Why is Outer Mongolia getting poorer? The twists and turns of history and suffering
When it comes to Mongolia, the first thing that comes to many people's minds is Genghis Khan, who started with thousands of iron horsemen and established the most extensive Mongolian kingdom in history: the great plains of Central Asia, all the way to Central Europe, the Middle East, and then south, to Siberia, further east, to the Sea of Japan, and further south, to Southeast Asia, to Persia, and then to India, a total of 33 million square kilometers, that is, at that time, 22 percent of the world's land.
In addition, Mongolia's poverty rate has been very high, from 1998 to the present, it has reached 33 per cent, and now this figure remains at about 28 per cent.
Although it is true that the total population of Mongolia has declined in terms of figures, the total population of Mongolia in the last two decades (2.2 million in 1998 and 3.22 million in 2022) has not decreased, but has continued to rise, from 720,000 in 1998 to 900,000, which is even lower than that of most African countries.
How did Mongolia go from Genghis Khan's rule over Eurasia to the point where one-third of its population is still struggling with poverty?
The History of the Mongol Empire points out that the Mongols conquered new territories by force and used wrong methods to manage the subjects of the new territories, such as promoting Confucianism in the Central Plains, and using the culture of Muslims during the conquest of Persia, which stabilized the situation in a short time, but it was soon absorbed by the civilization of the new territories, and the collapse of Mongolia was due to the conflict between the "four khanates".
Second, as a traditional nomadic herdsman, the Mongols have always been self-respecting, and they are extremely lacking in talent and cultural foundation to govern the country and pacify the people.
From Temujin to Kublai Khan, his style of rule was to "go backwards", abolishing coins instead of silk, cutting down land, and dividing the Mongols, Han Chinese, and the south into four classes: Mongols, Semu, Han, and Nanren.
After the destruction of the Mongol dynasty, the Central Plains and its vassal states were stable, and all that remained were more than a dozen khans, such as the Kipchak Khanate, there were seven large and small khans, plus the threat and threat of **, divided into dozens of "small principalities", and by the sixteenth century, the entire ** was conquered.
But the ** people only care about their own territory, they classify foreigners as "second-class citizens", they are not entitled to occupy their own territory, but only temporarily live in the territory of **, such as Mongolians, Kalmykia, Tuva, Altai, etc., until the collapse of the USSR, they do not have an official Russian passport number.
Only Outer Mongolia, a land of 1.56 million square kilometers, has been struggling between Tsarist Russia and the Ming Dynasty, until the emergence of the powerful Soviet Union, Outer Mongolia finally chose to take sides: from the establishment of the Soviet Union to the collapse of 69 years, Outer Mongolia has repeatedly put forward a request to be incorporated into the Soviet Union, and has repeatedly expressed its will.
After World War II, the "de facto independent" Mongolia launched a nationwide fundraising campaign in 1924 and over the next four years, it used all its resources to supply the Soviet Union more than 740 times, including 15,000 winter clothes, 53 tanks, 450 cars, 300 kilograms, 12 airplanes, 700,000 cattle, 5 million sheep, 10,000 tons of sheep, **10,000 tons of sheep, and many other things.
When the Soviet army had nothing to do with the German Haw Par chariots, Mongolia gathered 170,000 workers and transported all the ore to the arsenal to make armor-piercing shells;
When the baggage convoys of the Soviet Eastern Front were stuck in the mud, the Mongol side provided 32,000 horses, enough to form 6 divisions, which provided great support for the supply of the front.
In the shortest possible time, the Mongolian army recruited 55,000 soldiers from Mongolia, and recruited tens of thousands of engineers, transport teams, and medical teams to relieve the pressure on the Soviet Union.
After World War II, Mongolia leaned toward the Soviet Union in all respects, not only adopting the Soviet-style Mongolian language, which was specially developed by the Soviet Union, but also inviting a large number of Soviet teachers and senior managers from abroad; from 195 to 197, as long as the Soviets were willing to come to Mongolia, they could get free land, taxes, and other preferential treatment.
After World War II, the Soviet Union bought all of Mongolia's production and promised to build a military base in Mongolia, helped it build a mining base, built 1,300 kilometers of railways and 2,000 kilometers of roads, and gave away 50,000 Soviet-made tricycles and various other resources for free.
At that time, Mongolia received 37 billion rubles (equivalent to US dollars) in the name of "the sixteenth accession of the Soviet Union", turning the impoverished Mongolia into a "mining power", and Mongolia's mineral resources were also sold by the Soviet Union to rich countries at an unprecedented rate.
In addition to these, the Soviet Union also provided a large number of buses, office equipment and factory equipment, as well as thousands of students and technicians, which allowed Mongolia's economy and per capita GDP to grow rapidly, and in the past two decades, it has surpassed the European average, and is known as the "Pearl of the Soviet Union".
The Soviet Union played an important role in the development of the Mongolian region, and in reality, the Soviet Union's "bone-breaking" strategy against Mongolia was more comprehensive than the "cleansing" strategy adopted by Tsarist Russia after the occupation of new territories.
