114 - Outer Mongolia, Inner Russia, and Murderous Myanmar
Mongolia and Myanmar are hardly prominent on our collective radar screens, but their own evolving relations with Putin’s Russia concern American policymakers. Mongolia is trying desperately to evade the clutches of Russia, despite a complex dependence and deep historical ties; Myanmar, devoid of allies and pilloried almost everywhere, newly embraces Russia and continues to depend on China. In both country cases, a doubling down by Washington will benefit the spreading Western alliance against all things Putin.
Myanmar, where a hardline military junta abruptly seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s electorally triumphant National League for Democracy in early 2021, has become an all-out apologist for actions Russian, and now depends for fuel supplies on Russian concessionary deliveries. General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta’s despotic boss, both admires and praises what Putin has done in Ukraine and beyond.
According to Min Aung Hlaing, “Russia has done its part to maintain its sovereignty.” Min Aung Hlaing also extolls Putin for making Russia such a “leading” country. Min Aung Hlaing has visited Moscow three times since the invasion and took part in a Putin-led conclave in Vladivostok.
Russia may help Myanmar gain access to nuclear reactor energy as well as refined petroleum supplies. It is beginning to supply arms; Russia has sent an air defense missile system and $1.7 billion worth of other war materiel. Russian fighter jets are on their way, too, along with fertilizer. There is talk of shifting Myanmar from using the U. S. dollar to the Russian ruble.
Dealing with Russia instead of China, Myanmar’s neighbor and traditional economic partner, expands the junta’s contacts with the world. Otherwise, its extinguishing of democracy within the country and its brutal attempt to extirpate the millions of Burmese (both Buddhists and Christians, and some Muslims) who have gone to war against the junta, has isolated the junta-led Myanmar from the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), from the West, and from Asian countries like India. The coup and post-coup killings of civilians has made the junta and Myanmar pariahs.
The U. S. and the European Union imposed sanctions on Myanmar and the leaders of the junta last year. ASEAN prevents Myanmar from joining its meetings. China’s relations with Myanmar are “tepid,” with Min snubbed by senior Chinese visitors. China has expressed displeasure at “instability” within Myanmar.
That Russian and Myanmar have embraced each other is thus no surprise. But it does show the desperation of each, and the mutual interdependence of states who breach norms of civility and brutalize their own, or nearby, civilians.
Just as the U. S. and Europe need to continue to isolate Min Aung Hlaing, his associates, and the junta while giving as much assistance and encouragement to the courageous students, professionals, and peasants who are fighting to restore democracy to Myanmar, so they together need pay closer attention to a strategically situated state that seeks to edge out of Moscow’s embrace.
The United States and the West indeed have a prospective ally in the heart of Asia. Its leaders seek to escape the ravenous clutches of their powerful neighbors, especially now that Putin has demonstrated his imperial instincts by claiming Ukraine, a sovereign state, as his own. Mongolia, like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan (and in stark contrast to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Myanmar) all want to escape his influence. Situated as Mongolia is under the Siberian surround of Russia causes acute heartburn and some fear.
Mongolia, from 1921 to 1990 a Soviet-ruled satellite, is a sparsely populated embryonic democracy pinned geographically between the comparative behemoths of Russia and China. There are only 3.3 million Mongolians living on a vast high desert land the size of Alaska (a place of 750,000 inhabitants). Most adult Mongolians speak or understand Russian, once the language of all schooling. Many leaders obtained higher degrees in the Soviet Union or Russia. Yet, having fled Russification when the Soviet Union collapsed, official and popular Mongolia now wants no part of an aggrandizing Russia under a Soviet-style despot like Putin.
But the Mongolians live where they live, stuck between two comparative behemoths with ambitious hegemonic objectives. Washington is providing assistance to Mongolia in the form of a major water project that will improve the capital’s supplies of potable water. But we need to do far more to strengthen Mongolia’s independence and its willingness over the medium-term to evolve in the direction of unassailable popular democracy. We should encourage and back Mongolia’s search for energy independence; we can help with the construction of huge solar arrays to convert abundant sunshine into electric power. Wind turbines could also harness the nation’s wild winds to good effect.
Mongolia also has tourism potential; dinosaur bones and the first nest of so-called dinosaur eggs were excavated near the southern mountains roughly a century ago by archaeologists from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The seemingly interminable Gobi Desert has long been a place of mystery and beauty, attracting intrepid tourists. Chinggis Khaan’s 130-foot tall equestrian statue, another remarkable sight, looms high on a highway leading out of the capital and recalls centuries when Mongols conquered much of Asia and Europe (including Russia).
Dependent on Moscow for nearly all of it fuel imports and much of its electricity, Mongolia nevertheless opposes the invasion of Ukraine and, like many of the Central Asian ex-Soviet entities, has so far refused to back Putin and his spurious expansionist objectives.
China purchases Mongolia’s exports and provides the fundamental corridor for nearly all imports despite immense political and foreign policy differences between Beijing and Ulaanbaatar. Those exports include copper, other precious minerals, coal, apparel, and animal products such as cashmere, wool, and hides.
Given the battle for Ukraine, Washington and Brussels can only do so much to help the opposition in Myanmar and support the government of Mongolia’s desire to free itself from Russian influence and control. But the struggle for democratic values in an increasingly autocratic world is so important, so demanding, and so consequential that we must join the existential combat with Putin wherever he seems to be making inroads (as in Myanmar) or wherever nations seek to break free (as in Mongolia).