Sandwiched between China and Russia, Mongolia is a rising geopolitical hotspot, ultra-rich in resources, yet dirt poor, recently backed by unlikely allies like Japan and South Korea. From Ulaanbaatar’s grit to the Gobi’s towering dunes, I explore how its fragile democracy and fierce independence are shaping its future.
When I was a kid, my dad would often talk fondly of his backpacking journey through Vietnam and Cambodia in the 80s, when both countries were cautiously opening up to the world, curious locals crowded around wherever he went, fascinated by the rare sight of a foreigner, and where a single governmental misstep could shatter their fragile path toward the future.
Mongolia today has that same embryonic energy.
The capital of Mongolia is rugged and raw. Drab Soviet-era apartment blocks line the potholed streets, relics of an old empire’s embrace.
I arrived in Ulaanbaatar (or UB as the locals call it) in late April, stepping out of the plane into a city that felt like it had just emerged from a war no one remembers. On the city’s surrounding mountain outskirts, traditional ger tents (yurts) sprawl in improvised neighborhoods, thick black smoke from their chimneys mixing with coal dust in the sharp spring air.
The UB skyline is a clash of eras: The first shopping mall in UB, the State Department Store with socialist realism vibe stands beside cranes erecting modern high-rises, such as the Shangri-La hotel district, a city within a city filled with bars and restaurants indistinguishable from their New York counterparts. Modern LED billboards with global celebrities are peppered along the buildings. Yet, locals are staring at us like we're the first foreigners to ever set foot there.
In the central square, a grand statue of Chinggis Khan presides, as if reminding Mongolians of a far older legacy than the Soviet one.
Then there's the traffic… Traffic obeys a logic of its own, with armies of aging Japanese vans clogging roads as far as the eye can see. In fact, nearly 95% of all vehicles imported into Mongolia are used cars, and about 90% of those come from Japan. Every taxi we took was a Toyota with the dashboard still in Japanese, and often even the built in GPS system stuck in Japanese, accompanied by a nasal Japanese female voice, begging the driver to slow down.
How the Mongolian flag would look if the locals could decide
Many of these cars are right-hand drive – built for Japanese left-side roads – yet Mongolians drive on the right. It’s a daily reminder that Mongolia makes do with hand-me-downs from its wealthier friends.
At night, my friend Danay performed at a comedy bar in central UB that might as well have been a sister club to the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, where young Mongolians in trendy clothes laughed their asses off to comedians with incredible delivery, while Korean pop songs mixed with American hip-hop were pumped out between sets.
My friend Danay Kidane performing at UB Comedy in Ulaanbaatar
Mongolia’s younger generation has basically skipped the one-channel state propaganda TV era and dived straight into the internet age. Especially South Korean soft power, is everywhere. K-pop, K-dramas, Korean brands. It’s common to hear BTS or Blackpink playing in cafes and see Korean script on shop signs. A recent survey found over 80% of young Mongolians have positive views of countries like South Korea, Japan, and the US, and Korean and English-language media are wildly popular.
This is Ulaanbaatar in 2025: A city where Lenin’s shadow has given way to K-pop and where a statue of a camel caravan celebrating the Silk Road trade sits oddly in front of a shiny new shopping mall.
After a couple of days in the capital, we met up with my dear friend and tour-guide Zolo, to set out for the mighty Gobi Desert.
We got introduced to our driver, a sturdy man who looked like he could survive in the desert with a pocket knife; the kind of skill you'll need if you spend time in the mongolian countryside, where asphalt roads are rare and Temperatures can swing from +20°C to -20°C in a single day!
As we drove out in a Toyota Hiace modified to handle the roughest of terrains, UB’s chaotic bustle gave way to vast open steppes. We were practically alone on an infinite plain under a pale blue sky.
Mongolia is nicknamed the “Land of the Blue Sky,” and it lived up to it. The horizon in every direction was an endless dome of blue, with not a single power line or high-rise in sight.
Hour after hour, we drove south, sometimes on paved roads, often on dirt tracks that the driver navigated by memory. We passed the occasional settlement – clusters of gers and maybe a lone gas station – but mostly we saw unspoiled nothingness.
Mongolia is one of the least densely populated countries on Earth. With just about 3.3 million people in a country the size of Western Europe, you can drive the distance from Sweden to Spain without seeing another soul…
When we arrived in the Gobi desert, the Khongor dunes rose before us like an golden wall. With Zolo guiding our path we climbed barefoot, slipping and toiling upward, each step forward pulling us half a step back. When we finally reached the crest, the scene was surreal: Stretching endlessly ahead were dunes shaped by fierce southern winds into an alien landscape, barren and wild, just like the sands of Arrakis from Dune.
On our third day, we reached Bayanzag, famously known as the Flaming Cliffs.
Bayanzag is where American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews discovered dinosaur eggs in the 1920s. Despite its historical significance, the fiery orange sandstone cliffs were as unexplored as when Roy set foot there, allowing us to roam freely, which felt painfully refreshing in contrast tourist hotspots like the Grand Canyon.
