Pan-Mongolism
Encyclopedia
Pan-Mongolism is an irredentist idea advocating the union of the contiguous territories inhabited by Mongols
into a single independent sovereign state
. The proposed territory, called Greater Mongolia
, usually includes the independent state of Mongolia
, the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia
, and the Russian subject of Buryatia
. Sometimes Tuva
, the Altai Republic
, and Altai Krai
are included as well. All areas in Greater Mongolia except Mongolia have non-Mongol majorities.
The nationalist movement emerged in the 20th century in response to the collapse of the Qing dynasty
and the possibility of an independent Mongolian state. After the Red Army
helped to establish a Mongolian People's Republic, Mongolian foreign policy prioritized seeking recognition of independence over territorial expansion. After the 1990 Mongolian Revolution ended Communist rule in Mongolia, a number of organizations have emerged that promote pan-Mongolism, but they have little popular support.
The relations between the Buryat
, Khalkha, and Inner
Mongols were mostly "symbolic" marriage alliances and not political unions before the 20th century. The Qing Dynasty
(1644–1912) of China controlled modern-day Tuva
, Mongolia, and Inner Mongolia. However, before the People's Republic of China
(1949–present) greatly expanded the territory of Inner Mongolia
to its present shape, Inner Mongolia only referred to the Mongol areas within the Chinese provinces of Ningxia
, Suiyuan, and Chahar. The Mongols in historical Manchuria
, known then as Xing'an
but now as Hulunbuir
, were considered to be ethnically distinct from both the Inner and Outer Mongol tribes, and this region was called "Eastern Mongolia". Inner Mongolia, which had joined the Qing in 1636 as allies rather than conquered subjects, were directly administered and taxed by the Qing, and given access to the Qing aristocracy. Outer Mongolia, which was gradually conquered by the Qingfrom 1655–1691, was given more autonomy, nomad
ic rights, and its own Buddhist center. Having colonized Buryatia
in the 17th century, and the Amur Basin in 1862, the Imperial Russian
government pursued policies in support of a "long-range expansionist policy intended to one day strip control of Mongolia away from China".
to the new Republic of China
(ROC) in 1911, the Inner Mongols allied themselves with the ROC rather than the separatist Outer Mongols. China's early republican leaders used slogans like Five Races Under One Union
, democracy, and meritocracy
to try to persuade all of the Mongols not to separate from the republic. However, Outer Mongolia's prince
s feared for their power because of the ROC's promises of democracy, so they gathered with Russian representatives in Ulan Bator and persuaded Russia to defend "Mongol autonomy" within China. The Russians understood this autonomy to apply only in Mongolia proper (Outer Mongolia), but the princes interpreted it as sanctifying a Greater Mongolia of Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Eastern Mongolia, and Tannu Uriankhai
(Tuva).
The Inner Mongolian prince Gungsangnorbu
corresponded with the autonomous government in Ulan Bator about the possibility of a Greater Mongolia. They found that they had sharp disagreements about such a state, owing to the Inner Mongols' agricultural lifestyle and orientation towards China, contrasted with the Outer Mongols' nomadic lifestyle and orientation towards Russia. From 1919 to 1921, a Chinese army led by Xu Shuzheng
occupied Outer Mongolia
. This period ended when the Red Army
routed Xu's army and began deporting Han people from Outer Mongolia. The Han percentage of the industrial labor force dropped from 63% to 10% in 1932. At the same time, Greater Mongolia nationalists, mostly Buryats, began to migrate to Outer Mongolia and take key government positions.
