Meanwhile, in Northeast Asia, Japan’s interest in the Mongolian issue grew significantly. the Japanese warlords had realized that the creation of one large united Mongolia would help exert pressure on China and create favorable grounds for the Japanese occupation of the Russian Far East. The Japanese had at their disposal the half-Mongolian ataman Semenov. Together […]
Autonomous Mongolia
The Return of the Chinese
The Beijing government-appointed High Commissioner Chen Yi arrived in Huree in October 1915, four months after the Kyakhta treaty was signed. The treaty had made an important but unwelcome concession to Chinese suzerainty over Mongolia by allowing the Beijing government to appoint a High Commissioner to Huree and Deputy High Commissioners to Uliastai, Hovd, and […]
Life in Autonomous Mongolia
At the time of the treaty of Kyakhta, Outer Mongolia had a territory of almost one and a half million square kilometers and a population of between six and seven hundred thousand. It was a nomadic, livestock – herding country, lagging far behind twentieth-century civilization. The Mongols raised sheep, cattle, goats, horses, and camels, numbering […]
Seeking Independence
China was alarmed at the news of the treaty between Russia and Mongolia, considering it a covert encroachment on its territory. Anti-Russian revolts took place in Beijing and Qingdao. A popular Opposition movement spread demanding that the Chinese government send troops to Huree. Hope and faith In November 1912 the Mongols tried to widen their […]
Sino-Russian Declaration
The Russian had never taken the 1912 agreement with the Mongols very seriously. For them, it was diplomatic fiction, a political lever with which to demonstrate to the Chinese their determination to secure their minimum agenda in Mongolia. The Mongols’ independence was unrecognized, and therefore Mongolia was merely a Chinese region for Russia to claim. […]
Russia Negotiates with Mongolia
Not only Beijing nu St.Petersburg also shamelessly told the Mongols that they were incapable of governing themselves once they were again independent. The Russian Foreign Minister Sanazov stated that historically “the Halhs had never governed themselves independently”. He suggested that the inability of the Mongols to govern themselves might eventually compel Russia to establish Mongolia […]