1 PRIME MINISTER OYUN-ERDENE VISITS EGIIN GOL HYDROPOWER PLANT PROJECT SITE WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2025/04/30      2 ‘I FELT CAUGHT BETWEEN CULTURES’: MONGOLIAN MUSICIAN ENJI ON HER BEGUILING, BORDER-CROSSING MUSIC WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM PUBLISHED:2025/04/30      3 POWER OF SIBERIA 2: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY OR GEOPOLITICAL RISK FOR MONGOLIA? WWW.THEDIPLOMAT.COM PUBLISHED:2025/04/29      4 UNITED AIRLINES TO LAUNCH FLIGHTS TO MONGOLIA IN MAY WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2025/04/29      5 SIGNATURE OF OIL SALES AGREEMENT FOR BLOCK XX PRODUCTION WWW.RESEARCH-TREE.COM  PUBLISHED:2025/04/29      6 MONGOLIA ISSUES E-VISAS TO 11,575 FOREIGNERS IN Q1 WWW.XINHUANET.COM PUBLISHED:2025/04/29      7 KOREA AN IDEAL PARTNER TO HELP MONGOLIA GROW, SEOUL'S ENVOY SAYS WWW.KOREAJOONGANGDAILY.JOINS.COM  PUBLISHED:2025/04/29      8 MONGOLIA TO HOST THE 30TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF ASIA SECURITIES FORUM WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2025/04/29      9 BAGAKHANGAI-KHUSHIG VALLEY RAILWAY PROJECT LAUNCHES WWW.UBPOST.MN PUBLISHED:2025/04/29      10 THE MONGOLIAN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND FDI: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITY WWW.MELVILLEDALAI.COM  PUBLISHED:2025/04/28      849 ТЭРБУМЫН ӨРТӨГТЭЙ "ГАШУУНСУХАЙТ-ГАНЦМОД" БООМТЫН ТЭЗҮ-Д ТУРШЛАГАГҮЙ, МОНГОЛ 2 КОМПАНИ ҮНИЙН САНАЛ ИРҮҮЛЭВ WWW.EGUUR.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/30     ХУУЛЬ БУСААР АШИГЛАЖ БАЙСАН "БОГД УУЛ" СУВИЛЛЫГ НИЙСЛЭЛ ӨМЧЛӨЛДӨӨ БУЦААВ WWW.NEWS.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/30     МЕТРО БАРИХ ТӨСЛИЙГ ГҮЙЦЭТГЭХЭЭР САНАЛАА ӨГСӨН МОНГОЛЫН ГУРВАН КОМПАНИ WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/30     "UPC RENEWABLES" КОМПАНИТАЙ ХАМТРАН 2400 МВТ-ЫН ХҮЧИН ЧАДАЛТАЙ САЛХИН ЦАХИЛГААН СТАНЦ БАРИХААР БОЛОВ WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/30     ОРОСЫН МОНГОЛ УЛС ДАХЬ ТОМООХОН ТӨСЛҮҮД ДЭЭР “ГАР БАРИХ” СОНИРХОЛ БА АМБИЦ WWW.EGUUR.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/30     МОНГОЛ, АНУ-ЫН ХООРОНД ТАВДУГААР САРЫН 1-НЭЭС НИСЛЭГ ҮЙЛДЭНЭ WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/29     ЕРӨНХИЙ САЙД Л.ОЮУН-ЭРДЭНЭ ЭГИЙН ГОЛЫН УЦС-ЫН ТӨСЛИЙН ТАЛБАЙД АЖИЛЛАЖ БАЙНА WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/29     Ц.ТОД-ЭРДЭНЭ: БИЧИГТ БООМТЫН ЕРӨНХИЙ ТӨЛӨВЛӨГӨӨ БАТЛАГДВАЛ БУСАД БҮТЭЭН БАЙГУУЛАЛТЫН АЖЛУУД ЭХЛЭХ БОЛОМЖ БҮРДЭНЭ WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/29     MCS-ИЙН ХОЁР ДАХЬ “УХАА ХУДАГ”: БНХАУ, АВСТРАЛИТАЙ ХАМТРАН ЭЗЭМШДЭГ БАРУУН НАРАНГИЙН ХАЙГУУЛЫГ УЛСЫН ТӨСВӨӨР ХИЙЖЭЭ WWW.EGUUR.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/29     АМ.ДОЛЛАРЫН ХАНШ ТОГТВОРЖИЖ 3595 ТӨГРӨГ БАЙНА WWW.EGUUR.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2025/04/29    

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MBCC “Doing Business with Mongolia seminar and Christmas Receptiom” Dec 10. 2024 London UK MBCCI London UK Goodman LLC

NEWS

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Mongolia's energy market: key policies and government initiatives www.energyportal.eu

