Over at the Nautilus Institute’s Policy Forum Online, Stephen E. Noerper argues that the United States should boost its support for developments in Mongolia. Read the whole thing on your own; here’s just a snipit:
Though a small country in terms of population and contemporary political importance, Mongolia deserves that enhanced US and international recognition, not only in light of a rich cultural and historical legacy, but given a decade and a half of progress toward democracy, a free market economy and active regional and international role. As Washington faces intricate challenges in Iraq and elsewhere, Mongolia has quietly and resolutely laid democratic institutions and a process of governance that though facing many challenges - most evident in January 2006 — affirms US goals.
Situated between giants Russia and China, this land of blue skies lies at a cross roads of increasing geographic significance. The prospect of the uniting of an inter-Korean railway and transportation and energy corridors that link Asia and Europe imply added potential for the broad Mongolian expanse. Both China and Russia have expressed interest in mineral and energy resources within Mongolia, with copper mines in southern Mongolia potentially feeding the needs of eighty percent of the Chinese copper market. During the Cold War, Russia used Mongolia as a listening post onto China and the two giants in recent years have pressed Mongolia for support in a multilateral counterterrorism and economic development forum, namely the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. As both giants have pressed trilateral and other arrangements, Mongolia has sought to counterbalance these external forces through its Third Neighbor approach, including good relations with the US and others as an important third spoke. Mongolia has emerged as an active proponent for regional institutions and actively encouraged attention from the United States, European Union and others in fostering aid, foreign direct investment and military cooperation.
To that end, Mongolia is advancing a regional peacekeeping training center and provided quick support to US campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Among the first of Asian nations to offer condolences post-9/11, Mongolia, despite some internal controversy, afforded swift over flight rights to US aircraft toward Central Asia and committed troops to Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. That participation has emerged more significant than one might assume of small nation support in several instances, namely in Mongolian troops’ unique rapport with Hazara forces in Afghanistan (the Hazara being descendents of the Mongolian Golden Horde and identifying with the Mongolians on ethnic lines); in the skilled marksmanship of Mongolian forces in Iraq that prevented a suicide attack; and in the continued rotation of Mongolian troops into the combat theaters, despite some opposition at home that mirrors concerns more broadly across Asia. Former Mongolian President Bagabandi’s 2004 visit to Washington came the same week as the Philippines’ withdrawal from Iraq, underscoring Mongolia’s continued support at a time difficult for the Pentagon.
In terms of concrete steps the United States could take to boost its ties with Mongolia, I found this proposal particularly interesting:
In the course of daily management of relations, Mongolia merits higher levels of consideration at the Departments of Defense and State and in the National Security Council. At State,
Mongolia needs to be sprung from the China desk and either grouped with Korea, with which it shares more commonalities and where it might be useful relative to the North Korea impetus, or be approached on its own accord.
Like I said, read the rest on your own.
(Hat tip to reader)
13 Comments
“Mongolia needs to be sprung from the China desk and either grouped with Korea, with which it shares more commonalities”
Say what? What’s so common about Korea and Mongolia that they share? Two countries are world’s apart in culture, economy, geography, people, and politics.
cm,
Koreans have Mongolian blood. When I look at Korean faces, Northern Koreans have striking similarities to Mongolian. Just visit Mongolian tourist bureau and look at some pictures of average Mongolians. You cannot deny they are us, Koreans. High nose. The other Koreans came from China. Low and wide nose.
Besides, Mogolians ruled Korea for one hundred years and sired many children. I believe every Koreans have at least 30% or more of Mongolian blood.
Forget about what you learned in school. The unique people bull. This is spread by the Japanese. The truth is that Koreans=Mongolian Chinese(with Russian blood sprinkled).
Mongolia has copper, silver and gold. Korea and America should move in to claim those precious metals. Dig ‘em out with the natives. This is how the Europeans got rich.
