Second neighbor and her “enemies”
Rumors and slogans about China’s threat to Mongolia’s independence and their invasion are nothing new. History proves that one of our neighbors used others to install fear and threat to establish full political control over Mongolia.
Second neighbor and her “enemies”
@tsenddoo
Part One. From single neighbor to second neighbor
Rumors and slogans about China’s threat to Mongolia’s independence and their invasion are nothing new. History proves that one of our neighbors used others to install fear and threat to establish full political control over Mongolia.
People’s Republic of China as we know of today got established in 1949. I believe it was called the 25th dynasty that was established in Sino`s area. Continuing the policy of Chiang Kai-shek, who approved the independence of the People’s Republic of Mongolia, China established an embassy in Ulaanbaatar.
As such, Mongolia, who made enemies with every country in 1928 and had no foreign partners except from the Soviet Union, expanded their foreign relations. Inherently, it is hard to call the relations dictated by the Soviet Union as a “foreign relation”. Because the Soviet Union’s law has went into force in Mongolia, which ultimately resulted in beheading of several people including the then head of state Genden Peljid and Prime Minister Amar Anand under the Soviet laws.
Even in 1945, it was not Mongolians who initiated to expand foreign relations, instead the Soviet approved Ulaanbaatar to develop relations in the socialist camp within the Soviet zone. It simply means that the Soviets allowed Mongolia to have relations with Mao’s China, who decided to establish communism same as them.
At the time, Choibalsan Khorloo signified the fact that China approved Mongolia’ independence in a perspective that Mongolia’s independence now has support from two countries instead of one.
Proving this point, Baabar wrote, “If China was not there, Mongolia would have faced the same fate as the Buryats. If the Soviet was not there, Mongolia would have faced the same fate as the Inner Mongolians.”
Choibalsan, who understood the process as the actualization of Mongolia’s independence, widely celebrated the 1946 Naadam, marking the “25th anniversary of People’s Revolution”. He invited several high-profile guests from the Soviet and China, celebrating with the public and even personally participating in archery. Because the anniversary was truly the celebration for Mongolia’s independence and for Choibalsan’s group, it was the celebration for their GREAT STRUGGLE that sailed through the bloods of monks and royals… It was the celebration for our independence.
Numerous evidence proves that the Marshal General Choibalsan gave great significance to the celebration and was very excited for it. However, he may have been troubled by many other things that did not go as he expected. Even the morning began with a misfortune. A picture of him scolding his successor Tsedenbal Yumjaa for being hungover after a long night of drinking was archived. He was planning to organize a parade like the one organized at the Red Square in 1945 and receive a report from a parade commander; however, General Mijid, who played the role of General Georgy Zhukov that handed out the report at Red Square, fell of his horse during the Parade. Because he got humiliated in front of the public during an actual parade after becoming an “actual” country, the Marshal presumably chased after Mijid at dinner in an attempt to slash him with a sword. It got worse when a guest from Tuva Togoo Salchig brought up the issue of the remaining territory of Tuva. He slapped across the face of President of Tuva Togoo and chased him off. He did realize that Salchak Kalbakkhorekovich, officially known as Toka will sell him off to Kremlin.
As such, he began disregarding Stalin since he accomplished his goal. He may have thought, “We did what the comintern told us, killing our friends and family just for this day. Enough is enough. Comintern happened already, we no longer need them.” He deemed it unnecessary to pay his respect to the great leader of the world revolution Joseph Stalin’s 70th birthday.
Although his dream was fulfilled, his desire was far from over. Soviets, who predicted Choibalsan’s actions beforehand, already prepared a new leader for the Mongolian People's Republicsince 1930. It is said that he was surprised when Moscow introduced the new prince of Mongolia Tsedenbal Yumjaa to him. Not only was he surprised, he was mortified to hear his new successor talk about dissolving the country and merging it with the Soviet Union, telling his partisan friend Bumantsend, “We have failed to prepare our new generation” in both anger and sorrow.
Part Two. “Foe” Friend
Choibalsan, who made an assumption too early, got called to Moscow for a therapy and passed away on a surgery table in 1952 during a fasting on the eve of Mongolia’s traditional celebration of lunar month.
It is strange how a marxist leader at the time Tsedenbal was better than Marshal when it comes to trusting Mao’s China. At his order, the Mongolian People's Republic dismantled border troops in 1950-1960, leaving the border unguarded. Hundreds of households migrated to Bayan-Ulgii aimag from Xinjiang as a result.
Tsedenbal may have thought integrating countries do not need borders as China’s adoption of communism means to join the Soviet Union. Maybe his thoughts did not play a part, instead it may have been the Soviets that told him so, or he understood it that way when they said something else. In response to Marshal Choibalsan’s caution towards China’s presumptuous migration, he explained that there is nothing to fear since they too were installing communism.