Mongolia's energy market has experienced significant growth and transformation in recent years, driven by a combination of domestic demand, regional integration and global market trends. As a resource-rich country with vast reserves of coal, uranium and renewable energy potential, Mongolia has attracted significant investment and interest from energy companies and international governments. To take advantage of these opportunities and ensure sustainable development, the Mongolian government has implemented a series of key policies and initiatives aimed at promoting energy security, diversifying the energy mix and fostering regional cooperation.
One of the most important policy frameworks guiding Mongolia's energy market is the National Energy Policy (SPE), which was adopted in 2015 and sets out the government's strategic vision for the sector until 2030. SPE aims to increase energy production, improve energy efficiency. , and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while promoting the development of renewable energy sources and regional integration. To achieve these goals, the SPE sets out a series of specific targets and measures, including increasing the share of renewable energy in the total energy mix to 20% by 2023 and 30% by 2030, as well as reducing energy losses in transport and distribution networks.
In addition to the SPE, the Mongolian government has also introduced a number of other key policies and initiatives aimed at promoting energy security and diversification. For example, the Renewable Energy Law, which was first adopted in 2007 and subsequently amended in 2015, provides a legal framework for the development of renewable energy projects in the country, including wind, solar and hydroelectric. The law includes provisions regarding feed-in tariffs, power purchase agreements and tax incentives for renewable energy producers, as well as the obligation for network operators to prioritize the sending of renewable energy sources.
Another important initiative in Mongolia's energy market is the development of the country's first nuclear power plant, which is expected to be operational by 2030. The government has signed agreements with international partners, including Russia and China, to cooperate in the construction and operation of the nuclear power plant. plant, which will be based on advanced reactor technology and safety standards. The development of nuclear power in Mongolia is seen as a key step toward reducing the country's dependence on coal-fired power plants, which currently account for around 80% of total electricity generation and are a major source of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition to its domestic policies and initiatives, the Mongolian government has also actively engaged in regional energy cooperation, particularly with its neighbors Russia and China. In 2018, Mongolia, Russia and China signed a trilateral agreement to establish a joint working group on energy cooperation, aiming to promote the development of cross-border energy infrastructure and the exchange of electricity, natural gas and other energy resources. This cooperation should help Mongolia diversify its energy sources, improve its energy security and facilitate the integration of its energy market with those of its neighbors.
Finally, the Mongolian government has also sought to attract foreign investment and expertise in the energy sector through a series of initiatives, including the establishment of the Invest Mongolia Agency, which provides support and assistance to international investors interested in the country's energy market. The government has also signed a number of bilateral investment treaties and agreements with countries such as the United States, Japan and South Korea, which provide legal protections and guarantees to foreign investors in the investment sector. energy.
In conclusion, Mongolia's energy market is going through a period of rapid growth and transformation, driven by a combination of domestic demand, regional integration and global market trends. The Mongolian government has implemented a series of key policies and initiatives aimed at promoting energy security, diversifying the energy mix and fostering regional cooperation, which are expected to shape the future development of the sector and contribute to the country's sustainable development .
 
 
 
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Iron concentrate trade begins www.theubposts.com

September 15, Mongolian Stock Exchange JSC has started the first trading of iron concentrate after expanding the mining products exchange.
Mongolrostsvetmet and Darkhan Metallurgical Plant are scheduled to sell a total of 78,800 tons of iron concentrate in three rounds of trading. As for the minimum asking price, concentrate with 58 percent content is 56 USD, and iron concentrate with 65 percent content is 90 USD to 93 USD. By the resolution of the Board of Directors of Mongolian Stock Exchange, “Procedures for establishing and implementing standards for trading contracts for iron ore and concentrates” have been approved, and Mongolrostsvetmet and Darkhan Metallurgical Plant have been registered as sellers and signed contracts.
After that, the government announced that it was preparing to trade silver and copper on the exchange. Minerals traded on the exchange will be taken out through a special border crossing.
Manager of Copper and Metal Group of Erdenes Mongol LLC Ts.Tugsbuyan said, “Erdenes Mongol is starting the process of trading mining products at international market prices, including trading of iron ore for the first time with the help of MSE. We export three types of iron ore concentrate. In 2023, more than one million tons of iron ore concentrate is expected to be traded on the exchange. Currently, seven batches of 21,000 tons of iron concentrate with a content of 65 percent have been ordered for trading. I would like to express my gratitude to the management and colleagues of MSE for their support until this day.” Executive Director of Darkhan Metallurgical Plant G.Dugarjav stated, “We are witnessing the historical process of trading iron ore concentrate on the stock exchange for the first time in Mongolia. The main advantage of trading products on the exchange is that the product is sold at a higher price than the nominal price. Previously, we used to charge 50 percent of the base price for our trades, but by trading our products on the Mongolian Stock Exchange, we have a huge advantage of 100 percent settlement and increased cash flow. At the same time, by creating an open and transparent market system for the circulation of wealth in the economy, MSE is bringing great progress to the country’s economy.”
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President of Mongolia Meets President of the Republic of Cuba www.montsame.mn

The President of Mongolia Khurelsukh Ukhnaa and the President of the Republic of Cuba Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel y Bermúdez have held a meeting.
President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, who arrived in Cuba for participating in the Summit on Science, Technology, and Innovation of the Group of 77 in Havana, congratulated Cuba for chairing the Group of 77 in 2023 and hosting the Summit.
President Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel y Bermúdez noted that the Government of Cuba decided to increase further the scholarship, granted to Mongolian youth for many years.
The Heads of State of the two countries discussed the expansion of relations and cooperation, including the development of cooperation in the fields of health, biotechnology, culture, education, agriculture, production of biological and natural products, and sports, increasing student exchange, and other matters of mutual interest.
The President of the Republic of Cuba Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel y Bermúdez accepted the invitation of the President of Mongolia Khurelsukh Ukhnaa to visit Mongolia at his convenience and expressed his intention to visit in 2024.
Mongolia and the Republic of Cuba established diplomatic relations on December 7, 1960. The countries have traditional and friendly relations. From the Mongolian side, high-level representatives of the party and government led by Tsedenbal Yumjaa visited Cuba in 1972, while from the Cuban side, then Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Army General Raul Castro Ruz visited Mongolia in 1970.
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First Ever Performance of Morin Khuur Ensemble at Sydney Opera House www.montsame.mn