-led Outer Mongolian Revolution of 1921
fixed independent Mongolia's de facto
present borders to include only Outer Mongolia, because of the Soviets' needs for a buffer state
rather than a vague frontier
. The unsatisfied leaders of Outer Mongolia would often encouraged and support vigilante
s who attempted to ethnically cleanse
the Han Chinese
from Inner and Eastern Mongolia; many failed rebel leaders fled to Outer Mongolia. After the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the Japanese installed the puppet
Mengjiang
government in Inner Mongolia, and Manchukuo
to include Eastern Mongolia. Imperial Japanese policy flirted with pan-Mongolism as a weapon against the Chinese, but it maintained the traditional Chinese political divisions of the Mongols, as its main focus was to promote Japanese, rather than Mongolian, language and culture. During the Japanese occupation, Soviet–Japanese border conflicts pit Mongols on either side of the Sino-Mongolian border against one another, and according to one scholar "finalized the permanent separation of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia". Nonetheless, war propaganda
by the Soviet Union and Outer Mongolia that encouraged Inner and Eastern Mongolians to fight against the Japanese to create a Greater Mongolia.
In 1943, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office
predicted that the Soviet Union
would promote the idea of a Greater Mongolia to detach China's Inner Mongolia and East Mongolia from Chinese influence. A year later, the then-Soviet satellite Tuvan People's Republic was annexed by into the Russian SFSR
. Ultimately, the Soviet Union stopped short of annexing Outer Mongolia for fear that the United States would not support its proposals for the Yalta Conference
as a result. During the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, Outer Mongolian troops occupied both Inner and Eastern Mongolia, and Japanese collaboratist leaders like De Wang were kidnapped to Outer Mongolia to be inculcated with pan-Mongolist ideals. Perceiving an imminent threat to China's territorial integrity, Chiang Kai-Shek
signed an agreement with the Soviets during the Mongolian occupation which gave Chinese recognition of Outer Mongolian independence. In return for the fulfillment of this longtime Soviet foreign policy goal, the agreement stated that Mongolian independence would only be effective "within [Outer Mongolia's] existing frontiers". The Outer Mongolian troops subsequently withdrew from China. In 1947, Chiang renewed his claim on Outer Mongolia in response to the Mongolian People's Republic's border incursions into Chinese Xinjiang
.
visited the Chinese Communist headquarters in Xibaipo
to negotiate a new Sino-Soviet treaty. Chinese leader Mao Zedong
inquired about the possibility of a Greater Mongolia under Chinese control; his Soviet counterpart Joseph Stalin
's reply, through Mikoyan, was that since Outer Mongolia would never voluntarily give up its "independence", so the only way a Greater Mongolia would come about would be through the loss of Chinese territory. Mao subsequently abandoned any hope of a Chinese-led Greater Mongolia. China and the Soviet Union applied different ethnic policies to their Mongol minorities. While Russia encouraged local identities - Buryat instead of Buryat-Mongol, and Kalmyk
instead of Kalmyk-Mongol, China encouraged its Mongols to deemphasize their tribal and local identities and to identify simply as "Mongol". The Mongolian communist government promoted the idea that all Mongols should be assimilated to the Khalkha subgroup, rejecting the idea of an inclusive Greater Mongolia state as disloyal to Mongolia.
During the early 1950s, Mongolian president Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal often visited China to ask for aid in grants and labor. China and the Soviet Union also collaborated to host pan-Mongolian festivals between Inner Mongolia and the Mongolian People's Republic. However, the Russian Communist Party forbade celebrations of Genghis Khan
because of negative Russian attitudes towards the Mongol conquests
. The Sino-Soviet split
from 1960 led Mongolia to align with its greater aid donor, the USSR, and to publish provocative pan-Mongol pieces in the Mongolian state press. During the 1980s, China-Mongolia relations improved with the exchange of Mongolian wrestling
teams and Mikhail Gorbachev
's pledge to withdraw Soviet troops from Mongolia.
, rather than to expand outside of its borders. The second expressed a belief in the superiority of the Khalkha Mongols as the most racially pure Mongols ("Khalkha-centrism"), looking down on the Buryat and Inner Mongols as Russian and Chinese "half-breeds", respectively. The third criticism noted that the political power of those within the current borders of Mongolia would be diluted in a Greater Mongolia.