Mongolia today reminded me of these Flaming Cliffs: Striking, filled with unexplored treasures that could either stay this way or become as exploited as mount Fuji.
Mongolia’s shield from China and Russia: the Third Neighbor Policy
Geography has dealt Mongolia a tricky hand. Squeezed between Russia and China, two autocratic behemoths, Mongolia is literally and figuratively a democracy in a tight spot.
North lies Russia — once Mongolia’s patron, instrumental in shaping and defending its modern statehood during the communist era (see the 1921 Mongolian Revolution), now a predatory pariah, lashing out beyond its borders and threatening the fragile balance of its neighbors.
South lies China – Mongolia’s biggest trading partner and a rising global superpower that makes many Mongolians uneasy. The two share a long and tangled history, from Genghis Khan’s conquests to centuries of imperial rule under the Manchu. That tension remains palpable today, sharpened by China’s treatment of ethnic Mongolians in Inner Mongolia (now part of China), where teaching the Mongolian language was recently outlawed, a move seen as cultural erasure. Mongolia needs China’s business, but it's people hate Chinese influence.
Mongolia’s response to this predicament has been a savvy foreign policy dubbed the “third neighbor” policy. Since it has only two physical neighbors, Mongolia seeks out distant friends to act as metaphorical third neighbors. Japan and South Korea stand out as two of those key partners, along with countries like the United States and members of the EU.
Ulaanbaatar enjoys strong diplomatic ties with Tokyo and Seoul – all three share democratic values in a region where democracy is scarce. But the main strength of these ties comes from the Mongolian people. All the the Mongolians I've talked were far more interested in developing strong ties with Japan and South Korea than their immediate neighbors.
When it comes to Japan, I was constantly struck by the little connections. The fleet of Toyota cars on the streets is one obvious link. But Japan’s influence doesn’t stop at cars. Infrastructure and aid are a big part of the story. Ever since Mongolia’s democratic transition, Japan has been a major aid donor, earning a special fondness among Mongolians who often say “a friend in need is a friend indeed” about Japan’s help in the 1990s. One can spot signs of Japan-funded projects around UB, from schools to hospitals. The most monumental example is the brand-new international airport. Mongolia’s main airport was relocated and opened in 2021, a modern facility built with 93% financing from Japan’s aid agency (JICA). Not only was it financed by Japan, it’s actually operated by a consortium of Japanese companies in partnership with Mongolians. Flying into that gleaming airport is a stark contrast to the potholed road leading into the city – a reminder that Japan’s footprint here is needed and welcomed.
And the relationship goes deeper than concrete and runways. Tokyo and Ulaanbaatar inked a full‑blown Economic Partnership Agreement in February 2015, Mongolia’s first free‑trade deal with a G7 nation, which came into force in 2016 and slashed tariffs on almost all bilateral trade, binding the two economies more tightly than ever.
Similarly, South Korea’s presence is felt through commerce and culture. Strolling through any department store in UB, you'll see Korean cosmetics, Korean electronics, and even a Paris Baguette (a famous Korean-French bakery chain). South Korea, like Japan, extended a helping hand after the 1990s – thousands of Mongolians have since studied or worked in Korea. In fact, the largest Mongolian diaspora (around 50,000 people) lives in South Korea, sending back remittances and building bridges between the two nations.
Culturally, South Korea arguably outshines even Japan in Mongolia. K-dramas have been a sensation on Mongolian TV. In clubs, you'll see people singing along to K-pop songs despite not speaking a word of Korean. This “Korean Wave” (Hallyu) in Mongolia mirrors its impact in other parts of Asia, but here it also has a geopolitical undercurrent: it subtly pulls Mongolian popular imagination toward fellow democracies. Young Mongolians who adore Korean culture also notice that South Korea is a prosperous democracy – a model to aspire to.
All these soft power elements – Japanese cars and infrastructure, Korean media and consumer goods – serve a strategic purpose. It’s a reminder that dramas, boy bands, and secondhand SUVs can be a stronger weapon for forging relationships than tanks, threats and battle flags.
Mongolia's fragile democracy
Politically, Mongolia's embryonic democratic is doing remarkably well, considering their authoritarian neighbors who'd gladly see it fail. Since the peaceful transition in 1990, Mongolia has had multiple peaceful transfers of power, a lively (albeit quite corrupt) parliament, and a vocal civil society. The fact that they have maintained their democracy and independence thus far speaks to a certain stubborn resilience – perhaps inherited from their nomadic ancestors who valued freedom of movement and spirit above all.
However, for all its geopolitical savvy, Mongolia faces a classic development trap: The resource curse, also known as Dutch disease. The country sits on a massive store of mineral wealth – coal, copper, gold, uranium, rare earth's. In fact, despite its tiny population of 3.6 million, it's one of the ten most resource rich countries in the world!