In the frame of the official visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs B.Battsetseg to the Commonwealth of Australia, the Cultural Envoy of Mongolia – Morin Khuur Ensemble presented its performance "The Beautiful Country of Mongolia" for the first time at the world-famous Sydney Opera House on September 14, 2023.
The opening remarks were delivered by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Battsetseg Batmunkh, President of the New South Wales Legislative Council the Honorable Ben Franklin, First Assistance Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia Mr. Gary Cowan. More than 2200 guests attended the concert including Her Excellency the Honorable Margaret Beazley, Governor of New South Wales, representatives of the Australian Government and businesses, Heads of Diplomatic Corps in Australia, as well as representatives of Mongolian associations and non-governmental organizations.
In her opening remarks, Foreign Minister B.Battsetseg highlighted that Mongolia-Australia relations and cooperation are successfully expanding and developing in many fields such as education and culture within the Expanded Partnership and people-to-people ties are being further strengthened. The Minister also invited Australian tourists to visit beautiful Mongolia and experience its rich history, culture and traditions within the “Years to Visit Mongolia” campaign.
The Morin Khuur Ensemble performed over 20 national, folk and classical pieces from its rich repertoire on the iconic stage of the Sydney Opera House, and the audience delightfully applauded the first ever performance of Mongolian artists.
UNESCO World Heritage Site and a unique architectural symbol of modern Australia – the Sydney Opera House is the green continent's most renowned and crowded center of arts and culture, welcoming over 11 million visitors and hosting over 1,800 events a year.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is actively engaged in developing cultural cooperation with countries worldwide and promoting Mongolian culture and history through the comprehensive “Values of the Mongolian Nation” campaign. Over its 31-year history, the Morin Khuur Ensemble has performed more than 650 concerts in over 30 countries. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia through its diplomatic missions abroad has enabled opportunities for our artists to showcase their talents on renowned global stages including Japan’s NHK Hall and the Sydney Opera House. The preparations are in full swing for their next performances to be held at historical landmarks in Paris and Nantes.
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Latest-technology food factory launches www.theubposts.com

September 13, “Makh Impex” JSC, Mongolia’s oldest food factory with a 77-year history, has expanded its production quality and standards in 2023 and put into operation a new factory that meets world standards. In relations to the project carried out with BERTSCHLaska group from Austria, they received the keys to their new factory from the company.
Deputy Minister of Food, Agriculture, and Light Industry M.Gankhuleg and Head of Department of Food Factory Policy Implementation D.Dovchinsuren took part in the opening ceremony and got acquainted with the new Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) factory.
The factory, which introduces not only modern equipment but also new standards, is the fourth high-standard factory opened in Asia. The new plant has the capacity to produce 50 tons of products per day such as, sausages, salami, semi-finished, smoked, and frozen products (dumplings, buuz, pizza, Asian fast food, and so on).
In addition, Makh Impex will implement a project of building a refrigerated warehouse for food with a budget of 150 billion MNT, as well as a 40-ton capacity meat thawing and sorting plant with BERTSCHLaska.
Makh Impex is an enterprise that participates in the revolving loan program implemented within the framework of Parliament Resolution No. 36, expanding its activities, increasing the variety of products, uses advanced techniques and technologies in its production, and pays great attention to product quality and safety.
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Shortest route to sea to be built through China www.theubposts.com

Transport Minister S.Byambatsogt worked in Liaoning Province, China. He met with the provincial chairman Li Leqing and Vice Governor of the Provincial People’s Government Jin Guowei, to introduce road infrastructure projects and invite them to cooperate. Liaoning Province is the most important strategic city in China with six seaports. It ranks first in the country in terms of economic indicators and has a population of 43 million. Mongolia is the main part of the transport corridor connecting Asia and Europe. In that sense, Sukhbaatar Province’s Bichigt port is aiming to have the shortest route to the sea through China’s Jinzhou port. The shipping route from Bichigt to Jinzhou Port is 866 km. Therefore, as part of the New Revival Policy put forward by the government, the government intends to implement major projects such as building a railway in the east region with Choibalsan-Huut-Bichigt and Sainshand-Baruun-Urt-Huut-Bichigt routes, increase capacity and build freight terminals of Bichigt border port, and connect Bichigt port with a paved road. With the implementation of these projects, there will be a new circle of economic and social development cooperation between Mongolia, China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea in the Eastern region, and we will have the shortest route to the sea. In addition, investments in the eastern region will increase, and the development of road, transport, energy, mining, and heavy and light industries will reach a completely new level. Trade and transportation will be facilitated, and the cost of transportation of goods will be significantly reduced. New jobs will be created and the standard of living of citizens will increase. Gross domestic product will increase dramatically and provide economic growth.

