.

What is your impression of Mongolia? What aspects do you like and dislike?
...I have not seen anything that felt uncomfortable in my heart. I have seen that the people have a friendly attitude that is as warm to our country as it is to their close relatives.

For more on North Korea, a great source is the North Korea Zone.

At What Price Progress? Land Privatization in the Land Without Fences

2005-07-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

One of the singular impressions I have of Mongolia is the ability to simply walk anywhere and everywhere and not encounter that most ubiquitous of American institutions, the fence. This creates a number of interesting scenes: cows meandering through Erdenet's downtown streets being one of the most distinctive. But more than that, it creates a very open society charactarized by community, liberality, and shared effort.

Which makes the question of land privatization such a distressing one. Reporter Jehangir S. Pocha wrote about just this problem not long ago in a very well-researched and illuminating piece:

Before the freewheeling 1960s, before Mao led China to revolution in 1949 and before the Soviets took control of this country in 1921, Mongolia was already one giant commune.

"Land here never belonged to anyone; it belonged to everyone," said Davasuren, 50, a self-described "retired nomad" in this tiny village 30 kilometers, or 20 miles, south of Ulan Bator, the capital. Like many Mongolians, he uses only one name.

Despite the reputation for violent acquisitiveness that Mongolians acquired when Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde forged the world's greatest land empire in the 12th and 13th centuries, Mongolia developed as a communal land-sharing system long before capitalists and Communists clashed over the principles of property and ownership.

Every herding clan led its animals across a specific seasonal grazing route established by the clan's ancestors, and the right to this path was respected by others through an unwritten code based on honor and mutual cooperation.

"But"--and there is always a but--

as the modern world has encroached on this remote country, Mongolia has been trying to reinvent itself as a free market democracy.

Many local politicians and economists now say that Mongolia's traditional land regime is the core cause of its backwardness and want to replace it with a Westernized property management system under which land would be parceled out and privatized.

"Our plan is, every citizen gets some land free once, in one area," said Myagmarsuren Dechinlkhundev, consultant to the government's standing committee on environment and rural development in Ulan Bator.

In cities it might be just 0.3 hectares, or more than 0.7 acres, he said, but in rural areas it could be about 0.75 hectares.

"Doing this in rural areas," he said, "faces more difficulties, but we're determined to go ahead. Private land is the base for a free economy."

That is a view rooted in the developmental model that a Peruvian economist, Hernando De Soto, outlined.

De Soto, in his book, "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else," contends that the problem often "is that people just aren't sure of what they own."

"Everybody who feels they have something of value," he said, is free to use it in trade, "either mortgage it, lease it, sell it, develop it, whatever."

But while this prescription made sense for agrarian countries in which feudalism
denied peasants ownership of the land they tilled, its economic efficacy seems less obvious in Mongolia, where more than a million of the 2.5 million people are herders.

The question of land-privatization is not a new one in Mongolia. David Sneath addressed the question from a historical perspective in a draft paper called "Notions of Rights over Land and the History of Mongolian Pastoralism" (2000). In this paper, Sneath speaks of historic and traditional Mongolian ideas of land ownership and their development and points out how land reform in the form of privatization has historically been met with strenuous opposition from herders. The emphasis of his article eventually becomes Inner Mongolia. Eventually, he concludes that the story of private ownership in Inner Mongolia (China) should warn us that market liberalism and land privatization (1) does not square with Mongolian sentiments with regard to land and (2) will ultimately cause environmental degradation (case in point, Inner Mongolia) because of the constraints that it places on traditional herding and grazing practices.

Whether what Sneath says is right or wrong, there are legitimate objections to land-privatization in Mongolia (or anywhere else) . To wit, there are (to simplify grossly) three: First, it goes against traditional Mongolian notions of land use. Second, it would create instability in the livelihoods the well over half of Mongolia's population that derives its subsistance from nomadic herding. Third, it would go a long way toward destroying an ancient, thriving, and irreplacable culture.

Of course, any good common sense fellow (of a free-market disposition) can immediately offer all kinds of rebuttals to these objections. In the first case, the Mongolians are just going to have to adapt to the way things work in the modern world, just as all advanced civilizations have. In the second, the instability is only temporary; when everything gets sorted out and the new system is in place, everyone will be much better off for the change, no matter how difficult. In the third case, one might note that countless "irreplacable" cultures have been lost in the passage of time (and that the Mongols did their share in making that happen) , and that one more should not get anyone's nose out of joint. Besides, one might suggest, just as old cultures are disappearing, new cultures always rush in to fill the void. Let's just be grown up about it, the pragmatist might say, perahs shed a few tears, but then pick up and move on.

Let's face it. It's easy to be dogmatic when facing such issues. But when you have a tie to the land, it's anything but philosophical. It's intensely visceral. For a man's land is inseperable from his land, his soil, his hearth. And for the Mongolian nomad, that land, that soil, that hearth, is the entire steppe as it billows and rolls under the the eternal blue sky.

The beauty of blogging is that it's always a work in process. Just like my view on land-privatization in Mongolia. What makes Mongolia so beautiful in many regards is the fact that the land is for all intents and purposes communal (where the word communal carries no political baggage). Quite literally, it's possible to walk or ride from one end of Mongolia to the other without a fence getting in one's way. The kind of life and view on life that this creates (or was created by it) is breathtakingly unique. The only thing I can think of to parallel this phenomenon in my own experience is that of the American Indian or the cowboys and cattle-drivers in bygone American epochs (I grew up in Montana). I suppose there are snatches of such open space in other places throughout the earth--northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, both poles. But there's no place quite like Mongolia where the wide open steppe and taiga and desert is so tied up with a living and widespread culture. The world, not least the Mongolians, would lose something of incalculable worth--their very historic identity--were their country to go the way of all flesh and chop its land into little parcels and hedge them about with barbed wire fences.

Yet Mongolia, if it is to survive and indeed advance, cannot remain a subsistance economy with matching land and property laws. As much as the romantic or idealist in us hates it, times have changed. Subsistance survival, whether by hunting, gathering, farming, or herding, is no longer the norm. Economic advance is. Baabar, a prominant Mongolian scholar, democrat, and commentator, put it this way in a recent editorial for the UB Post:

Traditional animal husbandry has turned into a sector that is nothing more then a tool of sustenance for those who are herding them. Occupancy of this sector, which is not even ј of GDP, will be decreasing significantly and there’s no alternative other then replacing it....

