Strategic Mongolia

On July 10, the eve of Mongolia's National Day, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj will be sworn in for his second term as the country’s president. The election was held June 26th. July 11 through 13 is Mongolia's festival of Naadam. In 2010, Naadam was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO.

An emerging democracy squeezed between Russia and China, Mongolia is a strategic conundrum rich in coal, minerals, and rare earths. This situation has made the country pivotal in Asian power and economic calculations. Both Japan and South Korea are working hard to strengthen their relationship with Mongolia. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Mongolia in March and an economic partnership agreement is in negotiation. Abe's his close friend and Minister of Abduction Furuya Keiji is attending the inauguration of the president.  South Korean President Park Geun-hye sent her Senior Secretary for Foreign Affairs and National Security Ju Chul-ki.

Mongolia, with its good relationships with North Korea and Russia, has the potential to play a significant diplomatic role in the region. As one of the region's fastest growing economies, it may soon have the means to use its political advantages. Recently, the Mongolian government has been spending public relations money in Washington by funding think tanks, research, and trips. Expect to hear more from this country. Below is an essay from the Jamestown Foundation that has long followed the country and the region.

Avoiding the “Resource Curse” in Mongolia by Theodore H. Moran, nonresident senior fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, PIIE Policy Brief 13-18, July 2, 2013, 8pp.

World Bank Group’s new Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Mongolia, May 22, 2013

An excellent blog that follows contemporary Mongolia is: Mongolia Focus.

Mongolian Presidential Election Ends in Ruling Democratic Party’s Favor

By: Mendee Jargalsaikhany
First published in the Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume: 10 Issue: 124, July 8, 2013.

On July 3, the Mongolian parliament endorsed Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj’s second term as the country’s president, based on the General Election Commission’s report (Press Release of the Mongolian parliament, July 3). The swearing-in ceremony will be organized on July 10, on the eve of the three-day national holiday, Naadam.

According to the General Election Commission, the incumbent President Elbegdorj, nominated by the Democratic Party (DP), was re-elected by a narrow majority of 50.23 percent in the first round. The opposition Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) nominee Member of Parliament (MP) Badnaanyambuugyn Bat-Erdene received 41.97 percent; and the third candidate, Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) nominee Natsagyn Udval collected 6.5 percent of votes. Turnout was 66.5 percent (http://www.gec.gov.mn/election2013/flashresults.html). The opposition parties have acknowledged the DP victory, thus creating a stable political atmosphere and ruling out any claims for a run-off election (Ugluunii Sonin, 24tsag.mn, June 28).

This was the first Mongolian election monitored by the Election Observation Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) since Mongolia became an OSCE member on November 21, 2012. Despite some areas needing improvement, the OSCE observers concluded the election was competitive and free in their interim report (http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/103142). By highlighting the areas still in need of improvement, the OSCE election monitoring mission’s report will provide extra leverage to Mongolian political leaders who are working to improve the country’s democratic political institutions. Moreover, the OSCE’s involvement will almost certainly help to enhance mutual understanding between Mongolia and its European partners.

As a result of the presidential election, the DP will dominate Mongolian politics until 2016 and continue to play a determinative role in directing major political and socio-economic policies. In addition to a majority in the parliament, DP currently holds the posts of parliamentary chairman, prime minister, as well as president. Moreover, the DP controls the governorships and boards of citizens’ representatives of most provinces as well as the capital city, Ulaanbaatar. Nevertheless, Elbegdorj’s pre-campaign strategy and actions actually highlighted his party’s internal challenges to present the DP as a transparent, responsible, and democratic political force. These challenges include a separation of legislative and executive bodies, upholding the rule of law, and overhauling the country’s mining policies.

The separation of Mongolia’s legislative and executive branches has become blurred since the end of the 1990s, as successive majority and coalition parties have had to defend their fragile cabinets. Although Elbegdorj criticized and rejected endorsing a number of cabinet members of the MPP-led governments, he has remained silent when his own party filled 17 out of 19 cabinet posts with serving parliamentarians. The opposition and the public have called on a clearer separation between the legislative and executive branches in order to improve government accountability and transparency. To satisfy their demands, just before the presidential election, Elbegdorj submitted a draft bill that would only allow the prime minister to simultaneously serve in the cabinet and as an active member of parliament. The chairman of the parliament agreed to discuss the bill, but even if passed and signed into law, the actual separation would not apply until the cabinet following the 2016 parliamentary elections (MONTSAME News, June 10). In order to hold the fragile coalition government together, the DP is unlikely to separate the legislative and executive authorities.

