That will depend on Mongolia’s protectors - Russia and the US.

Mongolia has the great history and this nation is great nation.

Mongolia has had good innings in the game of empire, but lacked staying power and the software (cultural and intellectual) to stay on top, in stark contrast to its sneakily expansionistic neighbor, China. It also bit off too much at a time. Mongols could have conquered and remade China (or any other empire) in its image. Instead, they went on a campaign of global conquest that spread them too thin. As a result, Mongols today are a fraction of the 1 billion Chinese and can never hope to overcome them again.

And also Mongolia has enough methods to protect itself from foreign invation. So dont think that Mongolia will join to China. Mongolians are really patriotic.

It’s not clear to me that Mongolia, which (1) is poor, (2) has a land boundary with China and (3) has a small population, would be able to defend its sovereignty, when the Taiwanese, who are (1) rich, (2) have a 100-mile strait separating them from China and (3) has a population of 20 million, would have significant trouble. I’m sure Mongols are brave and patriotic. But then again, so were the Tibetans and the Uighurs, all of which had beaten off Chinese armies in the past.

Someday this country will conquer the world again.

Unlikely, in the age of mass armies and weapons superiority that is determined by relative industrial power.

My impressions of long-term Chinese intentions are formed from English language forums in which Chinese posters have expressed their view that China will one day overturn what they feel to be humiliating defeats at the hands of lesser breeds*. Also, I switched from being a (strictly amateur) Sovietologist to a (strictly amateur) Sinologist, after the 1996 incident involving Chinese missile tests in the Taiwan Straits and veiled nuclear threats from China.

My views of Chinese military capability are the result of reading analyses from various think-tanks and other open sources. You too can read up about developments in China’s military capability at huge variety of websites - my favorite is http://www.ndu.edu, which contains both analyses of China’s intentions and capabilities and translations of Chinese views about China’s place in the world.

* What I found interesting was the fact that Chinese posters feel that Korea was *stolen* from China, even though it wasn’t actually part of the Manchu empire. (Note that I believe only the China that predated Manchu empire should be considered part of China - excluding Manchuria, South Mongolia, Tibet and East Turkistan).

In an ideal world, Mongolia’s sovereignty would depend on UN recognition. In reality, it’s been reliant upon Russian protection, just as Tibet’s sovereignty was dependent initially on British, and then Indian protection. The Indians failed the Tibetans. Today, Tibet is a Chinese Autonomous Region.

Plus, China will have to use military force to take Mongolia and I am sure that China is not in any situation to use the military force and even have the intentions to take, what they think is part of China, Mongolia, that was tried and retried in 1911 and 1921, but both attempts fail.

These attempts were made by dispersed warlord forces closer to bandits than to a real army. Today, China has millions of troops under unified command with the latest Russian equipment. The principal reason Mongolia is still independent today is because of Russian protection. The Chinese view all territory that was controlled (via conquest or otherwise) by the predecessor Manchu empire to be Chinese territory. Mongolia happens to be one of these territories.

What will never happen? Mongolia aligning with Russia and China, or Mongolia being annexed by China? Without Russian (and American) support, annexation by China is a virtual certainty.