Though I don't know Baabar's explicit opinions on land privatization, this sentiment seems to be of a piece with, perhaps even complimentary to, De Soto's above-noted observation that "private land is the base for a free economy." Again, without clear-cut land ownership, De Soto maintains, people will not know what they own and thus not have much heart to sink time, resources, and personal effort into improving what may not be theirs in the end.

In the final analysis, an ownership society and with it land-privatization is apparently the only way forward for Mongolia. But at the cost of the culture? Of the land? Of this generation of Mongolians? They know and we know that there is a choice to be made. Unfortunately, there's no easy decision. We can only hope for the best as Mongolia plots its course for the future.

"The Second Breakup of the Soviet Union"

2005-07-04T12:21:00.000-07:00

From the pages of the Christian Science Monitor, via Pinaxman Cometh (how's that for a blog name?):

Two Russian ethnic republics, Ingushetia and Bashkortostan, have seen mass street demonstrations this week directed against Kremlin-installed leaders. Even in remote Mongolia, the former USSR's Asian satellite, hundreds of protesters gathered last week to "congratulate our Kyrgyz brothers" and demand a rerun of last June's disputed parliamentary polls.
Some experts see a common thread among these upheavals that began 17 months ago when Georgians overthrew Eduard Shevardnadze in a peaceful revolt and continued with Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" late last year.

"Every situation is different, but a single process is unfolding," says Valentin Bogatyrov, a former Akayev adviser and director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Bishkek. "Kyrgyzstan is a kind of trigger that will spread this unrest to our neighbors, and beyond. We are witnessing the second breakup of the Soviet Union."

Allegedly fraudulent elections sparked the uprisings in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. Among the post-Soviet states that face elections in the next two years are Azerbaijan later this year, plus Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan in 2006. Common features of the regimes potentially under siege include systemic corruption, nepotism, and political appointments based on personal fealty rather than professionalism. (Italics mine)

Great news. Especially the last part. Corruption has got to go if the Central Asian republics, or any other country, wants to advance. The brighter the light, the more widespread the revolutions, the better for freedom everywhere.

What's Required for Progress?

2005-07-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

Cliff May at NRO provided some food for thought today in NRO's Corner: "Development requires private property rights, tort law, an independent judiciary, market access, [and] disincentive to corruption...." Mongolia's well on the way in establishing these things, but it'd still make a good to do list for the country's leaders:

Private property rights
Tort law
An independent judiciary
Market access
Disincentive to corruption

Of course, none of these things are that easy to come by. For starters, establishing private property rights in a land of nomads is something that's going to be beyond difficult (this is something I'd like to explore more soon). But it's a good list to have on hand nonetheless.

Using Chinggis as Cover

2005-07-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

The Boston Globe reports today on the memory of Chinggis Khan. One of the observations:

Differing assessments of conquerors can roil emotions in Asia, where passions over history run high. But since Genghis Khan's legacy is free of living memory, it is proving easier to revise.
In fact, nations wanting to curry favor with resource-rich Mongolia are supporting its attempts to resurrect its past.

Since Mongolians worship their dead and the location of Genghis Khan's grave remains unknown, both Beijing and Tokyo are trying to outdo each other in sanctifying his memory.

China is spending about $20 million to renovate a mausoleum it built for Genghis Khan in 1954 at Ejin Horo Banner on the Ordos Highlands in its province of Inner Mongolia. In October, a Japanese-financed research team searching for the ruler's tomb said it had found it at Avraga, about 155 miles east of this capital.

There's nothing that some countries, China among them, would like to do more than simply walk into Mongolia and walk out with its precious resources. I hope, I hope, I hope that the folks running Mongolia don't let these outside powers woo their way into robbing Mongolia's natural resources, whether the foreigners "sanctify Chinggis's memory" or not. Mongolia appears to be getting savvy as to the potentially all-consuming appetite of its neighbors for raw resources (witness the tighter logging laws that have been passed in the past few years), so it's not likely that anyone's going to pull the cashmere over Mongolia's eyes. I can't help but be a bit worried, though.

Party (MPRP) Man

2005-07-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

The UB Post has a story on Enkhbayar's swearing in as President. The concluding paragraph includes some info about Enkhbayar as well as his view of the current state of the MPRP:

At the time of his inauguration, Enkhbayar officially withdrew his membership of the MPRP, as required by law. He joined the party in 1985 and was party chairman since 1997. Enkhbayar told the press about some of the successes of the party during his time as chairman, including winning 10 elections (including parliamentary, local, presidential) out of 11. He said that at times in the past the party was criticized for not having a clear concept, but described the present day party as a democratic socialist party with a left of center concept. He said that party membership doubled during his time as chairman. He stated that although he has withdrawn his membership, he will continue to exchange opinions with party members but he will not be involved in the internal affairs of the party.

Naadam

2005-07-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

Fast and furious: Boy jockeys as young as 4 push their horses to the limits in one of Mongolia's "three manly sports." (source: Magma Online)

Naadam is quickly aproaching.

DUST SWIRLS LIKE BROWN CYCLONES across the grassland in the distance, long before the riders break the horizon. Then, the ground heaves to the pounding of hundreds of hoofs, as horses surge for miles across the steppes.

The race course is a rainbow of color. Banners fly from carnival booths. Horse manes are pinned punk-style, with ribbons. Reins are studded with shiny silver. And riders in the world's largest horse race are wrapped in embroidered robes of blue, orange and magenta.

In the barren plains of Mongolia, where winters are ferocious, food is scarce and one can roam the range for days without seeing a sign of human settlement, there would seem to be no better test of mettle than simple survival. However, thousands of hearty descendants of Genghis Kahn compete in shows of skill and strength every summer at Naadam, a sports festival rivaling the Olympics as the Earth's oldest games....

National Geographic spotlights this huge annual celebration (July 11-13) in a article published just yesterday. But much more worth your time and your senses is the beautiful piece quoted above by Mongolia writer Ron Gluckman.