In 1994, China and Mongolia signed a treaty wherein both promised to respect each other's territorial integrity
. In the same year, the Inner Mongolia
Communist Party
explicitly repudiated the Greater Mongolia idea, citing the threat to China's unity and the likely dominance of Mongolia in such a union. Because of the existence of an independent Mongolian state, Inner Mongols have generally not aspired to an independent state of their own, and what little separatist sentiment in Inner Mongolia aspires to union with independent Mongolia. The feelings are not reciprocated, as the history and geography of China are not taught in Mongolian schools, and knowledge of the Inner Mongols in Mongolia is low. Similarly to the Inner Mongolian government, high-ranking Buryat officials have reacted to the Greater Mongolia idea by rejecting that Buryats are Mongols at all. Since the normalization of Sino-Mongolian relations in 1994, the Mongolian government does not support Greater Mongolian nationalism, but it tolerates organizations in Mongolia which do, such as the the Mongolian newspaper Il Tovchuu. In 2002, the Republic of China (Taiwan) recognized Mongolia's independence, and established informal relations with Mongolia. Various small organizations in Mongolia advocate a Greater Mongolia; they have little popular support.
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
into a single independent sovereign state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
. The proposed territory, called Greater Mongolia
Greater Mongolia
Greater Mongolia as a region, is the contiguous territories primarily inhabited by ethnic Mongols. It approximately includes the modern state of Mongolia, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China , and the Buryat Republic as well as a few smaller territories in...
, usually includes the independent state of Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
, the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
, and the Russian subject of Buryatia
Buryatia
The Republic of Buryatia is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Ulan-Ude. Its area is with a population of 972,658 .-Geography:...
. Sometimes Tuva
Tuva
The Tyva Republic , or Tuva , is a federal subject of Russia . It lies in the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders with the Altai Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Republic of Buryatia in Russia and with Mongolia to the...
, the Altai Republic
Altai Republic
Altai Republic is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the town of Gorno-Altaysk. The area of the republic is . Population: -Geography:...
, and Altai Krai
Altai Krai
Altai Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It borders with, clockwise from the south, Kazakhstan, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo Oblasts, and the Altai Republic. The krai's administrative center is the city of Barnaul...
are included as well. All areas in Greater Mongolia except Mongolia have non-Mongol majorities.
The nationalist movement emerged in the 20th century in response to the collapse of the Qing dynasty
Xinhai Revolution
The Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, also known as Revolution of 1911 or the Chinese Revolution, was a revolution that overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing , and established the Republic of China...
and the possibility of an independent Mongolian state. After the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
helped to establish a Mongolian People's Republic, Mongolian foreign policy prioritized seeking recognition of independence over territorial expansion. After the 1990 Mongolian Revolution ended Communist rule in Mongolia, a number of organizations have emerged that promote pan-Mongolism, but they have little popular support.
Qing dynasty
Buryats
The Buryats or Buriyads , numbering approximately 436,000, are the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia and are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia...
, Khalkha, and Inner
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
Mongols were mostly "symbolic" marriage alliances and not political unions before the 20th century. The Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
(1644–1912) of China controlled modern-day Tuva
Tuva
The Tyva Republic , or Tuva , is a federal subject of Russia . It lies in the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders with the Altai Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Republic of Buryatia in Russia and with Mongolia to the...
, Mongolia, and Inner Mongolia. However, before the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
(1949–present) greatly expanded the territory of Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
to its present shape, Inner Mongolia only referred to the Mongol areas within the Chinese provinces of Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
, Suiyuan, and Chahar. The Mongols in historical Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
, known then as Xing'an
Xing'an
Xing'an or Hsingan refers to a former province, which once occupied western Heilongjiang and part of northwest Liaoning provinces of China. The name is related to that of the Greater Khingan Mountains...
but now as Hulunbuir
Hulunbuir
Hulunbuir is a region that is governed as a prefecture-level city in northeastern Inner Mongolia, in the People's Republic of China. Its administrative center is located at Hailar District, its largest urban area. Major scenic features are the high steppes of the Hulun Buir grasslands, the Hulun...