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How an American racing driver and war in Mongolia helped to defeat Hitler www.spectator.co.uk

Of all the ‘practice’ wars that preceded the main events of the second world war, including the Spanish civil war and the winter war between Finland and the Soviet Union, the least well known is the four-month war on the Mongolia-Manchurian border between the Soviet Union and Japan that ended in September 1939.
This is not surprising, perhaps, because British attention was (and still is) more focused on Hitler’s invasion of Poland that took place two weeks earlier. Even the participants downplay the importance of a war that took place in a remote corner of Mongolia. Japan refers to it as the Nomonhan Incident while Russia calls it the Battle of Khalkin Gol after the river that runs through the region.
Britain is not famed for its geopolitical interest in Mongolia. But the fate of this country as well as Siberia did briefly occupy the minds of our diplomats, politicians and soldiers from the end of the first world war. Strangely this short war, fought across a river some 6,000 miles from Great Britain would have a significant impact on Britain in the second world war.
But first some background. After Genghis Khan had established a Mongol Empire in 1206, Mongolia briefly ruled the world’s most powerful country, China. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China in 1271 and the Yuan dynasty (the first non-Han dynasty) ruled an empire that consisted of Mongolia, Korea and southern Siberia. Just shy of 100 years later, in 1368, the Yuan dynasty was overthrown by peasant born Zhu Yanzhang who founded the Ming dynasty. Thereafter Mongolia slunk into somnolent decline. In the 19th century Mongolia was absorbed into the Chinese Empire of the Manchurian Qing dynasty which ruled it as a vassal state.
However, at the beginning of the 20th century Mongolia was sucked into the vortex of global geopolitical instability that featured the overthrow of the Qing dynasty by Sun Yat Sen’s revolution in 1911, the fall of the Russian Imperial family, the Romanovs, in 1917, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, and the collapse of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922.
It is one of the ‘what-ifs’ of history how things might have turned out if Japan had won their 1939 border war in Mongolia. If Japan had decided to focus on the conquest of Mongolia and Siberia rather than China, would the US have ever entered the second world war?
In the chaos, Mongolia launched its bid for freedom. In 1911 a Buddhist theocratic state was established under Bogd Khan, the eighth Jebtsundamba Khutuktu (Holy Precious Master), who ruled a country where one in three men were monks – Mongolia had been proselytised by the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism in the 16th century. For the next decade Mongolia slipped in an out of independence during the Zhili-Fengtian wars of the northern warlords and their international backers, which included not only Russia but also Japan, Britain, and America.
The White Russian-Bolshevik wars featured a dubious cast of military chancers, including Nikolai Robert Maximillian Freiherr von Ungern-Sternberg otherwise known as the ‘Mad Baron’. Born from a family of German aristocrats, he claimed descent from Gengis Khan and dreamt of rebuilding the Mongol empire. To further his ambitions, he entered a dynastic marriage with a Manchurian princess. The Mad Baron, a ferocious bully, antisemite, sadist, mystic and drunkard, was nevertheless a brilliant horseman and cavalry officer. Above all he was known as a fanatical anti-communist who believed, not without reason, that, ‘we are not fighting a political party but a sect of murderers of all contemporary spiritual culture.’
The Mad Baron led a White Russian force determined to restore the Romanovs. First in 1921 he led a White Russian-Mongolian force that restored Bogd Khan to the leadership of an independent Mongolia. For his efforts, Baron Ungern-Sternberg is still commemorated in Mongolia as well as by conservatives in his native Estonia.
However, the Mad Baron’s success was short lived. In August 1921, he was defeated while supporting anti-Soviet forces in Siberia. Captured by the Bolsheviks, he was tried and put in front of a firing squad. Thereafter Bogd Khan ruled under Bolshevik ‘protection’. When this last Jebtsundamba Khutuktu died of cancer – or more likely poisoning – in 1924, he was not replaced. The Soviets consolidated their grip over Mongolia with the establishment of a Communist Mongolian People’s Republic.
The Soviets, both in Mongolia and Siberia, were helped by the withdrawal of the pro-White Russian Siberian expeditionary army that comprised Japanese, American, British, Italian, French, Belgium, Polish, Serb, Rumanian, and Chinese forces, which had landed in Vladivostok in August 1918 to engage the Bolsheviks. Their objectives were hopelessly divided by their nations’ conflicting operational parameters. The western forces had been primarily interested in ‘rescuing’ the Czech legion that was fighting its way out of Russia, and in preventing war material getting into the hands of the yet to be defeated German army. In addition, some, like Churchill, supported an ani-communist crusade.
Meanwhile Japan’s main interest in Mongolia and Siberia, emphasised by its provision of a 72,000 strong force, was to prevent the resurrection of Russian/Soviet power in the region after the collapse of Romanov rule. In this they failed. White Russian resistance to the Bolsheviks crumbled and in 1922 Japan was the last foreign power to withdraw its army.
That did not end Japan’s interest in Mongolia and Siberia. As in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, Japan feared growing Soviet power in the east. Its renewed energy under the Bolsheviks was a prospect of grave geopolitical concern. It should be remembered that fear of western expansionism, particularly that of the United States, was the driving force behind the Japanese revolution that inspired the overthrow of the Shogunate in 1869, the so-called Meiji Restoration. Japan’s new government was determined not become a colony or a vassal to a foreign power; in 1939 the Soviet Union seemed a greater threat than the United States.
The geopolitical significance of the Soviet Union’s annexation of Mongolia was most keenly felt by Japan’s Kwantung Army in Korea which had won the right to control the South Manchurian Railway zone after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Later it was fear of the Soviet Union that was the key reason for Japan’s annexation of the whole of Manchuria in 1931 and their subsequent invasion of northern China. With some degree of logic, Japan’s leaders began to fear that unless it took control of a weak Chinese state, the Soviet Union would fill the power vacuum. By 1939 therefore, it was not Chinese and Mongolians troops, but mainly Japanese and Soviet forces, that glared at each other across the borders of Siberia, Mongolia and Manchuria.
Relations had been testy for a while. In 1932 Japan had rejected a Soviet offer of a non-aggression pact. Over the next four years there were over 400 border incidents between the countries. More serious clashes took place in 1937 and in 1938 the Soviets lost 96 tanks and 792 troops at the Battle of Changkufeng (or Lake Khasan). It was a clear Japanese victory. Japanese foreign minister, Sadao Araki went as far as to suggest that, ‘if the Soviets do not cease to annoy us, I shall have to purge Siberia as one cleans a room of flies.’