All Chinggis, All the Time

2005-06-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

Via Fulgen I found Ghengis Khan on the Web, which introduces itself thus:

This site collects, sorts and annotates more than 275 resources about Genghis Khan, the great Mongol conqueror. It includes academic biographies to movies of his life, the hunt for his long-lost tomb and his surprising genetic legacy. It represents everything I can find of any value, but it can never be finished.

There you have it. Everything you'll ever need to know about the great Khan at your fingertips.

Watching the Inauguration

2005-06-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

I just found Thomo's Hole through Technorati. On it, an American working in Mongolia describes the recent presidential inauguration firsthand.

Oh, and via Thomo's Hole, I found Ella's Blog, a blog so new it only has one entry. Again, by an American working in Mongolia. I don't know whether to say that the blog shows promise or not. But with the dearth of Mongolia blogs, I'm publicizing every one I can find...

Second-guessing China

2005-06-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

An interesting conversation about Mongolian-Chinese relationship has started up below. The topic is an important one, and it deserves an entry of its own, so I'm bringing it here.

Yan, a frequent commentator at our blog, wonders whether China might be making friendly overtures toward Mongolia. He notes that the Chinese envoy who visited Enkhbayar, Uyunqimg, is not only the vice-chairwoman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress but is also head of the Inner Mongolian autonomous region (and deputy secretary of the Regional CPC comittee). Yan said: "I think her visit only underlines once more that the PRC regards Mongolia as a souvereign nation (and as a nation it would like to have friendly relations with). The fact that they sent an Inner Mongolian might mean they are interested in closer relations between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia as well, but that's just a wild guess."

My take: I think I'm with Yan by saying that it's hard to know exactly what China's real attitude toward Mongolia is. So it's not always easy to know what China does what it does. Is what we see what we get, or are there motives, ulterior or otherwise, that are driving events? So I guess I'm a bit more suspicious than Yan.

Sorry to be so cynical, but I'm a wee bit leery of China, especially with regard to its neighbors that were once a part of its empire. Mongolia is ripe for the picking. This would be to China's benefit in that it has the natural resources that China craves. And it's part of the old Middle Kingdom, which China's always tring to restore whether more or less aggressively. On Mongolia's side, the economy is somewhat weak, unemployment is high, its having trouble entering the global marketplace, etc. China could, I imagine, easily become "good friends" with Mongolia by offering Mongolia the benefits of a closer relationship such as economic advance, industrial development, etc. and in the process gain much influence there. China would be most pleased with such an arrangement.

I'm not really given to conspiracy theories, but I don't think that China's given up on the dream of a restored territorial empire. If no one were looking, I have no doubt that China would roll right over Taiwan. And I don't think that Mongolia would be too far down on China's to do list.

(I'd be very interested to hear what Mongolian and Chinese readers of this blog have to say about this topic.)

Macroeconomic Assessment of 2004

2005-06-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

Mongolia--The summery of 2004 from Asian Development Outlook.

The overall situation looks like improving, but still some heavy internal issues remain: poverty, unemployment...Here

President Enkhbayar Inaugerated Yesterday

2005-06-25T12:48:00.000-07:00

President-elect Enkhbayar (MPRP) was inaugerated yesterday. Links to the story here (Montsame; garbled English/Mongolian) and here (People's Daily Online, China). Backstory here (UB Post). The People's Daily report is quoted here:

The newly elected president of Mongolia Nambaryn Enkhbayar was inaugurated Friday afternoon.
After being sworn in as president of Mongolia and accepting the State Seal from former President Nachagyn Bagabandy, Enkhbayar pledged to implement his campaign promises and justify the Mongolian people's trust in him.

A parade of military troops was also held in honor of the new president and commander-in-chief of the Mongolian armed forces.

Enkhbayar, chairman of Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party since June 1997, was elected president last month. He served as minister of culture from 1992 to 1996, and in 2000 he was elected prime minister.

After the election of parliament in 2004, he became chairman of the Mongolian parliament....

We wish him and the Mongolian people the best in their democratic adventure.

Larry Summers, Meet Mongolia

2005-06-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

Remember that flap over Harvard's president, Larry Summers, suggesting that there may be a genetic reason for women not having proportionate representation in academic and business circles? Well, in Mongolia, the gender gap looks to be going the other direction. I found it over at Gene Expressions. A snippet:

The preference [in Mongolia] to send daughters to college has led to what the United
Nations calls a "reverse gender gap" -- women now make up 60 percent of all students at Mongolian universities. The trend is particularly distinctive because Asia is typically considered a place where women are less valued than men.
"It's just the opposite of much of Asia. Arab and Asian students in other countries often don't believe" that this could happen, says Solongo Algaa, a demographer at the National University of Mongolia,who studies the phenomenon.

Women also perform better than men at places like National University of Mongolia, says Davaa Suren, the university's vice president. Looking over the scores on a recent entrance exam in the Mongolia-language department, he notes that 8 of the top 10 students are women. In economics, women are 7 of the top 10 students; in
science departments, women account for about half of the top 10. He shrugs when asked why the gap exists: "Perhaps women are more hard-working."

Make of it what you will.

Soyombo

2005-06-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I posted something about the Mongolian flag. Well, this is to clarify a bit what the sybol to the left is all about.

From Flagspot:

"The soyombo (or soyemba) is the national emblem of Mongolia. Its origins are closely associated with Lamaism, and the various elements of the design were regarded as having mystical meanings. Individually, parts of the design also may be related to brands of ownership placed on horses and cattle. The star at the top of the modern soyombo is a recent addition to the traditional symbol; it represents socialist revolution. Below that, a fire symbol has multiple significance. It represents revival and growth, and also the family hearth and the continuity of the people. The fire has three tongues of flame, symbolizing past, present, and future. Below the fire are symbols of the sun and moon, links to the pre-Buddhist nature religion of the Mongols. In ancient Mongolian symbolism, an arrow or spear pointing to the ground meant death. In the soyombo, two downward-pointing triangles signify death to the enemies of the Mongols. Two horizontal rectangles represent honesty and fairness between rulers and the people. Set between the two horizontal rectangles is the Chinese sign of yin and yang, representing dark and light, fenale and male, cold and hot - the unity of all opposites in the cosmos. In Mongolian symbolism, the figures in the yin-yang circle represent two fish which, because fish never close their eyes, signify reason and wisdom. The two vertical rectangles represent a fortress, recalling the old Mongolian proverb "The friendship of two men is stronger than stone walls." The symbol of the fortress signifies that the unity of the Mongol people is the foundation of the nation's strength. The soyombo was adopted as the official symbol of the Mongolian People's Republic by the first People's Great Khural in 1924. A golden soyombo is emblazoned on the left panel of Mongolia's blue-and-red national flag."From: 'The Land and People of Mongolia', by John S. Major, New York, 1990. (p. 183)

Elements of the Soyombo also appear in the historical flags of Russian republics of Tuva and Buryatia, and the flag of the separatist Inner Mongolian People's Party (unofficial; opposed by China).