Mongolia could be a very useful ally to the US and SK. Friends who have visited the place seem to love it, as well. Building up a store of ‘good’ allies, as opposed to ‘bad’ ones (Uzbekistan, before the US got kicked out) would be a good move in this region (in any region really).
baduk, you never answered my question about Japan teaching Koreans about Koreans being Dan-il-min-jok. Are you sure this is a Japanese doctrine?
I’m still waiting for a Korean to answer my question about the Kwak lineage and this so-called “단일민족”. I think there may even be a Kwak that comments here from time to time.
In CIA headquarters there is a wall of honor on which are mounted stars for each of the CIA operatives who have died in the line of duty. As far as I know, there are no names to go with the stars and the men and women they honor are unknown outside a very few people in the Company, except for the recipient of the first star. He was Douglas Mackiernan, who was sent into Sinkiang in 1949 to set up seismic detection and signal transmitting devices there and inside the Soviet Union to record soviet atomic testing and relay it back to the States. He was stationed briefly in Tiwha (Urumchi), just north of the Taklamakan desert in the borderlands of China, Inner Mongolia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, under cover as Vice Consul to the US mission there - hard as it is to imagine that could be any kind of cover in those regions. He was killed by accident by Tibetan border guards when he tried to enter Tibet while fleeing from the Chinese communists in 1950. His identity and, in part, his story is known because of a book entitled “Into Tibet” published in 2002. It’s not a very good book, both because of the evident problems of access to information under which the author labored and the axe he has to grind; I don’t particularly mind his bias, even though I disagree with it, just that he lets it get in the way of telling both this extremely interesting and compelling story as effectively as he might and exposing the deplorable negligence on the part of the CIA and the State Depat that got him killed and the shameful treatment that was doled out to his family and his wife and children agterwards. I mention the book here because both Mackiernan and one of his travelling companions, Frank Bessac, another CIA operative then travelling under the auspices of a Fulbright in the same area, both had extensive contacts with the Mongol and Kazak clans of Inner Mongolia and Sinkiang, with whom they also worked to try to support an independence movement, before getting embroiled in the inept and belated efforts by the US to assist Tibet to fend off the Chinese. It’s extremely revealing about how the US completely dropped the ball in that part of the world - due in no small measure to the combined, and as the author argues, coordinated efforts of the McCarthyites and the China Lobby financed by bribes generated by Chiang Kai Sheck with a portion of the billion in doolars in US aid to the Nationalists that Chiang stole. A great yarn that should be consulted as a cautinary tale both by current US policy makers and the people they’re finally setting out to help (if they really need reminding).
dogbrett, what question do you have about the Kwak lineage?
“due in no small measure to the combined, and as the author argues, coordinated efforts of the McCarthyites and the China Lobby financed by bribes generated by Chiang Kai Sheck with a portion of the billion in doolars in US aid to the Nationalists that Chiang stole.”
What? Sperwer, this is unclear. You mean the author claimed that Chiang Kai Shek ripped off the money and that’s why the CIA’s efforts failed?
Snow:
No, sorry. The author, Tomas Laird, a longtime resident of Katmandu, claims that Chiang stole several tens of billions(!) of the aid that the US sent to the Nationalsists and used about a billion (!) of that to support the US China Lobby that together with McCarthy made a hash of US policy in China and Central Asia, in part by decimating the cadre of State Dept experts in the affairs of that part of the world. Probably the best known victim was Owen Lattimore, who in addition to being one of the leading scholars of that generation, happened BTW to believe that all the peoples to the north and west of the Great Wall deserved their own countries rather than Chinese oppression. That was anathema not only to Mao, later, but to Chiang. Laird makes the plausible claim that because of the ignorance of US policy makers resulting from the absence of qualified experts as a consequence of McCarthy’s witchhunt, and the political machinations of the Chiang financed China lobby, led by the Luces (Life Magazine, etc), the US failed to back the Mongols, Kazaks, Uighers, ans especially the Tibetans etc. in Central Asia at a time when doing so could have made a huge immediate difference (and would have had huge implications today considering the physical constraints doing so would have imposed on China), just as they failed to back Vietnamese nationalism (although there the information deficit was compounded by a misguided sense of the need to prop up what was left of Frog colonialism). Of course, the other problem that Laird barely takes account of is that China and Russia were also distracting US attention from Central Asia mightily at that point by unleashing and backing Kim Il Sung’s move on the ROK.