The biggest mine in Mongolia - The Rio Tinto Copper Mine
These resources have powered impressive booms but also make the economy dangerously one-dimensional. Mining is the engine of Mongolia’s economy, accounting for about 25–26% of GDP and a staggering 90% of export earnings.
The term Dutch disease refers to how a resource boom inflates currency and wages, undermining sectors like manufacturing and agriculture. In UB, this is painfully obvious: During booms, shiny restaurants and luxury apartments appear, funded by mining, but most goods are imported. When the inevitable bust hits, these businesses vanish just as fast. Meanwhile, rural herders and workers see little benefit, as mines are often owned by foreign firms or a domestic elite. This imbalance fuels discontent, especially around corruption.
On our journey, we often asked Zolo about Mongolian politics. He shook his head at the mention of big mining projects, saying that ordinary people see no benefit. Instead, the political elite openly squander the nation's wealth, traveling abroad to lavish casinos, casually burning through millions in government funds at blackjack tables as though Mongolia's resources were their personal jackpot.
In late 2022, this frustration boiled over dramatically. Thousands of Mongolians braved the subzero cold to protest a massive “coal theft” scandal in December 2022. At Sukhbaatar Square, the same central plaza where democracy was declared in 1990, crowds gathered night after night, demanding the government “name the thieves” and account for missing billions from coal exports and even attempted to storm the Government Palace in frustration. It turned out that at least 385,000 tons of coal shipped to China were unaccounted for in official records, implying that politically connected insiders had siphoned off huge profits by fudging export numbers.
Youth Protest Stretches Into Day 2 in Mongolia – The Diplomat
Sukhbaatar Square in December 2022,
Mongolia's democracy might be weak, but it still works, and despite the politicians best efforts to silence the crowds, they failed. Within days, the prime Minister had to announce an investigation and arrests; by the following week, several officials and executives of the state coal company were in custody. The government even vowed to put the giant state coal mining firm (Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi) on the stock market to improve transparency.
Sitting around a campfire in the Gobi, these stories took on a new resonance. We were in a province where vast coal trucks trundle south to China, kicking up dust on unpaved roads, while locals live in simple gers, watching those riches roll by. It’s a stark image of inequality. Yet, Mongolia’s saving grace is that people can speak out and demand change. In China or Russia, protesting like that would likely be met with immediate, harsh repression. In Mongolia, the protests led to promises of reform.
The current Mongolian government is talking about diversifying the economy (investing in cashmere, tourism, IT services) and strengthening the rule of law to attract foreign investment beyond mining. There are some glimmers of hope: for example, a new electronic trading system for coal was introduced so that sales are transparent and on the record. Civil society groups and journalists are quite fearless in exposing scandals, which is a positive sign for accountability.
What path will Mongolia choose?
After days of traversing dunes and canyons, our group returned to Ulaanbaatar.
As my friends and I prepared to depart, I felt a mix of optimism and concern. Mongolia is truly an embryonic democracy, a work in progress. It has extraordinary advantages: A young population hungry for change, immense natural resources, and supportive friends in democratic nations. It also faces extraordinary challenges: geographic isolation, environmental extremes (winters of -40°C and summer droughts), the domineering shadow of China and Russia, and the ever-present temptations of corruption and authoritarianism.
Which way will Mongolia go? Standing in Sukhbaatar Square on our last day, under the gaze of the Chinggis Khan statue, I realized that Mongolia’s story is still being written and Mongolians themselves hold the pen.
No one can make the tough choices for them – not Tokyo, not Seoul, not Washington. Those third neighbors can help by investing, by educating, by simply being examples. But ultimately, Mongolia’s fate depends on the resilience of its people.
If Mongolia succeeds, it will be because of a quiet revolution, not of guns or tanks, but of youth, internet cafes, and a stubborn refusal to be anyone’s satellite.
Sources:
The observations above are informed by on-the-ground travel and discussions, as well as data on Mongolia’s economy and international ties. For instance, Mongolia’s heavy reliance on mining (about 90% of exports) is documented by trade and industry reports. The dominance of used Japanese cars (95% of imports, mostly right-hand drive) in Mongolia’s vehicle fleet has been noted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Mongolia. Mongolia’s “third neighbor” policy and its close ties with Japan and South Korea have been discussed in diplomatic analyses. The influence of South Korean pop culture and the positive perception of Japan and Korea among Mongolian youth are reflected in public opinion surveys, and the large Mongolian diaspora in South Korea (over 50,000 people) underscores the human link between the countries. Major Japanese-supported infrastructure, such as Ulaanbaatar’s new airport, was built with Japanese loans and expertise. Finally, Mongolia’s struggles with corruption in the mining sector and the public demand for accountability were vividly illustrated by the December 2022 protests over missing coal revenue and the government’s subsequent reform pledges. All these elements weave into the complex, hopeful tapestry of today’s Mongolia – a democracy at a crossroads between giants, determined to choose its own path.
By Rei Saito

Published Date:2025-05-12