Turning Point in History

2005-06-21T18:06:00.000-07:00

In light of China's attitudes toward Mongolia, I thought I'd post a bit of penetrating analysis I just read regarding Taiwan's change in stance with re: to the land of Chinggis Khan. Thanks to reader Yan for clueing me into this giant episode in global realignment in the first place. I admit that it sailed right past me at the time.

DARE TO DREAM [Andrew Stuttaford] [Oct. 5, 2002]
In an annoyingly realistic gesture, Taiwan has renounced its claims to Mongolia (which stem from the island nation's status as the continuation of pre-Communist China). Su Jia-shan of the Taiwanese interior ministry told the Financial Times that Taipei was simply being "practical", "To have Mongolia shown as part of our territory does not accord with reality."

He's quite right, of course, but it's still somewhat disappointing. I rather like the thought of Taiwan's ambitious hegemons, hungrily staring across the ocean and dreaming of empire in distant Ulan Bator. In a way it's a little reminiscent (if I remember correctly) of the supposed war between Sweden and Yugoslavia dreamt up by the humorist Peter Simple in the London Daily Telegraph a few decades ago. The conflict had, apparently, being going on for years, with attempts to bring it to a successful conclusion by one side or the other being continually stymied by the fact that there was nowhere that these two powers could actually meet to have a battle.

New Mongolia/CA Blog

2005-06-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

Alan Cordova has just started a new blog: "The Alan Cordova Central Asian Democracy Project." He'll be focusing on Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. For more on what he's doing, check in here. Much luck, Alan. I look forward to checking in often. (Via Globe of Blogs.)

Man Bites Dog

2005-06-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

A very bizzare editorial by a fellow named Tony Henderson about Asia's delicate relationship with China. Here's the bit about the Mongolia-China relationship:

As a small nation situated between two giant powers - China and Russia - confronting one another, Mongolia’s Government saw no other choice but to come under the protective umbrella of one of them. For Mongolians, historical experience caused them to choose the Soviet umbrella. Consequently the relationship between Mongolia and China did not recover until the end of the Sino-Soviet confrontation when Beijing and Ulaanbaatar each recognised their shared strategic interests, and re-engaged. While Russia continues to have a political and economic influence in Mongolia, it is now the PRC which is emerging as the main political and economic partner.
Mongolians had viewed China as a hostile country before the late 1980s, but now generally regard China as a major power able to generate regional and world economic development.

As Jiang Zeming has said, there are no unsettled political, legal or historical problems between the two countries. Yet, deep-rooted distrust of China caused by historical experience still persists among Mongolians and the Mongolian media is frequently suspicious of China’s ambitions, particularly fearing Chinese expansion....
A mishandling of [trade] issues may provoke an upsurge in Mongolian nationalism that would damage Sino-Mongolian relations. Mongolians and Chinese each have different historical viewpoints and while Mongolians see themselves as one of Asia's oldest ethnically pure groups, as do the Han Chinese, the Chinese regard Mongolia as a former part of its Middle Kingdom and view Mongolians as an ethnic minority. This is a deep-rooted contrary view that could have explosive effects in the future relations of Ulaanbaatar and Beijing.
At present, Mongolian nationalist movements may be found in Mongolia, the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, and Russia's regions of Buryatskaya and Kalmykia. Based on their common traditional culture, Mongolian nationalism began quickening during 1989 when Mongolia was making a political turnaround. In 1990, after the Mongolian Democratic Party publicly stated its: "Uniting the Three Mongolias" stance (Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Mongolian Buryatskaya), the party also advocated "providing a unified spoken and written language and a nationality which could naturally be linked together". There was also support for a union between Inner Mongolia, Mongolian Buryatskaya, Mongolian Xinjiang, and other regions which would in turn unite Mongolians under one "Great Mongolia". China is taking note of those moves.

I'm inclined to let the irony speak for itself. Mongolia's fear of Chinese expansionism is long-standing and deeply rooted in recent experience and modern political reality (Macao, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan all may have something to say on the topic.) Oddly, that's only given a quick mention in this article. The real threat in the region, we are informed in this article, is Mongolia's desire to enfold part of China into "Great Mongolia."

Please forgive me if I state the obvious. If anyone's guilty of expansionist dreams and the power to turn them into reality, it's, well, definitely not Mongolia (well, at least not for the past 700 years or so). I've never--not even once--heard Mongolians talk about a vision of a greater Mongolia that stretches from Russia to Northern China. Even if Mongolia were to harbor secret designs on China, does anyone doubt that that any move toward Mongolian reunification would be quickly, unceremoniously, and definitively smashed to smitherines by China?

Can any balanced observer even begin to commence to start to think that Mongolia is threatening China rather than vice versa? Who writes this stuff?

(For the answer to that last question, click here.)

Lenin a Mongolian!?

2005-06-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

Add this to the list of things I didn't know. And to the list of things I wish I didn't know. Lenin was part Mongolian:

Lenin's original surname was Ulyanov. Lenin was a code name. According to Volkogonov, Lenin was German-Jewish-Kalmyk-Russian by ancestry, though the Kalmyk (Mongol) element in his blood seemed to dominate his physical appearance.

I blame this for enlightening me.

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

2005-06-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

This has got to end. I can't believe that people--"educators" at that--expect, as a matter of policy, less from people simply because of their background. Dr. Peter West, Head of the Research Group on Men and Families at the University of Western Sydney, writes the following, obviously from personal experience:

“Yes, yes, thank you Mr Jones, please sit down. ...I want to talk to you about the grades you gave those students from Mongolia.”
“Well yes I thought they’d complain. But Dean, the University’s policies are quite clear. Plagiarism means that you fail. It’s on our website.”

