Guest Post: Visit to Mongolia by Japanese Emperor and Empress and Public Response in Japan

Posted on July 18, 2025 by JDierkes

By Kunio Minato

The first imperial visit to Mongolia by Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako was undoubtedly a landmark event in Japan–Mongolia relations. The Japanese media covered the imperial couple’s words and deeds every day in newspapers, on TV and on the Internet, from their arrival at Chinggis Khaan International Airport to their return to Japan. It is fair to say that Mongolia attracted more attention from Japan than ever before during the visit.

The question is how the Japanese people viewed the visit. Was it viewed positively or negatively? What lies behind public acceptance? As no opinion polls or surveys have been conducted on this visit so far, this blog post will address the question by reviewing both traditional media coverage and social media trends.

Traditional Media

From what I could see, the imperial visit was reported positively by most newspapers, news agencies and broadcasters. They emphasised the favourable relations between Japan and Mongolia, the friendly communication between the imperial couple and the Mongolians, and how the imperial visit contributed to deepening the relations. For example, TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) provided news coverage shortly after the imperial couple left Mongolia. During the broadcast, a reporter mentioned that Mongolia has buildings constructed by Japanese prisoners of war, as well as schools and infrastructure projects completed in recent years with Japanese aid, for which Mongolians expressed gratitude to the Emperor and Empress on many occasions during the visit. The reporter argued that the visit had the imperial couple realise how strong the ties are between Japan and Mongolia.

Above all, the couple’s visit to the monument for Japanese detainees attracted significant attention from the Japanese media. After World War II ended, more than 12,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians in Manchuria and the surrounding area were captured by the Red Army and sent to Mongolia. They were forced to work on construction sites in Ulaanbaatar, among other places. Around 1,700 people died during labour, but this is less well known in Japan than the detentions in Siberia.

Therefore, the visit by the Emperor and Empress was an epoch-making event in commemorating the victims of detention. The media provided substantial coverage of the visit to the monument, highlighting the Emperor and Empress’ respect for the victims by noting that they observed not only a minute’s silence but also bowed deeply. Some media outlets also reported on survivors’ reactions to the visit. One example is a documentary of a former detainee by Chukyo TV, a broadcaster in Nagoya, who had longed for the Imperial visit to the site where his comrades were once buried.

Overall, the media emphasised the historical significance of the imperial visit to Mongolia. The main focus was on the friendship between Japan and Mongolia observed during the visit, and the commemoration of Japanese detainees in Mongolia.

Social Media

Positive reactions in Japan to the visit in general can be observed in social media. ChatGPT provides the results of sentiment analysis of social media posts. The analysis covered approximately 150,000 posts on X (formerly Twitter) from 1 to 15 July. According to this analysis, 72% of the posts were categorised as having positive sentiments. Among these were posts emphasising the historical and diplomatic significance of the visit. The couple’s active engagement with Mongolians and their culture, such as the emperor’s joint performance as a violist with the Morin Khuur Orchestra and participation in shagai (anklebone) game in the Naadam Festival, fostered a sense of affinity. Additionally, the warm welcome and positive reactions from Mongolians, including former Mongolian Yokozuna grand champions, generated positive responses from Japanese social media users. There was a notable increase in posts between 6 July (the day of their arrival in Mongolia) and 10 July (the day they visited Shine-Mongol School, Gandantegchinlen Monastery and the Mongolian-Japanese Hospital).

The remaining posts were mainly categorised as ‘neutral’ (20% of the total), including those that shared official announcements and media reports. Posts expressing negative sentiment (8% of the total) were in the minority and questioned the cost-effectiveness of the visit and the validity of spending tax money on it. However, it should be noted that a generational difference was evident in the results: Younger generation (30 yrs old and less) were more likely to hold negative sentiments than middle-aged and senior adults (40 yrs old and more).

Background of the Response

The tone of Japanese media and social media posts was mostly positive regarding the imperial visit to Mongolia. This can be explained by two factors. Firstly, there is a supportive attitude in Japan towards the imperial family. A public opinion poll on the imperial family conducted by NHK (the Japanese public broadcaster) in 2019 shows that 72% of respondents said they were interested in the imperial family and 71% said they felt close to the family.

The positive attitude towards the visit was influenced by a sense of closeness to the family. Although there are controversial issues surrounding the imperial family, such as the succession system to the throne, the visit to Mongolia was not related to these issues.

The second reason is the peaceful relationship between Japan and Mongolia. Unlike other neighbouring countries, Japan does not currently have any political or historical problems with Mongolia. Furthermore, Japan does not have any territorial disputes with Mongolia (obviously!). Therefore, the imperial visit to Mongolia was much less controversial and unacceptable than visits to other neighbouring countries.

Conclusion

The imperial couple’s visit to Mongolia was widely welcomed by the Japanese public. The visit was hailed as an opportunity to commemorate the victims of World War II, as well as a way to strengthen the partnership between Japan and Mongolia. Although there was some criticism, it did not cause a stir or controversy in Japanese public opinion.

With the Upper House (House of Councillors) election just around the corner, political disputes and struggles are intensifying in Japan. Against this backdrop, the imperial couple’s visit to Mongolia offered heartwarming news that many Japanese people could share, regardless of their political and social differences and divisions.

About Kunio Minato

Kunio Minato is a Professor of the Faculty of Regional Collaboration at Kochi University, Japan. He has been watching Mongolian politics, economy, and external relations since the late 1990s.

Posted in History, Japan, Mongolia and ... | Leave a comment

Guest Post: “Mongolian tie demokratiaan” Photo Exhibition in Helsinki

Posted on July 16, 2025 by JDierkes

By Mend-Amar Baigalmaa

The photo and poster exhibition “Mongolian Tie to Democracy” by Finnish journalist and photographer Irja Halász opened on May 31, 2025, at the Sofia Cultural Centre Gallery in Helsinki, Finland.

 

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Ein Beitrag geteilt von Mongolian Visuals (@mongolianvisuals)

The exhibition features more than 150 works, including rare photographs taken by Irja Halász during the 1990 Democratic Revolution in Mongolia, along with powerful historical posters capturing the political spirit of the time. These posters include materials from the Mongolian Democratic Union (MDU), the Zorig Foundation, cartoons by artist S. Tsogtbayar, and images from private archives and Poland’s Solidarity Movement (Solidarność) collection.

Through powerful photographs and rare political posters, the exhibition captures the spirit of Mongolia’s democratic awakening. It presents images of the 1985 Naadam and October Revolution parades at Sukhbaatar Square, culminating in the energized protests and hunger strikes against the MPR Political Bureau, which led to the historic democratic revolution that also centered at Sukhbaatar Square – and the establishment of a multi-party system in 1990.

Many images also show today’s political leaders in their youth, standing among the crowds that helped shape Mongolia’s future.