The following year, in May 1939, following a seemingly innocuous incursion by Mongol horsemen across the Khalkin Gol river, full scale war broke out on the Mongolian-Manchurian border. The Nomonhan Incident/Battle of Khalkin Gol war was a classic border demarcation dispute fought over a worthless piece of land. This time the tables were turned on Japan. In June the arrival of the brilliant tank commander General Georgy Zhukov (of Battle of Stalingrad fame) led to a 500-tank attack which swept back Japanese troops that had crossed the river. As Zhukov noted, ‘Our trump cards were the armoured divisions.’ In aggregate the war cost some 50,000 casualties.
Japanese tanks proved to be no match for Zhukov’s fast-moving BT-7 tanks. Curiously the core technology for the BT-7 and its immediate successor the T-34 was provided by American racing driver, John Walter Christie. Born at River Edge, New Jersey in 1865, George Christie trained as an engineer but first found fame as a racing driver with a revolutionary front wheel driven car that he had designed. In 1905 he became the first American to drive in the French Grand Prix.
After a brief flirtation building fire engines, American engagement in the first world war encouraged Christie to design military vehicles. From 1916 to 1942 Christie designed tanks but never succeeded in selling more than a handful of sample models to the US Army. It was a failure for which the US Ordnance Department would later be much criticised. Christie’s key technological breakthrough came with the development of the M1928 tank, which its inventor believed to be a decade ahead of its time. Its unique suspension system enabled it to travel at 28 mph compared to the 9.9 mph of America’s existing first world war tanks.
Despite the strong backing of General George Patton, who would become America’s most famed tank commander, the US Army failed to capitalise on Christie’s developments. As a US congressman told Patton: ‘This is a wonderful tank, George, no doubt the best I’ve ever seen. But we aren’t about to buy it, you know that. I doubt we would even if it drove up the steps of Capitol Hill full of votes. We just can’t spend money on it.’
Indeed on the eve of the second world war, the American army, with fewer than 100,000 combat troops was smaller than those of Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Holland and Belgium. As Henry Stimson, US Secretary of Defence noted:
‘We did not have enough [gun] powder in the whole United States to last the men we now have fighting overseas for anything like a day’s fighting, and what is worse we did not have…the plants or facilities to make it; they had all been destroyed after the last war.’
Foreign governments were not so lackadaisical about rearmament in the 1930s. Christie’s designs were snapped by Britain for the Cruiser tank which was widely used in the early years of the war in North Africa. More importantly a visiting Soviet delegation spotted the brilliance of Christie’s innovations and purchased two sample tanks, spare parts and technical rights and patents for US $164,000. They were smuggled out of America as a consignment of tractor parts.
On taking Christie’s designs back to the Soviet Union, manufacture of its T-18 tanks was shut down and production of the BT-7, using Christie’s innovations, was done in volumeat the Soviet’s biggest track factory in Kharkov (Ukraine). The experience of this the Soviet-Japanese border war in 1939, with lessons learned from the design flaws that became apparent in the BT-7, led to the development of the famed T-34 of which 84,000 would be built. The T-34 would eventually be used by 39 countries in 23 wars, invasions, and coups.
Most significantly on the eastern front in 1941, it was the T-34 which blunted Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia. Hitler, who had previously declared, ‘We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down’. He would later admit, ‘If I had known about the T-34, I would have delayed invading Russia’. Along with ‘General Winter’, the Christie inspired T-34 was arguably the most important weapon in Russia’s defeat of Germany in the second world war.
A T-34 Soviet tank in Berlin’s Tiergarten district (Getty)
If the development of the T-34 was an important consequence of the Mongolian-Siberian border war in 1939, the geopolitical results were even more consequential. Defeat in Mongolia quashed Japan’s appetite for ‘striking north’ – a priority for powerful sections of the Japanese Army in the 1930s. Led to a large extent by officers trained in Manchuria, the Japanese Army saw the Soviets as its prime enemy.
By contrast the Navy saw Japan’s future battleground as the Pacific Ocean with their prime enemy being the United States. It is one of the ‘what-ifs’ of history how things might have turned out if Japan had won their 1939 border war in Mongolia. If Japan had decided to focus on the conquest of Mongolia and Siberia rather than China, would the US have ever entered the second world war? After all American participation in the second world war was precipitated not in Europe but in Asia. It was Japan’s failure to accede to US demands to withdraw from China that led the US to cut Japan off from international financial as well as the oil production of Standard Oil of California, at that time the world’s biggest producer.
A very real consequence of the Russo-Japanese War in Mongolia and Manchuria in 1939 was that it led in due course to their April 1941 Neutrality Pact that would enable Stalin to concentrate his forces against Germany. This was no mean advantage. Allies benefitted enormously from Russia not having to split its forces between an eastern and western front.
But there were disadvantages that ensued from Japan’s defeat to Russia in the Mongolian border war. The Japanese defeat heightened the complacency of British forces in Singapore and Malaya. If Bolshevik Russia could knock over Japan, surely it would be a breeze for British troops to defeat Emperor Hirohito’s forces? When Japanese forces invaded Malaya (some 40 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor) the British expectation was that they would be quickly rolled back.
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Churchill had been sure that Japan would not dare to attack the British Empire. Asked by a young British officer as he was sailing back from America after meeting Roosevelt, whether Japan would attack, Churchill replied, ‘No I don’t think so. If they do, they’ll find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.’ When news arrived in Singapore that the Japanese troop transports had arrived off Kota Baru, Governor Sir Thomas Shenton replied to Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival (who would later surrender Singapore to Japan’s Imperial Army commanded by General Tomoyuki Yamashita), ‘Well, I suppose you’ll shove the little men off.’
A British resident at the time, Maisie Prout, summed up the zeitgeist of Britain’s Asian colonies thus:
‘We were so sure that the British forces would mop up the Japanese in no time…According to British propaganda, the Japanese were all bow-legged and squinty eyed and they all had very bad teeth… They would be annihilated before they reached Kuala Lumpur.’
It was a complacency regarding Japan’s military capabilities that similarly afflicted the United States forces in Hawaii and the Philippines. Thus, the little-known Mongolian-Manchurian war of 1939 was broadly consequential in both the nature and outcome of the second world war both on the eastern front and in Asia and the Pacific. Furthermore, this obscure border war is another reminder, if one were needed, that the second world war was as much an Asian war as a European war.
WRITTEN BY
Francis Pike
Francis Pike is a historian and author of Hirohito’s War, The Pacific War 1941-1945 and Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II.
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Mongolia's central bank maintains interest rate at 13 pct www.xinhuanet.com