“Yes of course it is. This university continues the traditions of Oxford and Cambridge, though of course with flexible learning and continuous assessment, all informed by cutting-edge research and the latest technology. The University needs to give the community, and of course the government, confidence in our reputation as defenders of academic rigour and excellence.”

“That’s why I failed those students. It was a plain case of plagiarism. They all said the same thing in that essay on business ethics. And it was all stolen from the web. Doesn’t this university believe in standards?”

“Yes, yes. Mr Jones. Of course we do! But I was going to speak to you anyway. Your failure rate is rather high, isn’t it, I mean compared with most of your colleagues?”

“Hmmm. It’s well within faculty guidelines. If students can’t write proper English sentences, don’t know what a paragraph is, and just pretend to read one or two books, what hope have they got if they don’t come to lectures? Aren’t we just making a pretence of learning if they aren’t learning anything? Most of them don’t even want to learn.”

“Mr Jones, please don’t trouble yourself marking their English. If we get obsessed with students writing a perfect English essay we could be accused of academic elitism. University is for the great unwashed these days, you know. Look, if they can’t write, just send them off to Academic Writing, or whatever that’s called since we out-sourced it to the school across the freeway. And these students really are a special case.”

“I see. All students are special, but some are more special than others. Aren’t we supposed to treat all students equally, Dean?”

“Oh of course we are. But these students have, you know, special problems. Foreign students have kept this faculty alive. We would have to have sent quite a few staff packing if it weren’t for those delightful faces that are so much more interesting really, than the great mass of apathetic students we get so often! Especially from the western suburbs. Mongolia doesn’t have the tradition of academic excellence that local students have. They don’t have the same religious beliefs, either. So their ethos, or for that matter, their business ethics seem to be rather different.” (emphasis mine)

Talk about "enlightened" racism. The Dean in this tongue-only-slightly-in-cheek article exemplifies to a T what Larry Elder rightly calls "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Seriously, does anyone think that giving passing grades to failing students is actually helping the Mongolians/fill-in-whatever-group-here, as opposed to making them "feel good about themselves" (whatever that's supposed to accomplish)? How on earth is this supposed to educate tomorrow's world leaders? This horrific approach to "education" will spell doom for society that it comes into contact with if it's allowed to continue. Stamp out dishonesty, corruption, offensively low expectations wherever they are. Especially when they are being fostered by folks who have the power to change things. Let the powers that be call you what they want. But people deserve to be pushed to their utmost potential, even if it makes them -gulp- work hard. It's the only way the future leaders of Mongolia or any other country are going to keep moving forward. And one day they'll thank you for it.

Moving Forward/Backward

2005-06-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

Reading the Kyrgyzstan Kid's observations about the post-Soviet Kyrgyz countryside reminded me of Mongolia:

Outings into the Kyrgyz countryside provide mini-adventures into the past. But the chapters of Kyrgyzstan’s recent history read more like vignettes after the apocalypse than epic tales of nomadic clans warring for land. Although the curtain never fully closed on the genetic memory of the Kyrgyz during last century’s Sovietization, the re-emergence of their own culture plays out on an eerie stage—as if the props from the previous play were only partially removed and the set director for the new show decided to work around them.

Relics of the modern world anachronistically litter Kyrgyzstan’s landscape. Shepherds bring their sheep to pasture under power lines that have long ceased to illuminate their homes. A driver training course cracks like drying mud, submitting pavement to the encroaching field. Foundations of buildings no more than fifty years old whisper out of the ground—crumbling ghost towns of a lost civilization.

If Kyrgyzstan is anything like Mongolia, the people who witnessed the encroachment of Russian influence didn't share Russia's fascination with the "modern world" and its acoutrements. Mongolians were largely nomadic when Russia rode in, and the only skills shared broadly among Mongolians were the nomadic arts of herding and the like. The new and modern Mongolia that sprang from the steppe did so exclusively because of the Russian bulldozer, Russian engineer, and Russian city planner. When Russian influence and financial support slipped away as their empire crumbled, so did those bulldozers, engineers, and city planners. What was left was a shell of a modern infrastructure with people who little knew how to sustain it and build upon it. Rarely has so much been invested and so little immediately "returned" as in the former Russian satellites.

When old and new meet: The first Russian bulldozer that came to Erdenet in 1976, the year that the Russians and Mongolians decided to build what is now one of the five biggest cities in Mongolia (pop. 80,000).

This is not to say that Monoglia does not want to stay on a modernizing trajectory. Au contraire. But it is a comment on the social and technolocialy environment in which modernization must take place. When you give a nomad a hydro-electric dam, what exactly is he supposed to do with it? When you give a herder a telephone grid, can we realistically expect him to maintain it? Mongolians are bravely doing their best, and the next generation of Mongolians looks to be more savvy in the ways of city-life and technological advance. In the mean time, it's good for those of us in the west to appreciate just how far Mongolia and other countries like it have to advance for them to take flight as as modern nations in the modern world.

First, eh?

2005-06-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

Headline on the Xinhua (China) web site: "World's first museum on Mongolian history, culture opens to visitors." What follows is the description of a museum just opened in Inner Mongolia (Chinese-occupied). What's this, then?

Stuff like this coming from the likes of a state-sponsored, aggressive colonialist Chinese newspaper really galls me. Like Mongolia doesn't already have a bunch of musea already? It reminds me of the time when I was talking with a fellow from China about Mongolia. In the course of the conversation, I told him that Mongolia earned her independence in the 1921. Oh no it didn't, he informed me. It wasn't independant until the 1960s. Huh? Yea, he said, that's when China recognized Mongolia's sovereignty. So, I guess the world doesn't have a museum about Mongolia until the Chinese government has the goodness to build one. Sheesh.

Bring on the Disinfectant

2005-06-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

I dont' know if I'll make it a personal crusade on this website, but I'd sure like the limelights to be turned onto the corruption going on in Mongolia, wherever and whenever it appears. Mongolia has a huge chance at making it as a long-term democracy, and its people have grand and realistic aspirations for a great future. But first they need to nip this corruption business in the bud.