, were considered to be ethnically distinct from both the Inner and Outer Mongol tribes, and this region was called "Eastern Mongolia". Inner Mongolia, which had joined the Qing in 1636 as allies rather than conquered subjects, were directly administered and taxed by the Qing, and given access to the Qing aristocracy. Outer Mongolia, which was gradually conquered by the Qingfrom 1655–1691, was given more autonomy, nomad
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
ic rights, and its own Buddhist center. Having colonized Buryatia
Buryatia
The Republic of Buryatia is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Ulan-Ude. Its area is with a population of 972,658 .-Geography:...
in the 17th century, and the Amur Basin in 1862, the Imperial Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
government pursued policies in support of a "long-range expansionist policy intended to one day strip control of Mongolia away from China".
Early twentieth-century
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Qing, reasoning that the Russians would have a harder time annexing territory settled by many Han people, reduced its many restrictions on Han settlement within Qing territory. This policy spurred an anti-Chinese Greater Mongolia nationalism among a few Mongols. But generally, as a result of intra-Mongol cultural differences, when the Qing dynasty fellXinhai Revolution
The Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, also known as Revolution of 1911 or the Chinese Revolution, was a revolution that overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing , and established the Republic of China...
to the new Republic of China
Republic of China (1912–1949)
In 1911, after over two thousand years of imperial rule, a republic was established in China and the monarchy overthrown by a group of revolutionaries. The Qing Dynasty, having just experienced a century of instability, suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism...
(ROC) in 1911, the Inner Mongols allied themselves with the ROC rather than the separatist Outer Mongols. China's early republican leaders used slogans like Five Races Under One Union
Five Races Under One Union
Five races under one union was one of the major principles upon which the Republic of China was originally founded in 1911 at the time of the Xinhai Revolution.-Description:...
, democracy, and meritocracy
Meritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...
to try to persuade all of the Mongols not to separate from the republic. However, Outer Mongolia's prince
Prince
Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...
s feared for their power because of the ROC's promises of democracy, so they gathered with Russian representatives in Ulan Bator and persuaded Russia to defend "Mongol autonomy" within China. The Russians understood this autonomy to apply only in Mongolia proper (Outer Mongolia), but the princes interpreted it as sanctifying a Greater Mongolia of Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Eastern Mongolia, and Tannu Uriankhai
Tannu Uriankhai
Tannu Uriankhai is a historic region of the Mongol Empire and, later, the Qing Dynasty. The realms of Tannu Uriankhai largely correspond to the Tuva Republic of the Russian Federation, neighboring areas in Russia, and a part of the modern state of Mongolia....
(Tuva).
The Inner Mongolian prince Gungsangnorbu
Gungsangnorbu
Gungsangnorbu was an Inner Mongolian prince and politician of the Republic of China. Some scholars describe him as a moderate, progressive moderniser caught between the influence of conservative older leaders and young radicals...
corresponded with the autonomous government in Ulan Bator about the possibility of a Greater Mongolia. They found that they had sharp disagreements about such a state, owing to the Inner Mongols' agricultural lifestyle and orientation towards China, contrasted with the Outer Mongols' nomadic lifestyle and orientation towards Russia. From 1919 to 1921, a Chinese army led by Xu Shuzheng
Xu Shuzheng
Hsu Seu-Cheng or Xu Shuzheng , was a Chinese warlord in Republican China. A subordinate and right-hand man of Duan Qirui, he was a prominent member of the Anhui Clique....
occupied Outer Mongolia
Occupation of Mongolia
The Occupation of Mongolia by the Beiyang Government of the Republic of China began in October 1919 and lasted until early 1921, when Chinese troops in Urga were routed by Baron Ungern's White Russian and Mongolian forces, who, in turn, were defeated by the Red Army and its Mongolian allies by...
. This period ended when the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
routed Xu's army and began deporting Han people from Outer Mongolia. The Han percentage of the industrial labor force dropped from 63% to 10% in 1932. At the same time, Greater Mongolia nationalists, mostly Buryats, began to migrate to Outer Mongolia and take key government positions.