In the era of Tsarist Russia, after the conquest of the Russians, there would be a large influx of Russians to purify their culture and thus gain a long rule, and the Soviet Union even changed their industrial structure and army, Tuva and Altai are the best examples.
Since it was not a NATO country, Mongolia adopted a "broken bones" policy: control the army, change the mother tongue, implement the Soviet-style religious law and order system, nationalize its own private fiefdoms and steppes, and let those who are obedient and need to be bought get the best farmland and pastures, while those "aliens" who do not obey orders are sent to the desert to live in the desert on their own, and if they really can't, they return to the outskirts of the capital and get a piece of 15 hectares of territory (only for them to build a house on their own).
At first, it was thought to be a Soviet-style "joint possession," but when the Soviet Union officially declared in 1986 that it would not annex Mongolia to its territory, the Mongols suddenly woke up: nationalizing the land so that the Soviets could mine there, while Mongolian herders were forced to return to cities such as Ulaanbaatar, lock them up, and lock them up again.
As a result, Ulaanbaatar quickly developed into the largest town in Mongolia, with more than half of the population, and if you count some of Mongolia's "big cities", the peasants and peasants together are less than one-tenth.
In short, Mongolia was originally dominated by agriculture and mining, and under the subversion of the Soviet Union, the number of herders and farmers was less than 100,000, and by 2010, only 300,000 people remained, and the number of Mongolians engaged in mining has exceeded one million.
This over-reliance on outside forces has been proven many times over the past few hundred years, but without exception, it has ended in failure. However, Mongolia had no choice but to move in the direction indicated by the Soviet Union, which was a financial crisis that occurred in Mongolia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, all countries were busy with their own affairs, or withdrew their own people and resources from other countries, except for Mongolia, which was still importing Mongolian minerals and livestock, which only the Soviet Union could export.
As soon as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first few countries issued statements saying that Mongolia's resources were distributed in proportion to the Soviet Union, and all debts had to be returned to Russia, which was simply a disaster for Russia, the mining industry was closed overnight, the unemployment rate of three percent soared to 80 percent at once, and the whole country fell into a kind of extreme panic.
Why hasn't Mongolia found its own export? The Soviet Union carried out comprehensive rule over Mongolia from top to bottom, and in addition to the laws and institutions of the Soviet Union, Mongolia's economic system has also undergone earth-shaking changes, driving everything in Mongolia out of the country, not allowing people from any third country to enter Mongolia, and not even tourists to enter Mongolia.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mongolia's development came to a standstill, and until 2010, their average spending power was only at the level of 1990, that is, for more than two decades, they have been in a state of poverty, and as time went on, more and more poor people poured in, and they could not get better health and education, which formed the "black miners" peculiar to Mongolia - thousands of unemployed people.
So, what's really going on in Mongolia?
Although Mongolia has had a good life in recent years, it is not very bad, the ** business district is still very lively, although there are not many high-rise buildings, but all kinds of facilities are perfect, and there are even a few large shopping centers.
Thanks to China's strong market demand and its ability to absorb the economy, Mongolia emerged from the shadow of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with the construction of the China-Mongolia Railway and the adjustment of the ports, their economic situation has also improved, and they have invested with foreign businessmen, and the prospects are very good.
But among the general public, it is different, due to the slow development of industry, Mongolia has no industry at all, more than 95% of the goods have to be imported by China and Russia, so Mongolians can rarely afford washing machines, mobile phones and other household appliances and appliances, so most people choose cheap second-hand items.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mongolia abandoned the Soviet system and switched to the Mongolian language, which caused a gap in the teaching of students for a period of time. In addition, there is little investment in schools, and 30% of kindergartens in Ulaanbaatar are provided by the United States, Japan and South Korea.
For many years, Mongolia has been in a state of overexploitation and overexploitation, which has brought great ecological pressure to it, and for more than a decade, the WHO has issued an early warning report that Mongolia's atmospheric PM2The 5 indicator is already well above the normal range, with more than 1 million tonnes of coal burned in winter alone, resulting in 3,320 concentrations of fine particles suspended in the atmosphere in the Ulaanbaatar region, exceeding the warning standard by 133 times and exceeding the warning standard by 6 times, and since 2015, at least hundreds of infants and young children have died of pneumonia every year.
In order to reduce their impact on the environment, they need to limit the number of livestock, limit the generation of electricity from thermal power plants, but also cut the production of minerals and rebuild the mining equipment, which is a multiple shock for Mongolia.
In the past, some people were very jealous that Mongolia would allocate their land for free, but they did not know that Mongolia would get the poor people for free, and it would also allocate some remote areas with no water, electricity and sewerage, and only Mongolians would get the best land.
Even if it is unpaid, how to deal with the problem of high unemployment? Walking into one of the largest "black markets" in Ulaanbaatar, the Mongols are still trading, they exchange their cattle and sheep or woven clothes and quilts for food and other daily necessities, even if they have jobs, each person's salary will not exceed 1,000 yuan (miners are slightly higher), plus 95% of the goods have to be imported from abroad, so they don't have much jealousy.