recently named Chinggis Khaan (the usual spelling of his name in
Mongolia) Airport, Genghis's benign-looking image is everywhere. An
equestrian statue of him is being constructed in front of the parliament
building in central Ulan Bator. His face in chalk looks down on the city
from a hillside. He is rarely portrayed as the bloodthirsty slaughterer
of Western imagination. Genghis, say Mongolians, was a bringer of peace
who encouraged trade and the flow of wealth, technology and ideas across
vastly different cultures. Indeed, he all but invented globalisation.
In a country of only 2.7m people scattered over an area four times the
size of Germany, national heroes are few and far between. This makes it
all the more galling that Genghis is claimed by China too. Unlike the
Russians, the Chinese have got round their subjugation by the Mongols by
insisting he was one of their own. Genghis's grandson, Kublai Khan,
founded China's Yuan dynasty in the 13th century. That, in China's view,
makes Genghis himself an honorary Chinese emperor. China's Mongols are
one of the country's 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, which in
theory at least makes them just as Chinese as the ethnic Hans who
constitute 93%% of the population.
Don't mention the bloody conquests
China has been feeling a little uneasy about Mongolia's anniversary
celebrations. If Genghis Khan's bloody conquests have been somewhat
sanitised for public consumption in Mongolia itself, they have been all
but eradicated from Chinese histories. He is glorified for uniting
China, but his armies' forays as far as the Rhine and his butchery of
Muslims are never mentioned. The Chinese government worries that
recalling such episodes might reinforce Western fears of a resurgent
China and its military potential and undermine its cosy relations with
the Islamic world.
Corbis
For all China's professed admiration of Genghis, little official
attention has been paid to this year's anniversary. Zhu Yaoting, a
Beijing academic who wrote a biography of Genghis published in 2004,
says his book was the first popular history in communist China to
provide more than cursory details of Genghis's Western expeditions. But
a screenplay he wrote for a television series about Genghis's life had
trouble getting past the censors. The 30-episode production, which cost
nearly $10m to make in 2001, was not cleared for broadcast on state
television until three years later. The censors insisted on substantial
cuts to avoid references to conquered regions with which modern
countries might associate themselves. In Mongolia, however, an uncut
Mongolian-language version of the series played this year to an
enthusiastic audience.
With the approach of the Genghis Khan anniversary “deep historical
animosities” were being exposed
In the city of Darkhan, a grim place next to Mongolia's north-south
railway line some 220km north of Ulan Bator, a golden bust of Genghis
peers from a cabinet in the quiet office of the deputy director of the
Darkhan Metallurgical Plant. Things in Mongolia's only steel plant get
busier at night-time when more power is available and the plant operates
at full tilt. And if the deputy director's dreams come true, they should
get much busier still when the plant starts making steel from iron ore
instead of diminishing piles of rusting Soviet-era scrap.
Darkhan has been a battleground for the nationalists, who fret that
foreigners are taking control of the country's mineral wealth and
shipping it out of the country with little benefit to Mongolians
themselves. In recent years multinationals have poured into Mongolia to
extract everything from coal to gold, copper and iron ore. The mining
business accounts for most of the country's reasonably healthy-looking
annual growth rate of 6-7%% in the past three years. The streets of Ulan
Bator, desolate at the time when communism collapsed 15 years ago, are
now clogged with cars, including many luxury four-wheel drives. A large
settlement of squalid shanties and gers has sprung up on the city's edge
as former herders flock to Ulan Bator in search of a share in this
prosperity.
AP
Worryingly for the nationalists, it is largely demand from China that is
fuelling this boom. The Russian, Canadian, Australian and American
companies digging up minerals in Mongolia see profits to be made not in
their own markets but from selling to the Chinese. In April this year
hundreds of nationalists staged a series of protests in Ulan Bator
against the planned exploitation of large copper and gold deposits by
Ivanhoe Mines, a Canadian company. The demonstrators attacked what they
saw as foreign domination of Mongolia's resources.
To the horror of the multinationals, the government capitulated. A
windfall tax was imposed in May on profits from gold and copper
extraction when prices reach specified levels. Under a hastily
introduced new law the government is entitled to own 34%% of privately
discovered deposits of “strategic” minerals (a vaguely defined term).
Whose ore is it?
Chinese companies are not yet big direct investors in Mongolia's mining
business. Among the largest confirmed Chinese investments is a 51%% stake
in a zinc mine in south-eastern Mongolia, valued at $38m in 2004. But
their interest is growing fast. Deep in the rolling hills north of
Darkhan is a potentially much bigger project (though still much smaller
than Ivanhoe's). At the Tumurtei iron-ore deposit, Chinese workers have
been digging out rock and sending it to China in dozens of trucks a day
for the past couple of years, say locals; mainly to Baogang, China's
largest iron and steel company.
Tumurtei is thought to be one of Mongolia's biggest iron-ore deposits.