Another serious breach of law mentioned in the report was that tax officials in Bayankhongor aimag settled a case themselves where the offending company, Ilch Trade Company, should instead have been taken to court. It was also noted that officials in Bulgan, Orkhon, Ovorkhangai, Omnogobi, Uvs and Khentii aimags did not allow individuals and companies accused of tax offences to argue their case or provide evidence to counter the claims.

That's from the UB Post's recent report on fraud and corruption by tax officials.

The Criminal Code: Room for Improvement

2005-06-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

The UN, via the UB Post, provides a bit more news that not all is sweetness and light in the land of the eternal sky.

Law enforcement agencies in Mongolia are largely known for their less exemplary behavior. Even local Mongolians know that the last people to call when a crime takes place are the police. Corruption, a problem in many official spheres in the country, is also a huge problem among the police, and justice isn't something that they serve up as reliably as one might hope.

[The UN rapporteur] was also concerned with the secrecy surrounding the application of the death penalty, especially the absence of any official data. The deplorable conditions on death row and the failure to notify families, amounted to cruelty, according to Nowak. He also noted that the treatment of prisoners serving 30-year terms in isolation is inhumane. However, the ‘ordinary’ prison regime was found generally to be in line with international standards.

Mr. Nowak highlighted that impunity in Mongolia for violations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment goes unimpeded because of the absence in the Criminal Code of a definition of torture in line with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. He also noted a lack of effective mechanisms to receive and investigate allegations of ill-treatment and a basic lack of awareness primarily on behalf of prosecutors, lawyers and the judiciary of the international standards relating to the prohibition of torture. There is consequently no recourse of compensation and rehabilitation for torture and other forms of ill treatment.

The more reports like this get out, the better for Mongolia in the long run. Let's hope that Mongolian law enforcement sheds the habits acquired during the era of totalitarian police-statism and adopts a new--and enforced--crimial code.

2005-06-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

Sheep and goats coming back from pasture.

New Mongolia Blog

2005-06-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

News in both Mongolian and English is available on a brand new blog, The United News of Mongol.

Opening North Korea

2005-06-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

This is a fascinating development, and I admit that it's the first I've heard of it (the article is from December, 2004). Mongolia, the key to opening N. Korea? Wow. But it makes sense...

Once allies within the Soviet bloc, North Korea and Mongolia chose very different tacks after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990. While North Korea's continuing Stalinism has brought it to the brink of collapse, Mongolia undertook a series of political and economic reforms that revitalized the country.
"I really believe that Mongolia's experience is very much transferable to North Korea, and we can become a kind of transition consultant to them," Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj, Mongolia's prime minister, said in a recent interview. The North Koreans "listen to us because we're not Western people trying to teach them [the Western] way of life. We are like them, and through workshops and meetings we are simply sharing our knowledge, our experience with them."

Read it all for yourself.

Two Reasons...

2005-06-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

...democracy is succeeding.

Mongolia: An Experiment in Democracy

2005-06-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

Given what I've read around the web, there's a sneaking opinion in many quarters that Mongolia is a country that is breathlessly waiting to revert to closed markets, accordion wire, and good old-fashioned communism. There’s an equally strong view that Mongolia is ripe for democratic revolution, the next domino to fall in the wave of freedom that is sweeping the Middle East and the former Eastern Bloc. Well, let me set the record straight on both accounts. I thought I'd take a few minutes and demonstrate, using as objective information as I can find, just how free, open, and stable this former Eastern Bloc country has been, is now, and, if past trends are any indication for future events, will yet be.

Using the information posted on Freedom House’s excellent website, I put together a rough and ready (and admittedly unscientific) comparison of Mongolia and the former East Bloc countries, many of whom, like Mongolia, were vassal states to the USSR. I also threw in a few Asian countries to provide regional comparison.

Legend:

Example: Country_A X / Y
where:

X = political rights

Y = civil liberties

Both X and Y are scored using numbers between 1 and 7, with 1 representing the highest level of freedom, and 7, the lowest level.

Let’s start with the 1994 stats. (This was the earliest year for which Freedom House provides such statistics online). These numbers give us a pretty good idea of where things stood following the democratization that deluged the region once the Soviet dam broke.

Sorted by 1994 scores
Rank	Country	1994
1	Czech Republic	1/2
	Hungary	1/2
	Slovenia	1/2
4	Lithuania	1/3
5	Bulgaria	2/2
	Poland	2/2
7	Mongolia	2/3
	Slovakia	2/3
9	Estonia	3/2
	Latvia	3/2
11	Albania	3/4
	Armenia	3/4
	Russia	3/4
	Ukraine	3/4
15	Kygyz Republic	4/3
	Macedonia	4/3
	Romania	4/3
18	Belarus	4/4
	Croatia	4/4
	Moldova	4/4
21	Georgia	5/5
22	Kazakhstan	6/5
23	Azerbaijan	6/6
	Bosnia-Herzegovina	6/6
	Serbia and Montenegro	6/6
26	Tajikstan	7/7
	Turkmenistan	7/7
	Uzbekistan	7/7

	Japan	2/2
	S. Korea	2/2
	Taiwan	3/3
	India	4/4
	China	7/7
	N. Korea	7/7

Among other things, notice just how fast out of the gate Mongolia was in establishing its freedoms and democratizing its political process.1994 was about 4 years after Mongolia made the jarring transfer from autocracy/communism to democracy. Already, Mongolia had earned a highly respected 2/3 rating (from something I would guess to be in the 6/6 to 7/7 range).

In terms of rank, Mongolia had a strong showing at number 7—well ahead of the next Central Asian republic (Armenia) and also ahead of such traditionally western countries as Estonia and Latvia. Comparison with Mongolia’s geographical neighbors is even sharper: Russia, Mongolia’s neighbor to the north still hung at 3/4, Kazakhstan, immediately to the west, lingered at a dismal 6/5, while the Kyrgyz Republic, further to the west, came in at 4/3. China, just to the south, checked in with an atrocious 7/7.

There’s a lot more to be said, but I think it’s clear that Mongolia moved quickly and decisively in the direction of democracy. Even Romania could have learned (and, to anticipate myself a bit, still can) a lot from the Mongolians.

