To say that Mongolia rarely makes international headlines is an understatement. But this vast country in Northeast Asia, dotted with vast steppes, is once again becoming a strategic point on the map for Westerners trying to thwart the influence of the two major regional powers, China and Russia.
President Emmanuel Macron’s lightning visit on Sunday 21 May is therefore anything but trivial. The French Presidency even mentions a “very important issue” of the “geostrategic plan” that is part of Paris’ desire to “relax the constraint on Russia’s neighbors and allow them to choose their options”.
Mongolia is completely landlocked and dependent almost entirely on China and Russia, which in turn were dominant powers until the transition to democracy began in the 1990s following the collapse of the USSR.
The concept of the “third neighbor”
Currently, 86% of all Mongolia’s exports of goods together go to China. Russia supplies most of its fuel as the country has no capacity to refine petroleum products. Moscow remains its main defense partner.
“Mongolia has developed a strategy of triangulation, which consists of maintaining good relations with its neighbors but also developing privileged relations with “third neighbors”, a political concept likely to bring together democratic countries such as Japan, India, the United States and France around to support the independence and sovereignty of Mongolia,” explains Antoine Maire, Associate Researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research.
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In order to gain leeway against China and Russia, Mongolia is initially relying on large French investments to diversify its economy, especially in the energy sector. While 90% of the country’s electricity is generated from coal, Paris should propose to Ulaanbaatar to develop a new collaboration to start an ecological transition through solar and wind projects. A necessity for Mongolia, which is struggling to decarbonize its economy and suffers from severe air pollution problems in its capital.
An Eldorado of critical metals
If Mongolia is attracting growing interest, it is also because of its subsoil: copper, fluorine, uranium, rare earths… The country could have gigantic reserves of critical metals, even if “other studies are needed”, the Élysée explains to the newspaper Les Echos.
“The Mongolian subsoil is rich in minerals of all kinds, relatively easy to access and in close proximity to China, one of the main raw material markets,” specifies Antoine Maire.
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A potential symbolized by the Oyu Tolgoi mine in the Gobi Desert, one of the world’s largest deposits of copper and gold. According to Australian-British giant Rio Tinto, which operates the site, this deposit could produce 500,000 tonnes of copper per year in the future, equivalent to the material needed to manufacture 577,000 wind turbines and six million vehicles with electric batteries per year.
France, already represented in the field of uranium mining by Orano (ex Areva), wants to shift up a gear to secure its supply of critical metals and rare earths, essential components for the manufacture of screens, mobile phones, low-consumption light bulbs. Hybrid vehicles and even batteries.
support for democracy
Beyond the geostrategic component, strengthening ties between Paris and Ulaanbaatar also includes cultural cooperation. During this trip, the French President will have to visit the museum of Genghis Khan, the great conqueror of the 13th century, who will lend part of his collection to the Nantes History Museum for an event exhibition planned in October.
The visit of the head of state is also symbolic: by supporting the democratic and liberal Mongolian model, which is exceptional in a region dominated by authoritarian regimes, France wants to show that another way is possible.
“In the case of the Mongols, it’s both a strength and a weakness,” summarizes Antoine Maire. “The attachment to parliamentarism in Mongolia is reflected in great political instability with regular changes of government and changes that complicate the development processes and state action. The other great weakness of this democracy, c. It is obviously the corruption that increasingly feeds a “strong social resentment”.
A grudge fueled by glaring inequalities and broken promises to develop the mining sector. As the country’s true economic lungs, with a GDP generating a quarter, it still falls far short of benefiting its three million inhabitants, almost a third of whom live below the poverty line.