The posters, selected from Irja Halász’s archive and other collections, feature sharp political satire and anti-communist visuals, revealing the voice of a nation demanding democratic change.

The opening ceremony was led by H.E. Mr. Tserendorj Munkh-Ulzii, Ambassador of Mongolia to Finland, and hosted by Mr. Timo Kietäväinen, Vice Chairman of the Sofia Foundation. Congratulatory remarks were delivered by Mr. Kimmo Kiljunen, Member of Parliament and representative of the Finland-Mongolia Friendship Group, and Ms. Marja-Liisa Kiljunen, former Finnish Ambassador to Mongolia.

The exhibition was organized by the Lions Club Vantaankoski–Vandaforsen, with support from Mongolia’s Golomt Foundation, and Finnish partners including Sofia Cultural Centre, Nyblin, and eCredo. It will remain open to the public until August 31, 2025.

Irja Halász

Irja Halász is a Finnish journalist, photographer, and producer who has lived and worked in Mongolia since 1987. She originally studied Mongolian language and philology at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary, before coming to Mongolia through a Finnish government scholarship to continue her studies at the National University of Mongolia.

 

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Ein Beitrag geteilt von Mongolian Visuals (@mongolianvisuals)

Upon arriving in Mongolia, she became one of the first foreign journalists to witness and document the historic 1989–1990 Democratic Revolution. From 1990 to 2006, she worked as a reporter for Reuters, covering Mongolia’s transition through international media outlets.

Irja has produced in multiple visual, cultural, and publishing projects. In 2020, she published the photo book “Awakened Mongolia – Revolution” and organized a corresponding photo exhibition. In 2022, she co-authored the book “Posters of Mongolia in Transition” with researcher Mend-Amar Baigalmaa, followed by an exhibition under the same name at the Mongolian Theatre Museum in 2023.

The “Mongolian tie demokratiaan” exhibition in Helsinki marks her first time publicly presenting this historical body of work in her native Finland, offering a rare window into Mongolia’s democratic transformation through her lens.

About Mend-Amar

Mend-Amar is a cultural anthropologist and visual researcher currently completing his MA at the National University of Mongolia. With a background in Graphic Design and Multimedia, his work engages with urban photography, political posters, and the evolving visual culture of post-socialist Mongolia. His research focuses on memory, identity, and democratic transitions, using visual methods to document and interpret social change.

He has participated in international programs such as the CrossCulture Programme (ifa, Germany), JENESYS (Japan) and the Urban Walks regional project by Goethe-Institut (2023), where he represented Ulaanbaatar alongside participants from Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, and Hong Kong. He co-produced and curated The 10 Photographs Through My Lens, a visual storytelling video series that explores intergenerational perspectives on Mongolia’s cultural transformations through the personal work and reflections of local photographers.

Besides managing Mongolian Visuals NGO, he also hosts the podcast Live from Red Hero and  co-organized Unseen Ulaanbaatar, a photo exhibition developed through the ACM (Arts Council of Mongolia) Fellowship Program.

He continues to explore how anthropological research can be translated into accessible multimedia formats, with the aim of creating people-centered narratives that resonate across disciplines, urban cultures, and visual storytelling.

Posted in Art, Democracy, History, Mend-Amar Baigalmaa | 1 Comment

Acting Powerful

Posted on July 1, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

I recently engaged in some political dreaming with very good Mongolian friends. The prompt was, “If you were Grand Khaan/Prime Minister, what would be some changes you would make right away?”. We quickly abanonded the Grand Khaan line of thinking as too anti-democratic.

Obviously, a challenging question for an academic, as we deal in complexity, not decisive action. And, the opportunities that Mongolia has along with the challenges it faces are generally of a complex nature, so not easily addressed with “first act in office” populism.

But one of the answers my friend had, immediately resonated: abolish the prime minister’s security detail!

Posturing

It’s not just the PM who is surrounded by security agents, but the president and other officials as well.

Somehow, officials, i.e. almost all men, seem to believe that being protected by large men makes them look powerful. “Toxic masculinity” in some form is defenitely an element in that; the threat of physical violence in the guise of protection, as a sign of power. It’s not the power of the ideas or the persuasion of the arguments for a policy an individual is pursuing, but rather this attempt at looking powerful, that seems to be the aim here.

Unfortunately, this is a sense of power and of the display of power that seems very reminiscent of V Putin and the bare-chested photos he used to take. As is the case with Putin, there’s no substance to this pose, it’s all posturing.

Take a look at this insta-post from the late May 2025 visit of Austrian president Alexander van der Bellen.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Khurelsukh Ukhnaa (@ukhnaakhurelsukh)

What’s with the motorcade imagery and all the military parades? Recall that van der Bellen was an economics professor, active in the Austrian Green party, and holds a largely ceremonial post.

What’s Wrong with Security Details

Apart from the vacuous understanding of political office, these security details and the cocoon they seem to like to create around officials, isolates these officials from their electorate. Why do these officials need large limousines and motorcades to move around Ulaanbaatar? Why don’t they walk and perhaps encounter some citizens to discuss the challenges that government is facing or the opportunities that officials perceive?

One of the frustrations that many Mongolians report to me is that the government seems far-removed from day-to-day concerns. If you are traveling by motorcade, do you really have a sense of how infuriating the traffic situation can be? If you understood more about traffic, would you really be pursuing “solutions” in the mistaken belief that more roads reduce congestion?

This deliberate withdrawal of politicians from their voting public does not present a good image of democracy to voters who are ultimately called upon to participate in decision-making through elections and other forms.

I also have to imagine that protection is not an entirely insignificant budget item.

Why Security Details?

One of the fortunate characteristics of Mongolian democracy is that there has been very little political violence in the past 35 years. The only very real example would be the murder of S Zorig in October 1998, and even that remains unclear in terms of whether it was politically motivated. Of course, there are occasionally scuffles reported out of parliament, but none of the actual violence associated with oligarchs of the 2000s and 2010s in Russia, for example, and one of the reasons I am uncomfortable with the “oligarch” language.

But, security details and their conspicuous display of muscle and earphones, are not new to Mongolia. The impetus of my now 20-year engagement with Mongolia was the state visit of Pres Bagabandi to Canada. Even then I was surprised that there were security aspects to the visit. Sure, the  Canadian government would always want to make sure that an official visitor stay safe, but there were also Mongolian security officers. And this was in 2004. Since then, the size of these security details only seems to be growing.

But really, is there any threat of violence to Mongolian officials? Especially any threat that justifies multi-people, apparently armed security details? I’m naive on these matters and don’t claim to have ever conducted or read any kind of threat assessment. But apart from Ts Munkhbayar waving his rifle at parliament, who is this threat? There is no domestic terrorism that I am aware of. There is no separatism, a sentiment that has fuelled violence elsewhere. There is no real religious conflict. So, what are the threats that officials are being protected from? Or, is it really just the theatre of power that they are acting in.

