Mongolia's Strategic Calculus - The Editor: "The recent discourse on U.S.-Mongolian relations has suffered from a number of shortcomings. First, much of it has ignored Mongolia’s relationship with China. Failure to give this bilateral relationship its due attention is a significant oversight. Since first publishing its 1994 National Security and Foreign Policy Concepts, Ulaanbaatar has identified its relations with China as its top foreign policy priority. Since that time, China’s importance has only grown for Mongolia as its relations with Beijing affect Mongolia’s sovereignty, security, and economic growth to an ever-enlarging degree.
Second, the idea of a special relationship existing between Mongolia and the U.S. is overstated. Despite healthy cooperation between the two states, the U.S. is a distant foreign power with little influence over Mongolia’s domestic security and a nominal actor in Mongolia’s domestic economy. Mongolian public opinion ranks cooperation and communication with the U.S. as significantly less important than relations with China. Consequently, any predilection Mongolia might have for cooperation with the U.S. is more than offset by the benefits it receives from its ties with China."
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