The Mongolian central bank's monetary policy council has decided to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 13 percent, the Bank of Mongolia said Saturday.
The decision was made "given the current and future state of the economy and financial markets, external and internal uncertainties or risks to the economy, and the slow pace of inflation towards the target level," Byadran Lkhagvasuren, governor of the Bank of Mongolia, told the media.
In mid-December last year, the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate from 12 to 13 percent to stabilize the rate of inflation in the medium term, maintain the relative return of the Mongolian national currency, the Tugrik, and ensure both an internal and external balance of the economy.
According to the central bank, Mongolia's inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, rose 10 percent year-on-year in August.
The country aims to reduce its inflation rate to a single digit by the end of this year, the central bank said.
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Extreme cycling: four days across a frozen lake in Mongolia www.ft.com

Frozen water isn’t nearly as flat as you might imagine, which becomes an issue when you’re crossing 160km of it on a bicycle. Around me, huge, fractured slabs of Lake Khovsgol, in its solid seasonal form, rear up in jagged stacks, like the ruined battlements of some frost king’s fortress.
Hauling the bike across the most manageable heap, I squint through my balaclava slot at a vast white world, very distantly bound by spindly forests and unclimbed, snow-veined mountains. The frigid desolation is giddying and the silence profound, until the lashes of my left eye freeze together and I break it with a panicky yelp.
Khovsgol is Mongolia’s largest lake by volume and one of the oldest bodies of fresh water on earth, created by tectonic activity more than 2mn years ago. Tucked up by the Russian border near big sister Baikal, it lies in the loneliest corner of a far-flung nation. Getting there from Ulaanbaatar, home to half of Mongolia’s 3mn people and its only international airport, proves a useful preparatory bonding experience for our 30-strong party of participants and crew: a 13-hour minibus convoy, on road surfaces that rack up 12,400 steps on my fitness watch.
It is late February, and the drive is a showcase for Mongolia’s bleak grandeur, an enormity of largely treeless hillsides, stippled with snow, beige grass and the full spectrum of livestock, from yak to camel. There are few settlements: outside the capital, most families still lead semi-nomadic lives, herding animals and pitching gers. It’s not quite a timeless existence. Every household in Mongolia appears to own a Toyota Prius, imported second-hand from Japan, and will merrily employ it to round up their sheep.
Eighteen of us have signed up for the Mongol 100 — a billing derived from Khovsgol’s length in miles — pledging to traverse the frozen lake “by any means necessary”. The event is one of 30 that will be staged this year by a company called Rat Race, most of which combine the thrill of adventure travel with the focus of a tangible physical challenge. The company grew out of the “adventure racing” scene that was developing in the 1990s: long-distance competitions contested by mixed teams, usually in wilderness settings, and typically involving a combination of running, cycling, kayaking, orienteering and perhaps swimming or climbing.
In 2003, sitting in a tent on the Peruvian mountain Alpamayo, 23-year old British climber Jim Mee came up with the idea of the “Rat Race Urban Adventure”, which would bring adventure racing to cities, with events staged over the course of a weekend, thus making it far more accessible to those tied down by jobs and families. Soon, hundreds of enthusiastic teams were abseiling down buildings and orienteering through parks in Edinburgh, Bristol and Manchester, but the company gradually migrated back into the countryside and then, in a pivot adopted even more enthusiastically post-Covid, towards “bucket-list” international adventures. Next year 11,150 people are expected to take part in 40 events that range from running across the Namib desert to a cycle traverse of the Andes. Though the objectives might seem outlandish, most are achievable in a week’s annual leave — Mee calls them “extraordinary adventures for regular folks”.
Our four days on the ice in Mongolia are bookended by two at the start for preparation and two afterwards for recovery. By the time we hit the hard stuff at Khankh, a medieval scatter of wood, canvas and yaks up at the lake’s northern tip, I’ve established that everybody else has chosen their own feet as the necessary means, in two cases with ice skates attached.
Supplied by the organisers, my ride is a fat bike with chunky, nail-studded tyres. It’s my debut on one of these two-wheeled tractors, which proves surprisingly nimble as I thrum noisily along Khankh’s foreshore towards the jaunty little start banner. Glimmering in the dawn sun, Khovsgol stretches endlessly away before us. It’s -12C, and we’re thickly layered in fur and fleece. Breath steams through snoods and balaclavas; our cleated shoe coverings puncture the ice with bubble-wrap pops as we stamp warmth into our feet. A cowbell is rung with vigour, and with a muffled cheer and a chorus of grating swishes, we head out across the ice.
I spend those first hours unlearning many of cycling’s most basic common-sense principles. Instead of avoiding the ominous patches of mirrored black-green ice, I gravitate towards them: on these tyres, the smoother the surface, the better the grip. You also need to go faster when you want to go slower, ironing out slips and wobbles that at low speeds can pitch you over. Yet you must do so with only the gentlest inputs from your hands and feet. Press too eagerly on the pedals and the back wheel slides round to say hello; the front says goodbye with anything more than the tiniest twitch of the handlebars. The do’s and don’ts of braking: don’t brake.
If you don’t like freeze-dried food and can’t handle eight days without a shower, this is not the trip for you.
Yet even a slow and nervous cyclist will outpace any pedestrian, and after a very ginger start, I apologetically reel in the field. Ahead of the walkers are a pair of very determined runners; ahead of them are the two skaters. Both power across the ice with a graceful composure that defies their inexperience. One had prepared with no more than a couple of laps around his local rink in the Midlands. The other had just put on skates for the first time in his life.