Keep the Honour Guard

I do have a soft spot for the military honour guard. I reflected on that already twelve years ago during the state visit of Governor General D Johnston to Mongolia.

 

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A post shared by Julian Dierkes (@jbdierkes)

PS: Less Toxic Macho Posing

Since I used an insta-video off Pres. Khurelsukh’s feed as example of posing above, should also acknowledge that very different content is also posted there, though very occasionally.

 

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A post shared by Khurelsukh Ukhnaa (@ukhnaakhurelsukh)

Posted in Government, Politics, Security Apparatus | Tagged | Leave a comment

Zandanshatar Cabinet

Posted on June 17, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes and Marissa J. Smith

As we have done for cabinets since 2016 (Erdenebat 2016 | Khurelsukh 2017 | Khurelsukh 2020 | Oyun-Erdene 2021 | Oyun-Erdene 2022 | Oyun-Erdene 2023 | Oyun-Erdene 2024), we’re listing cabinet members below with their portfolios and brief bio sketches.

The new cabinet has still to be finalized by President Khurelsukh, but this is the lineup being presented, as reported by montsame.mn. There is now a coalition government between the MPP, the Civil Will-Green Party, and KhUN, and DP members are being replaced (as well as a few MPP members replaced or shuffled). News.mn reported that a ministry was offered to Nomtoibayar of the National Coalition, but the party had not responded to the invitation.

News.mn has reported that the number of ministers “without ministries” is to be reduced. The new ministers fit the direction of “revenge of the seventies generation;” the only new ministers not to have been born in the 1970s are E. Batshugar, son of former president N. Enkhbayar (b. 1987), Damdinnyam (b. 1982), and Undram (b. 1982). Several are multiple-term Members of Parliament. Of the new ministers, only Undram is a woman, bringing the number of female Cabinet members to two.

(new cabinet members in bold, if no party is listed in a bracket, the minister is from MPP)

Prime Minister – G Zandanshatar
b. 1970 in Battsagaan, Bayankhongor
Married, four children
Graduate, Soviet Higher School of National Economy, Irkutsk
Worked in banking sector (Mongolbank, Khaan Bank), 1996-2003
Deputy Minister of Agriculture, 2003-04
Member, MPP Baga Khural, 2005, 2007
Member, MPP Leadership Council, 2005-2007, 2015
Foreign Minister, 2009-2012
Secretary General, MPP, 2012-2013
Stanford, 2015
Cabinet Secretary, 2017-2019
Speaker of Parliament, 2019-24
Member of Parliament, 2004-2012, 2016-2024
Head of President’s Office, 2024-2025

First Deputy Prime Minister – N. Uchral, MP
b. 1985 [found 1987 elsewhere] in Ulaanbaatar
Degree in law, Ikh Zasag International University, 2007
MBA, University of Gloucestershire, 2010
Mongolian University of Education, Master of History, 2012
Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2013
General Director, Royal Academy and Royal International Institute, 2010-2016
Member of Parliament, 2016-Present
Minister of Digital Development and Communications, 2022
Cabinet Secretary, 2024-

Deputy PM [no portfolio specified] – S. Amarsaikhan, MP
Born 1973, Nalaikh, Ulaanbaatar
Linguist and Lawyer, Fresno College (California) 1996;
English Metropolitan College, 1998
Los Angeles College, 2000
Master’s degree in law from Southwestern University
Staff at Science and Information Technology Center 1992-1994
Attache at the Embassy of Mongolia to PRC, 2000-2004
Manager of Investment and Foreign Trade at American Trade and Development, 2004-2007
CEO, President and Director of BOD, Oyunii Undraa Group LLC, 2007-2017
Member of the Citizen’s Representative Council, 2012-2020
Head of the budget, finance and economic committee of the Citizen Representative Council, 2016-2017
Chairman of the Citizen’s Representative Council, 2017-2019
Mayor of Ulaanbaatar, 2019-2020
Member of Parliament, 2020-Present
Deputy Prime Minister, 2021

Deputy PM for [no portfolio specified] – T. Dorjkhand, MP [KhUN – List]
Born 1977 in Ulaanbaatar
Bachelor in Public Finance, MUST in 1995
Master, Public Economic Policy, Hitotsubashi University, Japan, 2004
Trained in Public and Private Partnership in Infrastructure, Harvard University, USA, 2010
Trained in Financial Theory, Oxford University, UK, 2012
Specialist in the Fiscal policy in Ministry of Finance, 1999-2002
Intern in the Ministry of Finance in Japan, 2003-2004
Acting head, Loan and aid department, Ministry of Finance, 2005-2012
Head of the Financial policy and loan management department, Ministry of Finance, 2012-2015
Advisor to the Executive Director, Asia Pacific Region, International Financial Corporation, Washington, USA, 2013-2015
Co-founded the KhUN, headed the BOD, 2016-2020
Member of Parliament, 2020-Present

Cabinet Secretary – S. Byambatsogt, MP
Born 1974
School No. 2 of Jargalant soum, Khovd aimag, 1992
Higher School of Finance and Economics, 1999
Maastricht University, Netherlands, Economics, 2005
Mongolian State University, Law School, Law Faculty, 2014
General Director of “Khovdyn Ingoo” LLC, 1998-2000
Director of “New Progress” LLC, 2000-2006
Chairman of the Board of Directors of “New Progress” Group, 2006-2008
President of “New Progress” Group, 2008
Member of the Mongolian State Great Khural, 2008-2020
Minister of Justice and Internal Affairs, 2016-2017
Minister of Road and Transport Development, 2022-2024
Minister of Defense, 2024

Finance – B. Javkhlan, MP
Born 1975 in Darkhan
Economist, graduated from MUST in 1997
University of California, Riverside, 2008
Indiana University, 2009
Controller, Mongolbank 1997-1999
Plenipotentiary Mongolbank Representative to Agricultural Bank 1999-2000
Senior Controller, Mongolbank, 2000-2004
Deputy Director of the Trade and Development Bank 2004-2007
Elected to MPP Little Khural, 2013
MP since 2016 to Present (Govi-Altai, Zavkhan, Khovd, Uvs)
Head of Parliamentary Subcommittee for Local Leadership, 2016-2020
Deputy Vice President of the Bank of Mongolia 2010-2016
Minister of Finance, 2021-

Defense – D. Batlut, MP
Born 1974
Employee, “Erdenet Carpets” LLC, 1994-2000
Executive Director at “World Vision Mongolia” International Organization, 2003-2006
Deputy Governor of Bayan-Ondur soum, Orkhon aimag, 2008-2012
Representative, leader, and group leader of the Orkhon aimag Local Government Committee, 2008-2020
Governor of Orkhon Aimag and Mayor of Erdenet City, 2016-2020
Member of Parliament, 2020-2024 (Orkhon [Erdenet])
Member of Parliament, 2024- (Bulgan/Khuvsgul/Orkhon)