The relations between the Soviet and China got tense shortly after. Chinese leader Mao Zedong started to express that although China was establishing communism, he is not someone who would serve Kremlin and be controlled by Moscow.
As a matter of fact, three volumes on the history of Republic of Mongolia were published a few years apart in 1960’s. Ideologically distorted conclusions aside, it was the first modern scientific history ever published in the XX century. Not many people know about the Mongolia-Soviet-China science academies were planning to co-publish this history book. However, not to mention that the co-publishing was cancelled, the history book included hate towards the southern neighbor due to the tension.
Initially, Chinese Prime Minister at the time Zhou Enlai, who negotiated with Tsedenbal on setting borders in 1962, once warned that a tension will rise with the relations with the Soviet, expressing that the relations between Mongolia and China should not have to tarnish because of it and that Mongolia can hold a neutral policy. At least the Mongolian side did not say “scram” in response. Because he had received a command to cut ties with Beijing from the north. Since then, he ended the cold war as a notorious hater of China, getting complimented by the Soviets.
Part Three. “Friend” Foe
The loathsome rumors about Chinese invasion was surfaced at this exact moment. For the Republic of Mongolia, who cut ties with China, the Soviet was now the only ally. They no longer had the guts to defy their only partner. If they did, the Soviets would simply threaten China’s invasion. The public already had the fear that a “monster” will invade if they offended Soviets in any way, bearing everything the Soviets threw at them.
A hideous condemnation of “tarnishing Mongolia-Soviet friendly relations” or “attempting to deteriorate” was added to the official sentence of the state. Many state or party figures were victimized because of it.
An atrocious legacy from this period was the groundless hate towards China and practices of making everything right by simply taunting them and on the contrary, humiliating everyone who were logical towards the attitude as Chinese half-breed and/or spy.
But the independence of the Mongolian People's Republic remained intact because China survived the tension between Zhongnanhai palace and Kremlin.
Soviet-China relations began to improve since the mid-1980’s and Moscow made several attempts involving the Mongolian People's Republic to confirm their interest in strengthening ties with China. Due to the inability to understand the new international environment, Tsedenbal, who thought that “being against China will satisfy the Soviets”, was dragged into these attempts. It is said that, because of his old beliefs, he chased off Chinese people in Ulaanbaatar in 1983, tainting Beijing-Moscow relations, which was just beginning to improve. Beijing immediately sent a messenger to Moscow (not Ulaanbaatar) and demanded them to refrain from two-faced friendship talks while threatening through Tsedenbal.
After receiving the protest note from Beijing, Moscow sent a special mission to Ulaanbaatar. The mission consisted of newly appointed Ambassador Sergei Pavlov and new advisor from KGB Vsevolod Radchengo. Mr. Radchenko, in his book “Главная профессия-Разведка” or “Main profession-Intelligence”, wrote about how “The whole procedure of removing Tsedenbal from his position and personnel changes in leadership were highly appreciated by political analysts and senior management, both in Ulaanbaatar and Moscow.”
As such, Kremlin, in an attempt to set things straight with Beijing, ripped Tsedenbal from his authority in 1984 for offending China by chasing them off. With an aim to begin a new era of Soviet-China relations, the Soviets decided to withdraw 100,000 soldiers that were stationed in the Republic of Mongolia.
According to the same old rules, everything was decided in Moscow and was informed to Mongolians afterwards. Some officials of the Mongolian People's Republic, who heard the news about removing Tsedenbal, were nervous to inform him. They heard about the news only when Mikhail Gorbachev made an announcement about the withdrawal of Russian troops in 1989.
Mongolia had two neighbors once again after the mid-1980’s and managed to create third neighbors in connection to the collapse of global socialist system, dissolution of the Soviet Union and temporarily weakened monitoring of Kremlin.
Part Four. Centuries-old “flu”
Over the past decade, propagandas susceptible of leading to a “single neighbor” situation, especially to the post-tension of Soviet-China after the 1960’s, have become widespread. It is alarming that the derivation of how “execration against China is right” and “everything against China can be justified” have reappeared.
Indoctrination against Chinese Government and citizen, conspicuous violations, as well as China’s pretentious ignorance towards robbery and beating appeals and actions, are even more daunting. It is frustrating to even think about why they are pretending to ignore and what they expect the blustering will lead to, or what they will force on us once the situation becomes unjustifiable. Nevertheless, Beijing, who is currently driven by a taste of power and expressing willingness to get involved in global issues, will not tolerate such humiliation for long. Those poor folks who tweet “massacre all Chinese” from behind a fake account may think they are safe. However, they do not even imagine that our internet access comes from China and that Chinese authorities can pinpoint their locations faster than local police before people get to read their patriotic tweets. Poor things.