Such were my remarkable fellow participants: a mix of ages, genders and backgrounds, brought together by a shared passion for gung-ho, spartan adventure. If you aren’t up for a pretty hefty physical challenge, don’t like freeze-dried pouch food and can’t handle eight days without a shower, this is not the trip for you.
Our minibuses have gone on ahead, erecting red kite banners to plot our course, and setting up pit stops where we’re plied with calories, hot fluid and encouragement. An hour or so beyond the second of these, I spot a huddle of tall white cones among the snow-wigged shoreline pines, each sprouting a neat coil of woodsmoke. A welcome volley of whoops and cowbells confirms I’ve reached our tepee camp. Time and distance seem governed by different rules on the ice, thwarting all attempts to gauge progress across a feature-free void. It feels as if I’ve been out there for 10 hours and covered 100km; in fact it’s four and 40.
Beer in hand, I sit by my tepee’s stove, pull up the canvas door flap and watch the rest of the field run, jog and shuffle in under a setting sun. Bringing up the rear is our winsome broom wagon, a horse-drawn wooden sled with a couple of weary stragglers on board. Ahead lies an evening of freeze-dried fireside feasting, beneath a profusion of stars. Vodka-wise, there’s a balance to be struck: enough to take the edge off those close-quarter snuffles in your five-person tepee, not so much that you spend half the night trooping to and from a demarcated hole in the cold, black woods.
The Mongolians in our support crew are a perennial astonishment: erecting and dismantling our nightly camps at fast-forward speed; knocking up an epic fire from huge lengths of tree, then bunging a Soviet-era pressure cooker on it, abrim with reindeer stew. They wear extravagant fur-lined robes and hats, but never gloves, not while securing our water supply by chain-sawing a hole in the ice, nor while manually repositioning the red-hot woodburner in my tepee. At first they seem bemused by our mission, by the fact that people from very far away would spend a lot of money to wobble and blunder across this most hostile of environments. But we win them round with our sheer indefatigability, plus a few rounds of campfire vodka and a go on my bike.
The days begin in shuddering cold, filling our bottles with smoke-flavoured lake water boiled up on the breakfast fire. On some mornings the ice seems alarmingly fragile, fracturing under my front wheel with a reedy tinkle as little cracks shoot jaggedly away in all directions. Scarier still are the distant artillery booms that thunder out as the ice rears up and shatters, bullied to breaking point by compressive temperature shifts or the currents that surge beneath it. The smaller catastrophes leave the white plain decorously strewn with a million glinting shards, as if someone had dropped a chandelier from an airship. The more brutal have me dragging the bike through mile-long quarries of frozen rubble.
There are mesmerising sections of deep, dark emerald ice shot through with veins, like transparent marble or a shattered-windscreen hall of mirrors. I judder over flash-frozen ripples and wavelets, and cratered moonscapes clumped with wind-sculpted Henry Moore snowmen. My hanky freezes to cardboard; my phone periodically dies of cold. There are no daydreams on this journey, no moments of mind-wandering distraction. For every single second of every single day you are thrillingly, viscerally aware that you’re in outer Mongolia, crossing an enormous frozen lake.
Of course, there are times when the glacial isolation gets to me. I linger at the pit stops, havens of sweet blueberry tea and human contact, and begin to envy the walkers and runners, who coalesce into chatty, pace-matched pairs or trios. My social routine becomes weirdly binary: I’m either smothered with company, crammed together under canvas or round a heap of blazing pine trunks, or the only man alive on God’s frozen earth.
“The days begin in shuddering cold and the ice seems alarmingly fragile, fracturing under my front wheel”
On the second day a bullying sidewind knocks me over a few times, and I’m beaten to the finish by one of the power runners. The day after, our route overlaps with an unofficial ice road and we encounter the occasional slithering Prius. One afternoon, beside a little pine-clustered hump of an island in the middle of the lake, we arrive to find our tepees pitched on the ice. A pre-dinner doze is cut short by an apocalyptic shuddering boom that segues into a symphony of whiplash cracks, muffled aquatic slooshes and ethereal rustles.
Parting tepee flaps we see our Mongolians staring doubtfully into a jagged fissure that has ripped the ice asunder a few metres offshore. It transpires this wasn’t a standard glacial event but an earthquake, which we later find notched 4.8 on the Richter scale. With parts of Khovsgol already beginning to thaw — it is usually frozen from November to April — this news doesn’t ensure a perfect night’s sleep. The next morning we awake to find the wood burner, solicitously fed by the crew through the night, has liquefied our tepee floor.
On the final day, the trail-finding lead minibus encounters patches of open water and our route is redrafted on the hoof. Khovsgol narrows as we approach the town of Hatgal, where an annual ice festival is in full swing, luring giggly pedestrians and pirouetting novice drivers out on to the frozen water. After all that deserted wilderness, the clamour is almost overwhelming. Just past a jetty where summer ferries and derelict cargo hulks stand entombed in the ice, I am politely accosted by a family who are intrigued by my bike, prodding its bulbous, armoured tyres with ungloved fingers. They all want a quick spin, and several selfies. The Mongol 100 finish banner is already in sight, and a belated bunching of the field means I cross it three abreast with a runner and one of our skaters, amid a cacophony of whoops and cowbells.
Achievement comes mixed with relief, and a dose of regret as we watch the balance of our expeditionary force stride, slide and stumble over the line. That’s the trouble with any shared endeavour, particularly when it’s played out in a slightly terrifying wilderness. It’s as if I’ve just been through a very intensive and hugely over-engineered team-building challenge with people I’d never previously met, but now can’t imagine ever being apart from.
Details
Tim Moore was a guest of Rat Race (ratrace.com). Entry to the Mongol 100 costs $4,750, including accommodation, guides, vehicle support, all meals and transfers but not flights. The next Mongol 100 events start on February 25, 2024 and March 2, 2025.
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Prime Minister Tasks to Start PC-04 Package Work of Oil Refinery www.montsame.mn