Justice and Internal Affairs – L. Munkhbaatar, MP
Born 1977
Ministry of Law, 1999-2008
Head, State Center for Citizens’ Registration and Information/Main Directorate for State Registration, 2008-2011
Legal Advisor to Prime Minister, 2012
Legal Advisor to MPP Chairman, 2013
Member of Parliament, 2016-2024 (Khuvsgul)
Member of Parliament, 2024- (Bulgan/Khuvsgul/Orkhon)
Head of MPP parliamentary caucus 2024-

Education – P. Naranbayar, MP [KhUN]
Born in 1976
Bachelor in International Relations, MUST, 2000
Master in law, Kioto University, Japan, 2007
PhD in International study, MUST, 2015
Specialist/officer in the Collaborative Relations Unit, Ministry of Environment, 2000-2002
Assistant to the Minister of Environment, 2002-2004
Head of the Japan Ecological Foundation Representative Office, 2002-2004
Officer in the Innovation Department, National Development and Innovation Committee of Mongolia, 2009-2011
Acting Head, Tourism Department, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, 2011
Director of the Shine Mongol Secondary Education School 2012-2020
Chair of the party’s Ulaanbaatar committee, KhUN Party
Representative of the Citizen’s Representative Khural, Head of Human Development Committee, 2020-2024
Member of Parliament, 2024-Present
Minister of Education, 2024-

Roads and Transport – B. Delgersaikhan, MP
Born in 1964, Dornogobi
Bachelor in law, University of Law Enforcement, 1987
Detective, Dornogobi Police Unit, 1987-1989
Lead detective and Head of the unit, Police Office of Dornogobi, 1989-2002
Founder and director of “Dorniin Gobi” LLC, 2002-2016
Director, “Bold tomor Eroo gol”LLC, 2004-2015
Member of Parliament (three terms), 2014-2020, 2020-2024, 2024-Present
Minister of Roads and Transport, 2024-

Culture, Sport and Tourism – Ch. Undram, MP
Born 1982
Secondary School No. 23 of the capital, 1998
High School in US, 1999
Business School of the International American University in London, 2004
PhD degree from the School of Economics, Nagoya University, Japan, on the topic “Project Management and Simulation Analysis of Mining and Iron Ore Processing Plants”, 2010
Marketing Manager at MCS International LLC, 2005-2006
Coordinator of the Institute for Competitive Macroeconomics at Harvard Business School, 2010-2020
Department of Management, School of Economics, National University of Mongolia, 2010-2013
Various roles, National University of Mongolia, 2014-2019
Deputy Director for Administration and Internal Cooperation of National University of Mongolia, 2017-2018
Member of the Economic Policy Council of the Prime Minister of Mongolia, 2017-2020
Professor at the School of Business of National University, 2019-2020
Member of the Mongolian Parliament, 2020- (currently Darkhan-Uul/Selenge/Tuv)

Environment and Climate Change – B. Batbaatar, MP [CWGP – List]
Born 1973
Ulaanbaatar School No. 10, 1991
Graduate of Higher School of Economics (2000) and Higher School of Law, NUM (2002)
Head of the Democratic Party of Ulaanbaatar city, Chingeltei district, 2003-2013
Member of Parliament, 2004-2008 (Motherland-Democracy Coalition)
Head of the Budget Control Committee of the People’s Representatives’ Khural of Chingeltei district, UB, 2012-2016
Full-time advisor to the Prime Minister, 2015-2016
Member of Parliament, 2024- (Party List)

Foreign Relations – B. Battsetseg, MP
Born in 1973 in aimag center of Bayankhongor province
Graduated secondary school, Darkhan
Graduated from International Relations School at MUST in 1996
Directors of publishing houses Az Khur LLC, and Munkhiin Useg LLC 1996 to 2004
Institute of Finance and Economy 2000; Maastricht University of Management in 2005
Unit Director at Foreign Investment and Foreign Trade Agency, 2005-2007
Chairman of the board, Munkhiin Useg 2007-2015
Advisor to MPP Secretary-General, 2010-2011
Administration office, and Head of Foreign Relations and Cooperation Department of MPP, 2010-2012
Director of the Board of Directors of Munkhiin Useg Publishing, 2020 to Jan 28, 2021
Advisor to the Minister of Finance, 2015-2016
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2016-2020
Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2021-present
Member of Parliament, 2024-present

Mining & Industry – G. Damdinnyam
Born 1982
First Mongolia Focus co-author to become member of cabinet
Darkhan-Uul aimag secondary school No. 7, graduated 1999
Mongolian University of Education, teacher of sociology and law, 2004
Mongolian University of Education, master of political science, 2005-2007
University of British Columbia, master of mining governance and policy, 2013-2016
Advisor to the Minister of Environment, 2008-2009
Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education, 2009-2010
Vice-Rector of Social Development, Mongolian University of Science and Technology, 2010-2013
Researcher at the University of British Columbia, Canada, 2015
CEO of “Procon Mining Mongolia” LLC, 2017
Member of Parliament, 2020-

Family, Labor and Social Protection – T. Aubakir, MP
Born 1976
Secondary school of Tsagaannuur soum, Selenge aimag, 1992
“Otgontenger” Higher School, International Law, 2000
Deputy Director of “Selenge Tariya” LLC, Selenge aimag, 2000-2005
Director of “Tarian Tsatsal” LLC, 2006-2015
Head of the Internal Audit and Monitoring Department of the General Department of Customs, 2015-2016
Deputy Head of the Buyant-Ukhaa (International Airport) Customs Department under the General Department of Customs, 2017-2019
Member of Parliament, 2020- (Bayan-Ulgii)

Construction and Urban Development – E. Bat-Amgalan, MP
Born 1977
Secondary School No. 1 of the capital, 1994
Department of International Relations, German Studies, International Diplomacy, National University of Arts, 1998
Law School of the National University of Arts, Lawyer, 2004
“Bayan Hadat” Tour LLC, Executive Director, 2002-2008
Head of the Production and Services Department of the Capital City Tourism and Tourism Administration, 2008-2010
Representative of the Capital City Tourism and Tourism Administration, 2008-2012
Deputy Head of the National Parks Department, 2010-2012
Head of the Foreign Relations Department of the “Chinggis Khaan” International Airport of the State Administration of Tourism, 2015-2020
Representative of the Capital City Tourism and Tourism Administration, 2016-2020
Member of Parliament, 2024- (Bayanzurkh district of Ulaanbaatar)