Let’s move on to see how things stand today, or at least as they stood in 2003, the last year for which I can find numbers:

Sorted by 2003 scores
Rank	Country	2003
1	Slovenia	1/1
2	Bulgaria	1/2
	Czech Republic	1/2
	Estonia	1/2
	Hungary	1/2
	Latvia	1/2
	Lithuania	1/2
	Poland	1/2
	Slovakia	1/2
10	Croatia	2/2
	Mongolia	2/2
	Romania	2/2
13	Serbia and Montenegro	3/2
14	Albania	3/3
	Macedonia	3/3
16	Moldova	3/4
17	Armenia	4/4
	Bosnia-Herzegovina:	4/4
	Georgia	4/4
	Ukraine	4/4
21	Russia	5/5
22	Azerbaijan	6/5
	Kazakhstan	6/5
	Kygyz Republic	6/5
	Tajikstan	6/5
26	Belarus	6/6
27	Uzbekistan	7/6
28	Turkmenistan	7/7

	Japan	1/2
	S. Korea	2/2
	Taiwan	2/2
	India	2/3
	China	7/6
	N. Korea	7/7

Despite moving down in the rankings over these ten years (from tied for 7th to tied for 10th) Mongolia’s score has improved (from 2/3 to 2/2). This demonstrates a number of things, principle among them Mongolia’s stability. With numbers like this, it's easy to understand why Mongolia has been able to have nine national parliamentary and presidential national elections in about 15 years--all of them free, fair, and, perhaps most tellingly, friendly (compare elsewhere in the region). That political power has changed been passed back and forth between several parties is an indication that the Republic is advancing more strongly, more peacefully, and more openly than ever.

It is also instructive to notice that the four countries that surpassed Mongolia in the ranking were all western (Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Slovakia), and had, until Soviet expansion, had been philosophically and politically liberal, whereas Mongolia—it should go without saying—had not been. Rather, it had been under Chinese Nationalist and then, from 1921, Communist Russian domination. To say that Mongolia had enjoyed little to no open contact with liberal political ideas until the Iron Curtain unraveled would be too obvious by half. Nevertheless, Mongolia took hold of the idea of a liberal democracy and has been running ever since and ever faster.

Again, in comparison with many of its ethnic, cultural, or geographical cohorts, Mongolia’s standing in the survey form the period of 1994 to 2003 has proved exceptionally stable. A number of countries saw freedoms either advance and then retreat or retreat and then advance. Take several examples of the latter phenomenon. The Kyrgyz Republic had a score of 4/3 in 1994 (3^rd best among Central Asian countries) but dropped to 6/5 by 2003 (and 4^th from the bottom in CA). Belarus, then 4/4, has sunk to 6/6 under the heavy heel of Russia, which itself has dropped from 3/4 to 5/5. Kazakhstan, it must be said, has maintained stability, but stability of a rather wretched variety—6/5 then, 6/5 now. Indeed, Mongolia is an island of democratic freedom in a deeply troubled region (see a color coded map here [opens as a PDF]). (This article does not take into account the recent democratic struggles pursued by a number of CA nations).

Much more could be said, such as the parity Mongolia shares with such Asian nations as Taiwan (2/2) and South Korea (2/2) in terms of political rights and civil liberty, but I think that the numbers speak more clearly than I ever could. Regardless, by this much, it should be clear that Mongolia has been democratic since the very beginning of it’s new national existence, is democratic, and will remain democratic as long as it depends on the Mongolians. Indeed, my guess is that in the next year or two, Mongolia will make even greater strides in democracy and, in doing so, will continue to be a model for the fledgling democracies in the region and beyond.

Update: I have just discovered more complete data which covers the years 1972 through 2005 (click here). Mongolia has remained at a 2/2 (having risen, as I suspected, from a 7/7 in 1989). This newly-found data does not significantly impact the conclusions I drew in this article.

Update: Fixed mistake in rankings and a typo or two.

Freedom House Mongolia Profile

2005-06-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a informative rundown on Mongolia's situation with regard to personal liberties and civil rights in the years since democracy took hold. This is a good "big picture" report.

Protest Reform: Backstory

2005-06-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

I just discovered that Gateway Pundit linked to a number of stories on the events that led to the (up-coming) protest reform. See here and here. I started blogging on reform here.

Update: Registan.net analyzes one of Gateway Pundit's links. The ensuing string of comments provide some good insight.

Paddling Lake Hovsgol

2005-06-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Found an awe-inspiring article about kayaking one of the world's hidden treasures: Mongolia's Lake Hovsgol. I haven't been to the lake (yet), but I've been to areas near it, and the way that Ward describes Mongolia doesn't border a bit on the hyperbolic. The place is simply beyond description. Here's a teaser:

Since only a narrow finger of the lake drops down into Hatgal, we could not get a feel for the lake's size from town. Once we paddled just a few miles up the mountainous western shore, the lake opened up and looked more like an ocean. For Mongols, the "dark blue pearl" represents a place of national pride. We soon discovered the reason for the name. As soon as the sun slid behind the cloud, the whole lake changed from green and blue to an ominous gray. In the sun the water along the shore rivals the colors of the Caribbean, but the deep water always remains a mysterious blue.

We watched mesmerized as our shadows played over the bottom of the lake near the shore—70 feet down and we could see the bottom like we were looking through glass. Locals claim they can see the bottom of the lake even at its deepest point, more than 600 feet down.

Read the whole thing. You won't be sorry.

Pride and the Art of the Possible Don't Always Mix

2005-06-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting conversation (scroll down) over at the UB Post about foreign investment in Mongolia. Basically, several commentators are seem pleased that Mongolia plans to instate what some view as prohibitively high tax rates on foreign investors. This, they believe, allows Mongolia to maintain a degree of economic self-determination. Understandably, much of their oposition to more competetive tax rates seems rooted in misplaced national pride.

Anyway, Jay, one of the guys who is for lower tax rates, brought up a great point in answer to this sentiment:

Foreign investment will not only jump-start the economy by providing immediate employment, but also help establish an industrial base in Mongolia. This means that factories will be built, workers will be trained, and technical knowhows will be provided. Although the bulk of the profit generated from the operations in Mongolia may be repatriated back to such countries as Canada and the U.S., foreign investment in general will be good this country in the long run. With a sound industrial base and a strong and skillful workforce, Mongolia will fare much better than it does right now.