(This is irrelevant. Just asking what is on my mind. There was a dramatic incident where we kidnapped someone from Europe while Turkey failed to do the same from Mongolia. But do you think China cannot kidnap people or do they never get caught?)
On the contrary, Beijing suspects that we rely on Kremlin for the hate against China if not organized by Moscow. Even if it was not the case, the skepticism is still there. In the future, it is fully probable that one of the conditions for Russia-China friendly relations could include the issue of patriots against China in Mongolia.
During the last election, one of the candidate Enkhbold Miyegombo was humiliated for his potential origin of Chinese hybrid. Enkhbold Miyegombo, who was even nicknamed after a Chinese bear “Panda”, is not much of a saint himself. He has allegedly established a corruption network (across political parties), became a billionaire from politics without any business and is considered the mastermind behind land sales. He had many reasons for the loss and public humiliation.
But his competitors managed to frighten the society by making them think that China is attempting to seize Mongolia’s Government power by peaceful means through the election. It is strange to think what Beijing thought after being framed to have made an attempt to seize Mongolia’s Government power and lost miserably.
Beijing may have had no interest in the election results. Because, regardless of who wins the election, they will have to speak to China since Mongolia cannot just simply move away. But most importantly, they were left with an unsettling irritation about the country’s political environment, and both intentional and unintentional social hate against China.
It is true that we once frightened China 800 years ago. But it is a mistake to think that they are still afraid of Mongolians. Those poor folks may think that any Mongolian can single-handedly beat up Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan at any given time. We have to get rid of the misconception of XX century that, under the Soviet protection and their 100,000 soldiers, it is okay to insult China, that they will not be offended and cannot do anything even if they did.
We do not insult Russians as a nation. Getting into a fight with a random “Ivan” is a different matter. We are always aware of Kremlin’s presence when offending Russia as a nation. But it is strange how we ignore Beijing, who is currently driven by a taste of power, when insulting China.
We all know that poor Tsedenbal was removed from his position and was given home detention in Moscow as a ransom for the Soviet-China friendly relations between 1980’s and 1990’s. In recent years, Russia, who went under economic sanction in western countries, is facing a necessity to develop close relations with China.
Under this circumstances, it is highly likely that Beijing will bring up Mongolian extremists against China as one of the friendship conditions. The same proposal that removed Tsedenbal Yumjaa from his position. Russia may demand us to settle the issue of some Mongolians that hate and insult China whether they were driven by Russian initiative or not. If that happens, Russia, if they will not punish us, will have to show that they do not protect Mongolia.
Maybe the Mongolian Government could take the necessary measures that under the pressures of its two neighbors. Who knows what will happen. Regardless, something will happen to those “patriots” who hid their names or not. After such circumstances, no one will be brave enough to do the same as those patriots. Idiotic or not, it is regretful how those Mongolians, who have family and children just like us, will ultimately become the victim to the “necessary measures”.
Without the Soviets, Mongolia’s independence of the XX century would have been just a dream. But without China, the establishment of the People's Republic of Mongolia would have been impossible.
Because Beijing will not tolerate Outer Mongolia to merge with the Soviet Union; on the contrary, Moscow will not allow us to go under China. This led to a new option of an Independent People's Republic of Mongolia who does not belong to neither Russia or China.
Mongolia’s independence is valid only when Moscow and Beijing exist together. As long as Russia does not collapse, Mongolia will not be an autonomous region to Beijing and vice versa. In this sense, the development and strength of our two neighbors is the guarantee of our independence. But things will be bad for us if the balance of power shifts to either side. A sane Mongolian would pray for the wellness of both Russia and China.
As a result, our two neighbors, who borders each other through a vast horizon and had been in conflict up until now, are interested in having a buffer zone between them. This buffer zone was first established in 1915 as Mongolian autonomy of the Middle Kingdom (also known as the Republic of China, which occupied the territories of modern China), and was politically-dependent from Beijing, economically-dependent from Moscow and was to be a demilitarized zone.
Later on, the establishment of Mongolian People's Republic at this buffer zone met the interests of both Russia and China even today. However, Russia will not tolerate us to side too much with China, while China will not allow us to side with Russia in the same manner as the Mongolian People's Republic. Thus, attempts to restore the Mongolian People's Republic and Tsedenbal will be futile.
The interest of both People’s Republic of China and Russian Federation is to: maintain independent Mongolia that does not fall into either side, without public or political hate towards them both and with neutral policy.