Health – J. Chinburen, MP
Born 1972
Secondary School No. 23, Ulaanbaatar, 1990
University of Health Sciences, senior physician, 1991-1997
Switzerland, University of Lausanne, researcher, 2001-2002
Tokyo University of Medicine and Surgery, Doctor of Medicine, 2013-2015
Medical Institute, scientific assistant, 1997-1998
National Cancer Center, general surgery department, surgeon, 1998-2008
National Cancer Center, head of the hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery department, 2008-2016
Shymkent Cancer Center, Republic of Kazakhstan, trainer
Mongolian Head of the Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Society, 2015
Chairman of the Ministry of Health, Cancer Professional Branch Council, 2016
General Director of the National Cancer Center, 2016-2019
Consultant Physician of the National Cancer Center, 2020
Member of Parliament, 2020- (Bayanzurkh district of Ulaanbaatar)

Food, Agriculture, and Light Industry [right portfolio?] – J. Enkhbayar, MP
Born 1973, Ulaanbaatar
Graduated from the Military school in 1991
Studied law at the MUST, 1999
MBA, Maastricht University, Netherlands, 2005
Director at “Gazar”LLC, and BOD at “Nekhii” LLC, and “Suljmel” LLC, 1992-2000
Director and Deputy Director at the Monitoring unit, Ulaanbaatar Customs Authority, 2002-2004
Advisor to the General Customs Authority, 2004-2006
Deputy director and Secretariat General at the General Agency for Specialised Inspection, 2006-2008
Member of Parliament, five terms, 2008-2012, 2012-16, 2016-20, 2020-24, 2024-Present
Minister of Defense, 2012
Min of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry, 2024-

Energy – B. Choijilsuren, MP
b. 1970, Tes, Uvs province
Automation and telemechanics, Urals Higher Polytechnic, Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinberg), graduated 1993
MPRP/MPP Little Khural, 2005-2015
Member of Parliament, 2012-Present
Minister of Finance, 2016
Minister of Energy, 2022-

Digital Development, Innovation and and Communications [exact portfolio] – E. Batshugar, MP
Born 1987
son of former President N. Enkhbayar
Ulaanbaatar School No. 14, 1994-2000
Bentley University, USA, 2004-2008
Employee, JP Morgan, 2008-2010
Director, Sod Margad Company, 2011
Mongolbank Vice President, 2012-2016
Chairman of Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (party since merged with MPP)
Member of Parliament, 2024- (Songinokhairkhan district of Ulaanbaatar)

(References include Alan J. K. Sanders, The Historical Dictionary of Mongolia, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017 and parliament.mn)

Posted in Government, Mongolian People's Party, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

PM Zandanshatar

Posted on June 12, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

So, Mongolia has a new prime minister. Parliament elected G Zandanshatar in the early hours of June 13. Initial reporting indicated that only 108 members were present, but it seems to have turned out that 108 members was the number of MPs that supported him out of 117 present. As has happened in the past, it is frustrating how imprecise the information coming via Mongolian media sites often is in these kind of situations.

As I would have predicted, Zandanshatar has previously graced the pages of our blog:
We first mentioned him in a post listing candidates in the 2012 election. He was not reelected as an incumbent from Bayankhongor in that election. With that post, he has been mentioned by name 12 times in our posts. Most recently, he showed up in Marissa and my post last week, listing candidates who were getting frequent mentions in the Mongolian media.

You can also find Zandashatar on Insta.

As a politician, he is most notable to me for the following reasons:

  1. Not only not a current MP, but lost election in District 1 in 2024
  2. Born in 1970
  3. Relatively quiet as speaker from 2019-2024, not associated with any particular policy arena
  4. Rare – esp. for MPP politicians – democratization initiative in 2017

Zandanshatar was not elected in 2024 election

The Mongolian constitution does not require any particular qualifications to be nominated or elected by parliament as the prime minister. Mongolia is similar to some parliamentary democracies in not specifying that the PM must be an MP, but there are others where this is required.

Prior to Zandanshatar, the most prominent PM who was not an MP at the time would have have been Ts Elbergdorj, when he became prime minister in Aug 2004 and served until Jan 2006. During this time, he tried to run in a by-election in Aug 2005 but the MPRP, his coalition partner, prevented him from doing so. He headed up a grand coalition of DP and MPRP. Of course, he had previously served as PM when he was also an MP in 1998, and subsequently to his second term as PM became president from 2009-17.

[Apologies to early readers: when I had initially scanned the lists of PMs, two names escaped as not being MPs at the time. My only excuse is that they were/are such prominent politicians that their lack of a seat in parliament did not occur to me. My thanks to an alert reader for letting me know.]

There were two other prominent MPP PMs who were not MPs at the time. When U Khurelsukh became PM in 2017, he was not an MP but was elected in 2020 to continue on as PM until 2021. S Bayar became PM in 2007, was elected as MP in 2008 and served until 2009.

Zandanshatar was an MP previously, from 2004-2012 and again, 2016-2024.

In 2024, as an incumbent and the incumbent speaker of parliament, he ran for election in District 1, Arkhangai, Uvurkhangai and Bayankhongor. He came in 1oth in voting in the 9-member district with 53,649 votes behind D Tsogtbaatar who received 55,935 votes, so Zandanshatar lost by 2,300 votes. In an enlarged parliament it is difficult for me to imagine that having lost in the election puts Zandanshatar in a particularly powerful position to lead the government.

Revenge of the 70s

I am not aware that Zandanshatar has a fondness for bell bottoms or floral print shirts, but he was born in 1970 (and is thus my age). That is significant because Oyun-Erdene’s ascent to the premiership was interpreted by many (including Bolor L and me) as a generational turnover to MPP leaders championed by the 1960s and born in the 1980s, 1980 in Oyun-Erdene’s case. Most of the rumoured candidates for the premiership were born in the 1970s, as Marissa and I noted some days ago. This “revenge of the 70s” is most likely a sign of factional deals and another indication of a loss of intraparty power by Oyun-Erdene and his associates.

Quiet Speaker

Zandanshatar was speaker for roughly five years. I would classify his term as relatively quiet. Unlike some of his predecessors, he did not spring many surprises on parliament and the public. This may have been aided by this being the highpoint of MPP supermajorities, MPs thus requiring relatively little reigning in, though I have also previously noted the surprising challenges associated with a supermajority.

I also do not associate Zandanshatar with any particular policy field or any particular proposals.

If his ascent is the result of factional bargaining, giving him a relatively weak personal mandate, and there are no areas of particular interest to him, this would add further to my sense that whatever government he appoints will not substantially differ from the previous one.

Deliberative Pollster for Democracy

However, there is one aspect of Zandanshatar’s trajectory that has made him noteworthy as the only initiator of any activities that are aimed at deepening democratization among MPP politicians through his efforts to institutionalize deliberative polling. While this may have also carried an element of mutual aggrandizing between Zandanshatar and Stanford academics, it was a genuine attempt in 2017 at deepening democratization. For more background on deliberative polling see Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab and don’t be too put off by the Trademark attached to the term “deliberative polling®”. While you are on their site, you might also note that Stanford Prof. Fishkin was awarded the Friendship Medal by none other than Zandanshatar at an Ulaanbaatar conference on deliberative polling this May.

