A Russian honor guard company provides an escort for the then-Prime Minister and now-President of Mongolia, Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh, at Vnukovo airport in Moscow on December 3, 2019. Russia could be a counterweight to Chinese influence in Mongolia. (Shutterstock/Maria Moskvitsova)

Mongolia’s Search for a ‘Third Neighbor’

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Without deepening ties with Russia and the West, Mongolia risks becoming just another of China’s raw-materials extraction zones.

The visit of China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, to Mongolia in June 2026 was, on the surface, a routine visit by the country’s paramount diplomat to a neighbor. The length of Wang Yi’s visit, the breadth of topics discussed, and the timing, following Putin’s visit to China, put it in a new context. During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing, Mongolia was indirectly discussed in talks concerning the Power of Siberia II pipeline. This pipeline connects gas-rich regions of Siberia with the gargantuan Chinese market by traversing Mongolia.

For Russia and China alike, Mongolia is a revealing vector for both cooperation and competition in which the United States has an interest in preserving a balance of influence. This jockeying for position within Mongolia should remind us that, despite a “no limits partnership” espoused by both Moscow and Beijing, there is no uncritical embrace between the two. Their relationship is more nuanced.

Since 2022, Russia has been trying to accelerate Chinese energy purchases. While Russian gas exports to China have increased, Beijing has been deliberately glacial in its purchases, preserving its leverage over Moscow. The greatest beneficiary of cheaper Russian hydrocarbons on the market was not China, but India. The West’s erstwhile democratic bulwark against China in Asia gorged itself on cheap Russian energy.

Chinese restraint was borne out of a strategic calculus that an isolated Russia would increasingly mortgage itself to the only remaining large-scale purchaser and creditor, China. If, in the last few years, China had actually desired to support Russian endeavors wholeheartedly, it could have done so with high impact at relatively low cost. 

In fact, China could have increased domestic aggregate demand amid an economic slump in part by simply greenlighting already planned energy........

© The National Interest