Exactly. Let me add: I'm an American and I love my country. Of course, I want the best for my country in all circumstances. But there are sometimes when America can't get wants and has to settle for what's possible. That's why politics has been called "the art of the possible." I think that everyone who loves Mongolia--I include myself in that category as someone whose wife is a Mongolian patriot--has to have the same attitude. It is a fact, of course, the Mongolia doesn't get its way as often as the USA gets theirs, but the principle is the same: it gets what it can when it can. And when it can't, it must consider the option of settling for what's possible (as opposed to what's most desireable).

Unfortunately, Mongolia is not currently in a position in which it can always dictate the terms most favorable to itself. As I've noted before, it's a classic case of Thucydides' maxim: the powerful do what they want, the weak do what they can. If Mongolia is to grow economically, there's going to have to be a lot of doing what they can. It's a short-run difficulty. And, as any patriot knows, the national pride will take a few lumps. But it's the first step that every fledgling country has had to take--history teaches us that America was no exeception--on the way to long-term growth and advancement.

Fit for a Khan

2005-06-07T23:07:00.000-07:00

Mongol and I just got back from a weekend with the family in Oakland, CA. Oakland is home to as thriving a Mongolian community as one can imagine in the States. I think that someone said there were about 200 Mongolians within a city block or so. Evidently, that's enough to support a Mongolian restaurant. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to visit it. This, however, won't hinder me from offering a critique--or at least offering a quick critique offered by my cousin who lives down the street from it.

A quick note about my cousin: he was the chef to the Mongolian President a few years ago (forgive me if I can't recall which one). So he knows his grub.

Anyway, says my cousin, it all depends on which day you go. Some days the buuz and khushuur are great. Those are the days where the professional Mongolian cook works there. Then some days the food is less than impressive. Those are the days when the folks from around the neighborhood roam the kitchen instead of the professional.

There you have it--my cousin's complete critique. My $0.02: Given the simplicity of Mongolian food, I can't imagine that there's that great of a chasm between great and less than great food. Mongol will no doubt disagree strenuously on this point. I will say, however, that horse buuz are very tasty, although they might send you "to the Prime Minister" (a good friend of that vengeful fellow Montezuma) for a few days--they did me, anyway.

Regardless, you can try the place out for yourself if you find yourself in Oakland anytime soon. It's on 14th Street Between Oak and Madison directly across from the Oakland Public Library. It has no name that I'm aware of, and there's no signage outside to distinguish it from any of the surrounding shops, so just pop your head into all the doors until you find one that leads into a restaurant. Who knows, you might be the first round-eye they've served.

(Oh, and if you have a bit of extra time on your hands and you're in the mood for a little dancing, feel free to visit the Mongolian night club just next door.)

Long May It Wave

2005-06-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

The Mongolian Flag (picture from here). The CIA World Factbook describes the flag thus: three equal, vertical bands of red (hoist side), blue, and red; centered on the hoist-side red band in yellow is the national emblem ("soyombo" - a columnar arrangement of abstract and geometric representation for fire, sun, moon, earth, water, and the yin-yang symbol).

Protest Reform: The Next Step Toward Clean Government?

2005-06-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

As was reported in the UB Post last week, laws in Mongolia are changing to relax regulations on public protest:

Parliament is currently discussing changes to the law on public demonstrations that would relax the authorities' grip to some extent over controlling demonstrations and protests. The move is seen as long overdue by some parties, particularly the Just Society-Civic Movement, which has been campaigning for a change in the law since February.

The amendment under discussion was launched by Prime Minister Ts.Elbegdorj as a response to protestors' demands. Elbegdorj promised to make changes in consultation with the Just Society-Civic Movement. The revision is an attempt to bring the law more into line with the constitution, which states that citizens are guaranteed the rights of freedom of thought, opinion, expression, speech, press and peaceful assembly. Although there is a variety of opinions within the parliament, the general consensus is that the law should be changed to better meet the ideas of the constitution and respect people's rights.

The current law states that permission must first be obtained from the local governor before demonstrations can be held in public streets or squares. The new version proposed by the government would remove the necessity to gain permission and would instead require that the plan for the demonstration and the details of the organizers are registered with the local governor three days before the event.

This news is heartening in that it indicates that local politicians are proactively involved in continuing the liberalization of the political process, which must include freedom of peaceful assembly. As the past 15 years of elections and a proven track record of democratic reform indicate, Mongolia is well on the way to becoming a totally open society in terms of politics. More power to them!

What remains to be seen is a serious attempt to stem corruption. The recent election victory for the MPRP took place in part because of popular resentment of fraud and corruption widespread within the previous government. By all accounts, however, the MPRP is just as beholden to sleaze and graft as the government it's replacing.

To Mongolians, corruption is a way of life, a factor that shows no signs of disappearing. Government officials are always setting up friends, aggrandizing themselves and their partners, and are otherwise conducting themselves in a less than upright manner (not to say that we Americans don't have our own problems; but still, the scale of the problem here is vastly different). Personal accounts of corruption abound--my relatives were swappinging corruption stories around dinner a few nights ago. The stories would be funny if the weren't so enraging.

Light, it is said, is the best disinfectant, especially when the light is reinforced by peaceful protests (click here for an illustration from the Middle East). If the politicians won't listen to their consciences or have an interest in the greater good of their country, perhaps the people can provide some incentive for them to do so. Here's to transparency and to the hope that the protest reform has the unintended consequence of cleaning up the government.

The UB Post

2005-06-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

If there's a better English-language source for Mongolian domestic news than the UB Post, I haven't found it. A crucial site if you're an avid Mongolia watcher. (Bonus: Local restaurant reviews! )

The Mongolian Language and Scripts

2005-06-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

Interesting...This is what Mongolians think about the historical development of the language and the script, here.

Google your Mongolia News

2005-06-02T17:43:00.000-07:00

Google's a great source for news stories about Mongolia. Better, in fact, than any I've seen yet.

From a German Perspektiv

2005-06-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

Just discovered a site that has a fair bit about Mongolia. Note: it's in German. Klicken Sie hier.

The Mongol Rally

2005-06-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

Because there's more than one way to visit Mongolia.