But to the consternation of nationalist politicians, the state in the
late 1990s granted exploitation rights to a consortium of Mongolian and
Chinese companies, assisted by a $12.5m preferential loan from the
Chinese government. Your correspondent was forbidden access to the mine.
But a Chinese manager at the remote site says the Chinese employees get
on well with the locals, despite language difficulties. “Mongolia used
to be part of China, so they think a bit like us,” he says.
There has hardly been a meeting of minds on the Tumurtei deposit.
Activists in Darkhan alleged the mining licence had been sold to the
Chinese-Mongolian consortium illegally by an official at the
metallurgical plant that had originally owned the exploitation rights.
They accused the consortium of harming Mongolia's processing industry by
sending the ore to China for refining. But then Mongolia has no
facilities for processing iron ore. However, Darkhan's state-owned steel
plant was trying to attract investment for a $1 billion upgrade to allow
it to handle ore and end its dependence on dwindling scrap.
The Chinese had seen the trouble coming. An article on the Chinese
commerce ministry's website―subsequently removed―noted that with the
approach of the Genghis Khan anniversary “deep historical animosities”
were being exposed. The potential fallout for the iron-ore mine was “not
to be underestimated”. In late August, the Mongolian government agreed
that the mining licence had been sold illegally and declared it owned
the deposit. But it lacks the money to explore and exploit its minerals
by itself.
The Mongolian government has already suffered the downsides of economic
nationalism. By law, all gold output is supposed to be sold to the Bank
of Mongolia, the central bank. This year the amount sold has fallen by
half even though production has continued to rise, says the central
bank's former governor, Ochirbat Chuluunbat. He blames a windfall tax
that has encouraged small producers to sell gold on the black market
rather than to the bank. Most black-market gold is smuggled across the
4,677km border with China. Taxes have also done little for Mongolia's
cashmere industry, once one of the country's biggest export earners,
which has been severely damaged by cheaper competition from China.
Nationalists may worry about China, but it helps to keep many Mongolians
in work. South of Darkhan some of the country's many thousands of
unlicensed prospectors tunnel for gold (for sale through black-market
middlemen to China) in the hills. They are called ninja miners, after
the green plastic bowls they carry on their backs in which they sift
crushed rock for specks of the metal. Dozens of them live in gers next
to the narrow shafts they have dug deep into the hillside. They
stoically deny that anyone has been hurt while digging, or that anyone
has fallen sick from the mercury-laden chemicals used to separate gold
from ore in a makeshift processor nearby. But the Mongolian media report
frequent deaths and injuries, suggesting that this is dangerous work.
Still, even Mr Chuluunbat says the government “should be thankful” for
the employment created by the ninja mining. Despite its various
drawbacks, trying to ban it would be “a very bad solution”.
Close to the Tumurtei iron mine, some locals complain that the facility
has provided few job opportunities. Just as Ulan Bator's construction
boom has provided employment for many labourers from China (who are said
to be less costly and more disciplined than Mongolians), many of the
workers in the mine are Chinese. But in the county capital, Huder,
residents are grateful for any jobs available. Communist-era buildings
that used to house workers at an animal-feed factory, now abandoned, lie
ruined and gutted. A Chinese entrepreneur who last year set up a small
factory in Huder to turn the local birch trees into chopsticks (for
export via China to Japan) provides welcome employment. The county chief
says he is sad about the loss of the trees for the chopsticks, but they
may get a reprieve. The businessman, Lan Taochang, says making a profit
in Mongolia is so tough that he may pull out soon.
For all Mongolia's nationalism, the government remains acutely aware of
the dangers of upsetting its powerful southern neighbour. Officials
studiously avoid criticism of China, which provides vital port
facilities for Mongolia's exports.
This year Mongolia allowed the Dalai Lama to visit for the first time in
four years. (Mongolia's main religion before the Soviet-backed
government all but stamped it out was Tibetan Buddhism, which is now
making a tentative recovery.) But in deference to the feelings of the
Chinese government, which objects to any overseas trips by the Dalai
Lama, the invitation was issued by Ulan Bator's main Buddhist monastery,
and news of the impending visit was kept secret until shortly before the
eminent guest arrived.
Genghis, say Mongolians, all but invented globalisation
In order to avoid falling under the sway of either Russia or,
particularly, China, Mongolia pursues what it calls a “third neighbour”
policy. This involves remaining on good terms with its giant neighbours
but also reaching out to countries such as America and Japan (Mongolia's
biggest aid donor). America has been delighted by Mongolia's support for
its military operations in Iraq, including the dispatch of some 200
support troops. This is the first time Mongolian troops have been
stationed in Iraq since Genghis's grandson, Hulagu, conquered Baghdad.
That engagement, too, has provided some Mongolians with a frisson of
national pride. A Mongolian general, given warning by an American
counterpart of the dangers of operating in Baghdad, is said to have
quipped: “I know. We've been here before.” When it comes to their
country's relations with a resurgent China, however, Mongolians have no
interest in seeing history repeated.
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