Not really the right com for this post, but since i don’t think we have a dedicated Mongolia com and these are China vloggers, i hope this is acceptable.
Mongolia is probably a country that most people in the West know very little about and have seen very little of it in the media. I’ve seen videos of its nature, of the mountains and the steppes before (beautiful, of course), but i had never seen what regular everyday life in the cities and towns is like.
For that reason this was a fascinating and very educational video for me. Here are some of my takeaways and thoughts:
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Mongolia is very car dependent, which makes sense given how vast and sparsely populated it is
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Unfortunately its infrastructure, especially transportation, seems to be quite underdeveloped
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Half of its population lives just in and around the capital city (i knew this already but it is very striking to actually see what that looks like)
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Together these three factors apparently lead to quite significant traffic problems in the capital
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Overall the country looks to be poorer than China, with vibes somewhat reminiscent of the Asian side of Russia (minus the yurts and Buddhist temples)
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The English proficiency level of the youth is quite good, quite possibly better than in China
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Mongolia is very much not food self-sufficient and is very dependent on imports, which are ubiquitous
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The schools, hospitals and supermarkets look quite modern and better developed than the housing and roads
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Their main export industries and the ways they pay for their imports are probably related to mining
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They have an amusing, i would even say endearing obsession with Genghis Khan… for understandable reasons
I’m basing this just on the first impression i get from this video so if i’m wrong about anything please let me know. Also comment if you know any other interesting facts to add about Mongolia.
Mongolia’s government got couped by western forces in the gen z revolt thing recently. Since its a weak state, it has been the target of the empire’s covert operations for a while, like the various biolabs which will undoubtedly be used to send infected birds towards China and Russia. Honestly, China should just invade it and reunite it with Inner Mongolia; it would actually be for the best.
That wouldn’t be a good idea. Mongolia is an excellent buffer state which is convenient for both Russia and China. If either country attempted to take it (which would be very easy to do), the other would have a problem with that. What needs to be done is Russia and China need to work together to expunge Western influence from Mongolia and draw Mongolia deeper into the BRICS orbit.
Support for political forces, civil society and media can be used to achieve this but ultimately economic development will be the key. Mongolia must be raised out of its raw material export dependence and develop if not complete self-sufficiency (very hard with their geography) at least a robust industrial and infrastructure base and interconnectivity with the Russia-China transport corridors.
Obviously at the moment both Russia and China are interested in maintaining good relations with Mongolia and want to avoid coming off as interfering with them or pressuring them. They are playing the long game betting on the natural gravity of the Russian and Chinese influence, given Mongolia’s location and geography, sooner or later drawing them back away from the West.
it’s a lanlocked country surrounded by russia and china, I’m surprised that government is holding, how has china and russia responded to it (the gen z thing)?
It’s not exactly stable, the new PM Zandanshatar almost lost his position and was saved due to a veto by the President, since this only just happened a few weeks ago russia & china have not made any moves yet. The old PM Oyun-Erdene wanted to create a “sovereign wealth fund to reorient the Mongolian economy from its debt- and commodity-driven basis”, was close to Putin & China, and he pushed heavily for the China–Mongolia–Russia Economic Corridor.
You can guess why the USA wanted him gone.