World War II
The SovietSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
-led Outer Mongolian Revolution of 1921
Outer Mongolian Revolution of 1921
The Outer Mongolian revolution of 1921 was both a military and political event. With the assistance of the Soviet Red Army, Mongolian revolutionaries expelled Russian White Guards from the country, and created a new state, named the Mongolian People's Republic in 1924. Although nominally...
fixed independent Mongolia's de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
present borders to include only Outer Mongolia, because of the Soviets' needs for a buffer state
Buffer state
A buffer state is a country lying between two rival or potentially hostile greater powers, which by its sheer existence is thought to prevent conflict between them. Buffer states, when authentically independent, typically pursue a neutralist foreign policy, which distinguishes them from satellite...
rather than a vague frontier
Frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...
. The unsatisfied leaders of Outer Mongolia would often encouraged and support vigilante
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
s who attempted to ethnically cleanse
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
the Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
from Inner and Eastern Mongolia; many failed rebel leaders fled to Outer Mongolia. After the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the Japanese installed the puppet
Puppet state
A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...
Mengjiang
Mengjiang
Mengjiang , also known in English as Mongol Border Land, was an autonomous area in Inner Mongolia, operating under nominal Chinese sovereignty and Japanese control. It consisted of the then-Chinese provinces of Chahar and Suiyuan, corresponding to the central part of modern Inner Mongolia...
government in Inner Mongolia, and Manchukuo
Manchukuo
Manchukuo or Manshū-koku was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The region was the historical homeland of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Empire in China...
to include Eastern Mongolia. Imperial Japanese policy flirted with pan-Mongolism as a weapon against the Chinese, but it maintained the traditional Chinese political divisions of the Mongols, as its main focus was to promote Japanese, rather than Mongolian, language and culture. During the Japanese occupation, Soviet–Japanese border conflicts pit Mongols on either side of the Sino-Mongolian border against one another, and according to one scholar "finalized the permanent separation of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia". Nonetheless, war propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
by the Soviet Union and Outer Mongolia that encouraged Inner and Eastern Mongolians to fight against the Japanese to create a Greater Mongolia.
In 1943, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
predicted that the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
would promote the idea of a Greater Mongolia to detach China's Inner Mongolia and East Mongolia from Chinese influence. A year later, the then-Soviet satellite Tuvan People's Republic was annexed by into the Russian SFSR
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
. Ultimately, the Soviet Union stopped short of annexing Outer Mongolia for fear that the United States would not support its proposals for the Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
as a result. During the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, Outer Mongolian troops occupied both Inner and Eastern Mongolia, and Japanese collaboratist leaders like De Wang were kidnapped to Outer Mongolia to be inculcated with pan-Mongolist ideals. Perceiving an imminent threat to China's territorial integrity, Chiang Kai-Shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
signed an agreement with the Soviets during the Mongolian occupation which gave Chinese recognition of Outer Mongolian independence. In return for the fulfillment of this longtime Soviet foreign policy goal, the agreement stated that Mongolian independence would only be effective "within [Outer Mongolia's] existing frontiers". The Outer Mongolian troops subsequently withdrew from China. In 1947, Chiang renewed his claim on Outer Mongolia in response to the Mongolian People's Republic's border incursions into Chinese Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
.
1949–1990
The 1949 Communist revolution in China saw the Communist Chinese recognition of Mongolian independence, and promised a new era of communist fraternity between the Chinese, Mongolian, and Soviet governments. In the same year, Soviet diplomat Anastas MikoyanAnastas Mikoyan
Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was an Armenian Old Bolshevik and Soviet statesman during the rules of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev....
visited the Chinese Communist headquarters in Xibaipo
Xibaipo
Xibaipo is a township-level division of Pingshan County, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China....
to negotiate a new Sino-Soviet treaty. Chinese leader Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
inquired about the possibility of a Greater Mongolia under Chinese control; his Soviet counterpart Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's reply, through Mikoyan, was that since Outer Mongolia would never voluntarily give up its "independence", so the only way a Greater Mongolia would come about would be through the loss of Chinese territory. Mao subsequently abandoned any hope of a Chinese-led Greater Mongolia. China and the Soviet Union applied different ethnic policies to their Mongol minorities. While Russia encouraged local identities - Buryat instead of Buryat-Mongol, and Kalmyk
Kalmyk people
Kalmyk people is the name given to the Oirats, western Mongols in Russia, whose descendants migrated from Dzhungaria in 1607. Today they form a majority in the autonomous Republic of Kalmykia on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. Kalmykia is Europe's only Buddhist government...