The implementation of deliberative polling in 2017 under the leadership of Zandanshatar always seemed very much like a personal pet project of his to me. For a deeper sense of the merits of this attempt and its criticism, see Fishkin/Zandanshatar’s portrayal and constitutional legal scholar O Munkhsaikhan’s criticism. At this point and even though the deliberative polling law remains on the books, I would argue that this experiment has had none to very little impact either on democratization, nor on specific policy.

However, despite my skepticism about the implementation of deliberative polling, I do note Zandanshatar’s explicit efforts on behalf of democratization and would hope that he would continue on the basis of similar convictions at a time of global democratic backsliding and concerns about the actions of the Oyun-Erdene government in this regard.

Kind of curious to note that the other PM who was not MP (Elbegdorj) is also the architect of another democratization initiative, citizen halls.

Conclusion

I do find it somewhat surprising that Zandanshatar has been chosen as PM despite not having won his seat in parliament last summer. I have a hard time imagining that this puts him into a strong position as incoming PM and thus have no reason to believe that he would depart from the policies of the previous government in any significant way.

Posted in Government, Mongolian People's Party, Politics | Tagged | 3 Comments

The Mongolian People’s Party: A Glossary

Posted on June 12, 2025 by Marissa Smith

By Marissa J. Smith

As demonstrated by the still-unfolding process of presenting a new Prime Minister for confirmation by the Ikh Khural, it has become difficult to follow Mongolian politics without an understanding of the internal structure and processes of the now again super-dominant Mongolian People’s Party.

In his Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire, Christopher Atwood summarizes the socialist era-MPRP’s structure and relationships: “Despite the party congresses, at no time did the party’s membership actually exercise control over the leadership. While the congresses supposedly elected the Central Committee, which in turn elected a small standing body called either the presidium or (after 1940) the political bureau (or Politburo), all elections were decided beforehand by the existing leaders.” (Atwood 2004, 381)

Other references are to Alan J. K. Sanders’ Historical Dictionary of Mongolia, 2017, pgs. 559-577.

The Executive Council (Удирдах Зөвлөл)

As noted by Sanders, this body was formerly known as the “Presidium” (Төв Хорооный Тэргүүлэгчид). Sanders refers to the post-March 1992 incarnation as the “Leadership Council.” “Steering Council” is another English translation. The “Politburo” (Улс Төрийн Товчоо) ceased to exist in 1990 (though four of the five members of the “Politburo” transitioned to become four of the five members of the new “Presidium”).

The number of members has varied but steadily increased from approximately ten members in the 1990s to over twenty in the late 2000s. At the time of writing, i.e. the selection of G. Zandanshatar for submission to the General Assembly for approval on June 8, there are thirty-two members (news.mn).

General Assembly (Бага Хурал)

This party structure was formerly referred to as the “Central Committee” (Төв Хороо). “Бага Хурал” literally translates to “small council.” Sanders refers to it as the “Little Khural.” It includes three hundred and thirty-three members, according to this article in itoim.mn, while this article from gogo.mn states that at the meeting in March 2024 (just prior to the 2024 Parliamentary Elections), there were four hundred and seventy nine members (thank you for pointing this out, Manlai Chonos!). The Baga Khural approved Zandanshatar’s nomination on June 9 and it has now moved to the floor of the Parliament.

Party Congresses ([Намын] Их Хурал)

According to Sanders (2017, 563) the Congress of all members of the Party elect the chairman (дарга) and the Baga Khural. The Baga Khural, in turn, elects the Executive Council. The last of these meetings was held in 2021, naming L. Oyun-Erdene as party Chairman. During the socialist period, Party Congresses met every five years and confirmed Five-Year Plans. Oyun-Erdene’s “Vision” plans are a descendant form of these.

 

Posted in Mongolian People's Party, Party Politics, Politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Mongolia’s Next PM: Media Mentions of Possible PM Nominees

Posted on June 5, 2025 by Marissa Smith

By Marissa J. Smith and Julian Dierkes

With L Oyun-Erdene’s resignation as prime minister, obviously, there is a lot of speculation and media mentions of possible PM nominees whom the MPP might nominate to succeed him.

Before we look at that speculation, just a quick reminder that the choice of PM is unlikely to have a significant impact on policies. Yes, “Vision 2050” will likely wane as a touchstone document that has to motivate all decisions, but that’s partly because it never actually motivated any particular decisions.

To summarize the speculation in the Mongolia media, let’s look at the frequency with which names are mentioned. We do this relying on the “Politics” sections of the June 4 and June 5 editions (which includes articles published between June 3 and June 5)  of Robert Ritz’ Mongol Beat AI-generated selection and translation of news articles drawing on the following publications: news.mn, isee.mn, unuudur.mn, ikon.mn, montsame.mn. While there are clear limitations to this procedure in the selection of sources to include, i.e. the AI-generated selection of articles, we believe it is useful for putting together a snapshot of who is getting mentioned as a possible candidate.

After feeding a text (.txt) file of all “Politics” articles from Mongol Beat for June 4 and June 5 and a comma-separated list of the names of all MPs into an on-device LLM (Llama 3.2 3B Instruct, using Nomic AI’s GPT4All software), Marissa prompted “Who is being considered for the PM position?” She also utilized Python to enumerate occurrences of names of all current MPs in the .txt file. The number of mentions found using Python (table below) correlated well with the names suggested by the LLM. She searched the text for where these names occurred and identified four articles by three different publications specifically addressing the question of who will be the next Prime Minister. These were then given a close reading.

The four articles are: “Who Will Be the Next Prime Minister?,” “An Agreement Has Been Made to Choose the Next Prime Minister From the Generation of the 1970s, with Candidates Including B.Battsetseg, J.Enkhbayar, and G.Zandanshatar Being Discussed,” “Who is the Prime Minister Who Won’t “Play Games With The Country?” ,” “The MPP Leadership Council Will Meet Today to Select the Next Prime Minister.”

Prospective PMs (including Zandanshatar, long-time MP, but didn’t win a seat in 2024) with more than one mention, in more than one article, include:

Name Frequency Current Position Year Born
Javkhlan 7 Minister of Finance 1975
Zandanshatar 7 Head of the Presidential Office, Former Speaker of Parliament 1970
J. Enkhbayar 6 Agriculture and Light Industry J.Enkhbayar 1973
Uchral 5 Chief Cabinet Secretary 1985
Battsetseg 4 Minister of Foreign Affairs 1973
Temuulen 2 Security and Foreign Policy Standing Committee Chair
Amarsaikhan 2 Deputy Prime Minister 1973
Nyambaatar 2 Governor of the Capital City and Head of the Ulaanbaatar City Administration, Head of the Capital City MPP 1978

 

As perhaps best indicated by the headline, “An Agreement Has Been Made to Choose the Next Prime Minister From the Generation of the 1970s,” the list of candidates include established MPP politicians. Several are ministers, and only one is a woman (Battsetseg).