New South Korean Leader Affirms Strategic Partnership with Kazakhstan

Writes APP member, Richard Weitz of the Hudson Institute, in the Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 10 Issue: 49, March 15, 2013 

Although the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula has been drawing most international attention, from the perspective of Central Asia, another interesting question is whether the new South Korean government will pursue as vigorous a Central Asian strategy as its predecessor. Under President Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013), the Republic of Korea (ROK) engaged in a “Global Korea” campaign and a “New Asia Initiative” that both encompassed Central Asia. President Lee himself had visited Kazakhstan seven times in the space of four years.

At the end of February 2013, Bakytzhan Sagintayev, Kazakhstan’s first deputy prime minister and minister of regional development, travelled to Seoul to attend the inauguration ceremony of the new South Korean President Park Geun-Hye as the head of a Kazakhstani delegation and as a special envoy of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The Kazakhstani and South Korean governments affirmed their commitment to develop their “strategic partnership,” which they established in May 2009 (Tengrinews, February 27).

Sagintayev had visited Seoul in 2003 for an intergovernmental meeting and in 2012 for the Yeosu Expo 2012, whose theme was “the living ocean and coast.” South Korea supported Kazakhstan’s winning bid to host the World Expo in 2017, under the theme of “future energy.” In his late February–early March 2013 visit, Sagintayev reaffirmed Kazakhstan’s interest in obtaining access to South Korean investment and technologies. He told the media that, “Resources-wise we are a very wealthy country now, but we need to do more to implement further restructuring, and we need advanced technologies to reach our goal” (The Korea Herald, March 3).

The Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Korea established diplomatic relations on January 28, 1992. After a slow start, their bilateral ties have expanded greatly in recent years, especially in the economic and energy sectors. Senior leaders from both countries, including their presidents, now regularly visit each other. The year of 2012 was a banner time in their diplomatic relations. In addition to celebrating two decades of bilateral ties, Presidents Lee and Nazarbayev held two high-level meetings—once during the March Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul and again when Lee visited Kazakhstan in September.

Scholars have noted important similarities between the ROK and Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan. They are surrounded by more powerful countries, many of which now have nuclear weapons. Lying at the crossroads of powerful empires, Central Asia and Korea have often been valued for their strategic rather than intrinsic worth—as terrain and clients for use against rival empires. They look to extra-regional partners to weaken the dominance of the nearby great powers. Globalization has now made it possible for Koreans and Central Asians to develop close economic and other ties with each other.

Despite their physical remoteness from each other, Kazakhstan has historical ties with Korea. During Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s tyranny, all 172,000 ethnic Koreans were forcibly removed from the Russian Far East and deported to unpopulated territory in modern Kazakhstan. Since their arrival in October 1937, these Koryo Saram have become well integrated into Kazakhstan’s diverse ethnic mix. Today, some 100,000 ethnic Koreans live in Kazakhstan, with several holding prominent public and private sector positions (The Korea Herald, March 3). “Kazakhstan is the only country in the post-Soviet space and possibly in the whole world to have on its soil a Korean national musical and drama theater,” President Nazarbayev had remarked in summer of 2011. “This is the symbol of our friendship, our brotherhood and a bridge between the two nations” (CACI Analyst, August 31, 2011).

Recent years have seen efforts to build on these historical ties and promote cultural exchanges between Koreans and Kazakhs. The two governments designated 2010 the “Year of Kazakhstan” in South Korea, while 2011 was the “Year of Korea” in Kazakhstan. Under the Lee administration, some South Koreans offered their own country as a possible developmental role model of a state that had developed a powerful economy and transitioned from an authoritarian to a democratic political system (http://www.keia.org/publication/new-horizon-south-korea-central-asia-relations-rok-joins-great-game).