instead of Kalmyk-Mongol, China encouraged its Mongols to deemphasize their tribal and local identities and to identify simply as "Mongol". The Mongolian communist government promoted the idea that all Mongols should be assimilated to the Khalkha subgroup, rejecting the idea of an inclusive Greater Mongolia state as disloyal to Mongolia.
During the early 1950s, Mongolian president Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal often visited China to ask for aid in grants and labor. China and the Soviet Union also collaborated to host pan-Mongolian festivals between Inner Mongolia and the Mongolian People's Republic. However, the Russian Communist Party forbade celebrations of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
because of negative Russian attitudes towards the Mongol conquests
Mongol Conquests
Mongol invasions progressed throughout the 13th century, resulting in the vast Mongol Empire which covered much of Asia and Eastern Europe by 1300....
. The Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
from 1960 led Mongolia to align with its greater aid donor, the USSR, and to publish provocative pan-Mongol pieces in the Mongolian state press. During the 1980s, China-Mongolia relations improved with the exchange of Mongolian wrestling
Mongolian wrestling
Mongolian wrestling, known as Bökh , is the folk wrestling style of Mongols in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and other regions...
teams and Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's pledge to withdraw Soviet troops from Mongolia.
1990–present
After the Mongolian Revolution in 1990 brought about a "truly independent" Mongolia apart from Soviet influence, both China and Russia expressed concerns that the pan-Mongol nationalism that was flourishing in Mongolia could penetrate into their borderlands. A surge in pan-Mongol sentiment resulted in a series of "Unite the Three Mongolias" conferences in Ulan Bator, as well as government-funded organizations for "international Mongol cultural development". In 1992, Mongolia's foreign ministry published an extensive list of territory it claimed to have "lost" to various areas in China and Russia in border demarcations in 1915, 1932, 1940, 1957, 1962, and 1975. At the same time, three main criticisms of pan-Mongolism emerged in Mongolia. The first emphasized Mongolian nationalism, which argued that Mongolia needed to integrate its existing non-Mongol minorities, such as its KazakhsKazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....
, rather than to expand outside of its borders. The second expressed a belief in the superiority of the Khalkha Mongols as the most racially pure Mongols ("Khalkha-centrism"), looking down on the Buryat and Inner Mongols as Russian and Chinese "half-breeds", respectively. The third criticism noted that the political power of those within the current borders of Mongolia would be diluted in a Greater Mongolia.
In 1994, China and Mongolia signed a treaty wherein both promised to respect each other's territorial integrity
Territorial integrity
Territorial integrity is the principle under international law that nation-states should not attempt to promote secessionist movements or to promote border changes in other nation-states...
. In the same year, the Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
Communist Party
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
explicitly repudiated the Greater Mongolia idea, citing the threat to China's unity and the likely dominance of Mongolia in such a union. Because of the existence of an independent Mongolian state, Inner Mongols have generally not aspired to an independent state of their own, and what little separatist sentiment in Inner Mongolia aspires to union with independent Mongolia. The feelings are not reciprocated, as the history and geography of China are not taught in Mongolian schools, and knowledge of the Inner Mongols in Mongolia is low. Similarly to the Inner Mongolian government, high-ranking Buryat officials have reacted to the Greater Mongolia idea by rejecting that Buryats are Mongols at all. Since the normalization of Sino-Mongolian relations in 1994, the Mongolian government does not support Greater Mongolian nationalism, but it tolerates organizations in Mongolia which do, such as the the Mongolian newspaper Il Tovchuu. In 2002, the Republic of China (Taiwan) recognized Mongolia's independence, and established informal relations with Mongolia. Various small organizations in Mongolia advocate a Greater Mongolia; they have little popular support.