The Prime Minister of Mongolia Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai tasked to start the EPC-04 Package Work of the Oil Refinery and commission the plant in 2027. The Government of Mongolia pursues the policy of intensifying the construction of the Oil Refinery. The Premier instructed to make up for the 13 months of work lost during the Covid-19, start the EPC-04 Package Work of the Oil Refinery, and intensify the work to put the plant into operation in 2027.
In 2016, the General Loan Agreement of USD 1 Billion was signed between the Government of Mongolia and the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank of the Republic of India. According to the Feasibility Study released at that time, it was concluded that the "Oil Refinery Construction Project" requires funding equivalent to USD 1 billion 236 million. Therefore, a loan agreement was signed in October 2019 to settle additional funding of USD 236 million from the Government of Mongolia.
The principal repayment of the loan was scheduled to be paid annually in the amount of USD 64.5 million starting from February 2023. However, as of February 2023, USD 112 million was taken out of the USD 1 billion loan. Therefore, a proposal to change the repayment schedule of the loan, which had been used to a minor extent, was made to the Indian side, sub-loan agreements have been signed on August 17, 2023, and the repayment has been postponed. The sub-loan agreement reduces the principal repayment of the loan from USD 64.5 million to USD 13.1 million. In addition, the period of exemption from the principal payment of 789.0 million US dollars, which is the financing of EPC-02 and EPC-03 Package Works, has been extended for another seven years.
With this agreement, the implementation of the four Package Works of "Oil Refinery Construction Project" that were regulated by one contract, which were dependent on each other and delayed, can be separated, thus enabling to intensify implementation of the Package Works.
Currently, EPC-04 Package Works, namely the construction and equipment works of the main plant, are pending. "Mongolian Oil Refinery" has announced that the budgeted cost of EPC-04 Package of USD 236 million will be increased by USD 422.0 million during the bidding process, making it a total of USD 648 million.
The Government of Mongolia confirmed the loan agreement for the initial cost of USD 236 million, and submitted a request for financing to the Export-Import Bank of the Republic of India in order to quickly start the work on the three facilities that will require the longest period of work in the EPC-04 Package: hydrocracking, sulfur separation facility, and hydrogen plant.
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