Kazakhstan and South Korea are cooperating on various regional security issues. In June 2006, South Korea became a full member of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a Kazakhstan-initiated project begun in 1992 that seeks to enhance security throughout Asia. The two countries are leading global efforts to prevent nuclear nonproliferation and enhance the safety and security of dangerous nuclear materials. For example, President Nazarbayev attended the March 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul and made major commitments to prevent the diversion of its expanding nuclear materials and technologies for illegal uses. In an interview later that year, President Lee praised Kazakhstan’s contributions to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament: “Kazakhstan is an active participant in the discussions on reduction of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation. The country deserves to be respected for playing a leading role in [advancing] nuclear security in the region. Right after gaining sovereignty, Kazakhstan announced it had banned nuclear weapons and tests on its territory. Kazakhstan shut down the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site and took up the initiative of creating a nuclear free zone in Central Asia. I was deeply impressed with Kazakhstan’s efforts” (KazInform, September 12, 2012)

The Kazakhstani and ROK governments are now cooperating bilaterally, as well as with other partners, to counter North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. Kazakhstan and the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK) do not have embassies in each other’s countries, their economic exchanges are miniscule, and only Kazakhstan’s ethnic Koreans have any cultural interactions with North Korea. Kazakhstani and ROK officials have jointly denounced North Korea’s tests of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles and urged the DPRK to rejoin the Six-Party Talks seeking to eliminate all nuclear weapons in North Korea in return for security, economic and other benefits. For example, on February 12, Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov urged Pyongyang to “abandon any steps [that] might lead to the escalation of tensions” and complained that the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program “affects the non-proliferation process and bears security risks on a regional and global scale (Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, February 25).

Bilateral defense ties have also been growing. In October 2010, the Kazakhstani and South Korean defense ministries signed a memorandum of understanding on military cooperation. South Korea is helping to develop Kazakhstan’s naval forces and train Kazakhstani military officers in its military academies (Kazakhstan General Newswire October 4, 2010). One even might see arms trade develop in future years since both countries are trying to raise their defense exports. Thanks to Astana and Seoul’s overlapping interests and complementary foreign and economic policies, ties between the two Asian countries have been growing. And this cooperation is likely to increase further the more Kazakhstan develops and modernizes.

Scoping out the U.S. elections

U.S. elections do influence foreign policy and foreign policy does influence elections. The above video is an interesting discussion on this issue by Dr. James Lindsay, senior vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the Council of Foreign Relations hosted by the State Department's Foreign Press Center (FPC) on December 16, 2011.

The FPC is an excellent resource for following the U.S. elections. They have published a Schedule of the U.S. primaries, a Glossary of U.S. election terms, and a List of Frequently Asked Questions about U.S. Elections. You can even sign up for updates to their election publications and programs.

There are a many private websites that follow the elections as well. These include (this is just a sampling, not an endorsement) 2012 Election Central; Google's Elections Hub; ABC News OTUS; 2012 Presidential Candidates; USA Today; and CNN. [We welcome your suggestions. Please post them in the comments section.] 

Are blood minerials for plunder or peace?

This will be the topic of discussion in two seminars scheduled this week in Washington:

NATURAL RESOURCES: PLUNDER OR PEACE. 1/12, 2:00-4:00pm, Washington DC. Sponsor: US Institute of Peace (USIP). Speaker: Paul Collier, Director, Center of African Economies, Oxford University, Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development and Raymond Gilpin, Director, Center for Sustainable Economies, USIP. Location: USIP, 1200 17th Street NW, 2nd Floor. This event is no longer accepting reservations and will be webcast.

Paul Collier discusses findings from his upcoming book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must--and How We Can--Manage Nature for Global Prosperity.

RESOLVING NATURAL RESOURCE CONFLICTS: A PATH TO DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE. 1/13, Noon-2:00pm, Washington DC. Sponsor: Woodrow Wilson Center. Speakers: Aaron Wolf, Professor, Geosciences, Oregon State University, Gidon Bromberg, Co-Director, Friends of the Earth in the Middle East; Juan Dumas, Senior Adviser, Fundacion Futuro Latinamericano, Geoff Dabelko, Director, Environmental Change and Security, Woodrow Wilson Center. Location: B-338 Rayburn House Office Building.

The websites of these organizations can help you prepare for these discussions: Global Witness; Conflict Minerals; Enough Project; Stop Blood Minerals.

Last year, both the House and Senate introduced legislation to help stop the trade in conflict minerals. On November 19, 2009, Rep Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced H.R. 4128, The Conflict Minerals Act of 2009. On April 23, 2009, Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced S. 891, the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009. Neither bill has been reported out of their appropriate committees.