Snow:
No, sorry. The author, Tomas Laird, a longtime resident of Katmandu, claims that Chiang stole several tens of billions(!) of the aid that the US sent to the Nationalsists and used about a billion (!) of that to support the US China Lobby that together with McCarthy made a hash of US policy in China and Central Asia, in part by decimating the cadre of State Dept experts in the affairs of that part of the world. Probably the best known victim was Owen Lattimore, who in addition to being one of the leading scholars of that generation, happened BTW to believe that all the peoples to the north and west of the Great Wall deserved their own countries rather than Chinese oppression. That was anathema not only to Mao, later, but to Chiang. Laird makes the plausible claim that because of the ignorance of US policy makers resulting from the absence of qualified experts as a consequence of McCarthy’s witchhunt, and the political machinations of the Chiang financed China lobby, led by the Luces (Life Magazine, etc), the US failed to back the Mongols, Kazaks, Uighers, ans especially the Tibetans etc. in Central Asia at a time when doing so could have made a huge immediate difference (and would have had huge implications today considering the physical constraints doing so would have imposed on China), just as they failed to back Vietnamese nationalism (although there the information deficit was compounded by a misguided sense of the need to prop up what was left of Frog colonialism). Of course, the other problem that Laird barely takes account of is that China and Russia were also distracting US attention from Central Asia mightily at that point by unleashing and backing Kim Il Sung’s move on the ROK.
The subtitle of Laird’s book, btw, is The Cia’s first atomic spy and his secret expedition to Lhasa.
Thanks Sperwer, sounds interesting. Obviously, foreign affairs have always been and remain very complex. I don’t blame McCarthy for hating commies, but it sounds like he often went too far, to the point of contributing to messing up the US’ foreign affairs in this case.
wjk,
Let’s just assume that Korea has taken over Philippine Island. To control the native, the following lies will be spread.
1)Koreans and Philippinos are very similar in characteristics and history. (coherence)
2) In history, Philippinos are close to Koreans than any other race on earth.(exclusivity)
3) Deep inside, two peoples share common values.(commonality)
Impossible to do this? You gather up Philippino children and make them speak only Koreans and have them change their names to Korean. Just wait about 30 years. There will be no doubters.
Japan has re-wrote Korean history when it took over Korea. Korean history books are filled with Japanese propaganda. Thorough re-examinations and re-writings are truly needed! However, most professors in universities have received their degrees from Japanese universities. So, these lies are being perpetuated for decades.
Do you know why “SungGunGwan” kept the detailed record of Korean history? The lie is that Koreans wanted to record detailed acts of kings to teach future generations. Lies, lies, lies! When the Chinese officials come to Korea, the first thing they do was to read those records. Korean kings were not allowed to read or change them.
Korea was a part of the Chinese empire.
baduk, thank you.
Although privately, in my opinion, I think #2 is true for Japan and Korea. Or it might be the result of 30 years of colonization.
What you said is definitely possible to do. Japanese can be (or were) insidiously crafty.
True also, that a lot of those profs went to Japanese universities for their degrees. Pretty much everyone in Korea generally knows that Wasaeda is a good university.
The part about SungGyunGwan is pretty shocking to me. No wonder the Chosun kings even kept very shameful and detailed aspects of their monarchy in written records !
Chosun’s records are the probably the most accurate and detailed of all the historical records in Korea. Everything else in my mind is pretty much worked up to sound good. Too bad, it sits somewhere in Tokyo University. Why do the Japanese want to hold on to this anyway?
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[...] Frankly, I would much rather see the US getting North Korean refugees via, say, Mongolia or even Europe. North Koreans are legally citizens of the ROK and I would much rather see our asylum spots going to refugees on the run rather folks who want to upgrade countries. [...]