There have been some discussions in the media that the next PM might be the return of the 1970s generation. Recall that Oyun-Erdene’s ascent to PM was seen as the arrival/takeover of the generation of politicians born in the 1980s. They were championed by the 1960s politicians in the MPP cadre tradition of alternating decades of politicians taking over. Current discussions are that perhaps the 1970s are back. Not with bellbottoms, but with 6 of the candidates whispered about having been born in the 1970s.

We will continue to monitor these conversations and update on the blog as we are able!

Posted in Mongolian People's Party, Party Politics, Politics | Tagged | 3 Comments

End of the Oyun-Erdene Era?

Posted on June 3, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

Of course, the one time, my frustration at endless speculation about political machinations and alliances actually gets to me, something happens, namely Prime Minister L Oyun-Erdene’s era appears to be ending. In the early morning of June 3, Oyun-Erdene lost a vote of confidence in parliament, with only 82 MPs voting, and only 44 MPs voting for confidence.

Let me quickly consider what this change means in policy terms, for the coalition, and for the MPP.

Policy

I would stick with one of my conclusions from that recent post: in policy terms, it will make very little difference who serves as the current prime minister. That is the case, because Mongolian politicians largely lack a political orientation, i.e. some kind of theme to the action they want to take.

Oyun-Erdene in my mind is a prominent example of such non-political politicians, along with Pres Khurelsukh and former pres Battulga. It has never been entirely clear to me, why they have become politicians, other than to hold power. Given the valorization of “pragmatic” solutions in Mongolia and the belief in legislative power to change the world, perhaps this makes sense to them, but it does not make sense to me, since voters do not really have a chance to predict what kind of decisions these politicians (or their parties) would make and to thus select this pattern in decision-making.

This absence of a political problem was curious in the case of Oyun-Erdene since he publicly set out and claimed to have such a program, the “Vision 2050”. But to me, that program never amounted to much more than a listing of all the various plans. There is no overall political theme in that program, like marketization, justice, equality or sustainable development. Even though it has become increasingly routine to refer to Vision 2050 as a touchstone of sorts, I am not sure that that document ever had much actual meaning.

So, if Vision 2050 somehow fades into the background as Oyun-Erdene steps away from power, I do not foresee this to make a real difference in terms of the policies pursued by the government.

Coalition

If this is the end of MPP-DP cooperation in government and the DP ministers leave cabinet, I do not find that surprising. Given the majority that the MPP holds in parliament, the “grand coalition” has not made a lot of sense to me. Publicly, the reason has been the need to build a consensus on mega projects, meaning 14 major infrastructure projects, but it is unclear why these infrastructure investment decisions require a consensus and most of the projects appear to be largely pie-in-the-sky and unlikely to be completed any time soon in any case. So, real reasons seems to have been to include opposition parties to buy them off and reduce their opposition actions. Now, in the past week of protests around Oyun-Erdene’s son’s girlfriend’s Chanel bag (yes!), some DP MPs have been very involved, especially some list-MPs, so perhaps this bargain “party gets to name ministers and reduces noice in return” did not work out for the MPP and they have decided to cancel the bargain.

This could mean that the DP (re)grows a backbone and acts more like an opposition.

It is unclear what this might mean to KhUN participation in government. Continue to cooperate and you increasingly look like that, i.e. staying in bed with the MPP, being bought off with some ministerial posts. This does not seem like an obvious route to electoral success in the 2028 parliamentary election.

MPP

Even though Oyun-Erdene came into government as a representative of the 80s generation and brought with him a whole crew of youngish policy types, to me it seems like he has never really built a party power base to rival established factions. I find it noticeable in that context, that talk about an Oyun-Erdene faction is rare, even under some fanciful name. And perhaps this is also why there has been so much speculation about Oyun-Erdene’s relationship with Khurelsukh as his own position within the part may have depended on Khurelsukh very much along the way.

If my impression of the lack of a real powerbase for Oyun-Erdene is right, perhaps he will simply fade away, along with Vision 2050, having completed a relatively long and largely successful term. That success I would point to has included steering the country through much of the COVID pandemic and signing another OT agreement that has led to the cancellation of some debt. Or, he might reinvent himself as an MPP power broker in coming months.

Posted in Democratic Party, Ikh Khural 2024, KhUN, Mongolian People's Party, Party Politics, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Government Confusion

Posted on May 30, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

A bit of confusion in Mongolia at the moment regarding the state of the coalition government and the fate of L Oyun-Erdene as prime minister.

Last week, it was reported that a) the DP had been removed from government, and b) PM Oyun-Erdene would resign, be removed?

Yet, a week later and with some international reporting, some of which has engaged in the kind of idle personnel speculation that I decried in April, nothing concrete has happened. Mongolian media are generally not helping very much in providing concrete news.

I tried to offer my analysis to NPR’s The World on May 29, but suspect that that will be outdated relatively soon.

Posted in Democratic Party, Government, Media and Press, Mongolian People's Party, Party Politics, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Change in the Countryside 2025

Posted on May 27, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

For some years, I have now traced visible changes in Ulaanbaatar on my periodic visits.

I’ve kept a similar list for countryside changes, somewhat less regular as extended visits to the countryside don’t come nearly often enough for me. This April 2025 visit was merely a weekend, but some things did jump out at me. Earlier notes appeared in September 2024 | August 2023 | July 2023 | June 2019 | October 2017 |  June 2017 | October 2015. Additions/edits to that list are marked in italics below, candidates for omissions in strikethrough.

P Bolormaa has also offered her 2024 observations on changes in the countryside in a guest post.

Visible Manifestations of Social Change in the Countryside

What has Arrived?

  • Guardrails in some curves on major cross-country roads
  • While street signs (speed limits, warnings of curves, etc.) used to be a curious rarity (“when there hasn’t been a sign for 100km, why this one?”) they now seem to appear in clusters. I saw a campground sign for the first sign!
  • Fences around large parcels of lands. As far as I can tell these are hayed for winter fodder as nothing seems to be planted there. Fences keep out animals in this case to let grass grow.
  • Pretty significant agricultural activity, esp. around Darkhan and Erdenet, but also towards Kharkhorin. Many locations and huge fields that I don’t remember seeing on first visit to the area in 2008. Entire valleys dedicated to wheat and rapeseed in particular in 2023.
  • Not all fences around xashaa (property lots) are wood anymore. There are some prefab concrete slabs, corrugated metals, etc. Some residents are also integrating shipping containers into their fence.
  • Virtually all aimag centres now seem to have at least one tall building (8+ stories).
  • New, modern houses are appearing in soum centres. Only buildings in towns that don’t have a big wooden fence around them.
  • “No littering” signs.
  • Motorcycle helmets. Perhaps a greater attention to personal safety more generally as some of the boats we rode offered life vests. Riding helmets for tourist horse/camel rides as well.
  • Even soum centres have significant tree planting programs going on. Freshly-planted trees in so many public and private spaces.
  • Bike infrastructure in towns and many kids riding around on bikes.
  • Very communicative drivers. For example, signal right means, “it’s clear, you can pass” and signal left “no, don’t pass”. Sometimes you get flashing hazards as a thank you, but they can also mean “animals in the road”. It was less clear to me what the flashing headlights mean. Sometimes they seemed to be the oddly-universal, “speed trap” ahead, but sometimes there wasn’t a speed trap after that. While you’re passing, flashing headlights mean, “cutting it a bit close there, buddy”.
  • Thule-style roof boxes in cars travelling between cities and towns. Roof-mounted canopies to roll out for camping have also appeared.
  • Real coffee has appeared at ger camps.
  • Some ger camps have also embraced green houses.
  • There are Khushuur (Хушуур) stands everywhere along the big roads.
  • We actually witnessed sun screen being applied to a Mongolian child!
  • I had heard mention of herders using their Prius to move a herd, but actually saw that. Highlight was when the door of the Prius opened to bark at a recalcitrant sheep. Now there are rumours of herding-by-drone, but I have not witnessed that.
  • Herders listening to podcasts. Well, at least I saw some herders with earplugs.
  • Ger-customized wall carpets. Generally, inside curtains on gers seem more common.
  • Ger bed & breakfast, ger buudal. It is not clear to me whether some enterprising printing shop has simply delivered many printed signs for such ger rentals in the countryside or if they are a new phenomenon. I have yet to stay at one.
  • I noticed more monasteries in soum centres across Arkhangai, Khuvsgul and Bulgan.
  • Starlink receivers on car roofs. Perhaps these have replaced satellite phones (see below).
  • Paved roads to soum centres. With all aimag centres connected, some soum centres are bound to follow. For example, I saw a very smooth road from Bulgan to Orkhon Soum.
  • Capsule coffee machines. Given the volume of garbage they produce, this does not seem like a good development…
  • On the Darkhan road, I came across a cut-out cardboard police officer. It made me slow down!
  • Modernist one-room dachas
  • Powered ger-roof window

 

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What has Disappeared, or at least, Nearly Disappeared?

What will Appear in the Future?

  • Much more directional street markers.
  • Cross-country biking, hiking, and riding routes away from major roads. Drives designated as scenic routes.
  • Some kind of ultra- or other sonic device that will scare herds away from roads.
  • Straight dirt paths. Currently, some kind of path-is-better-over-there logic turns all tracks into slalom tracks. I will miss that passenger prince mental game of guessing which track the driver will take.
  • Women drivers. Yes, of course women drive, but I have never seen a woman as a professional driver.

What will Disappear in the Future?

  • Roughly in the 2000s, I would guess, more cars were beginning to show up in the countryside, but road-construction was not revving up yet. That meant that on big cross-country routes, entire valleys were scarred by multiple parallel tracks. Along the paved sections of major roads, these scars are slowly disappearing in the landscape. That is a very slow process, however, so even in spots where new roads now provide a good way of driving through valleys/over passes, the scars remain. In some areas the grated tracks that mark some inclines towards passes especially are now overgrown next to paved roads, still visible as ridges, but melting into the landscape slowly.
  • At construction sites, the paved roads are often simply blocked with large dirt heaps across the lanes. Effective, but scary at night.
  • Greeting of official visitors at city gates.
  • Fancy streetlight design must be a state socialist heritage somehow along with other forms of public art. There are vaguely futuristic designs throughout Mongolia, but they are even more surprising in provincial towns than in Ulaanbaatar. Somehow, I don’t think that they will continue to be built.
  • Lumber bridges on major roads. As roads are being built across the country, these – somewhat scary – bridges appear to be disappearing, though they are sometimes visible just up or downriver from newly constructed bridges.
  • Roadside sales of airag, pine nuts, berries, etc. Airag is inevitably offered in reused large soda bottles while the pine nuts are often filled into small plastic bags. Berries in particular seem to typically be offered by younger children, standing by the road.
  • People huddling with animals under bridges.
  • Much of the dacha belt around Ulaanbaatar will merge into the periurban city
  • Shipping containers as building elements
  • Plastic garbage floating across the steppe, I hope
  • Used toiled paper going into the garbage rather than the toilet (concern for septic tank/system). This will make “Mongolia old-timers” like me, i.e. fellow travellers will be disturbed to see used toilet paper in garbage.
  • The nighttime driving injunction. No one drives at night, too dangerous. That will change.
  • The aluminum foil wrapper on the tops of large tea/water thermos bottles. Apparently, it’s meant to keep the top from taking on content odours.

What won’t Disappear in the Medium Term?

  • Composite electricity poles. In the countryside these consist of a concrete base to which a wooden pole is tied with wire/brackets which ends in a triangle that has space for three attached cables. Metal poles have appeared, but I know similar composite poles from the Yukon and Alaska, so they  must be well-adapted to extreme temperatures and will thus last.
  • Litter. Growth in domestic tourism will make the countryside more littered, but awareness of littering will ultimately build. Such a blight on Mongolia!
  • Buried tires to mark property lines. It seems that there are so many practical reasons (cheap, indestructible, visible to off-roading drivers) that this practice will continue.
Posted in Change, Countryside, Curios | Tagged | 1 Comment

Assessing Academic Freedom Index Score

Posted on May 20, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

I recently posted my description of what the Academic Freedom Index measures and how Mongolia has been scored. Is Mongolia’s decline on Academic Freedom Index real? Or, what is this decline measuring?

How are we to understand Mongolia’s score?

But, even though the declining score may be less meaningful in magnitude than it seems initially, it clearly is measuring something. What might that something be?

Looking at #AcademicFreedomIndex components @vdeminstitute.bsky.social since 2015 in more detail.

[image or embed]

— Mongolia Focus (@mongoliafocus.bsky.social) 9. April 2025 um 11:10

First, what are the five indicators measuring? Here, I turn to the V-Dem codebook for answers. Note the listing of answers also gives some meaning to the numbers that are reported with the index scores. For example, when the index reports 2.81 as the score for “freedom to research and teach” that means that the answer “Mostly free. When determining their research agenda or teaching curricula, scholars are rarely subject to interference or incentivized to self-censor.” (see below) is closest to the average value reported.

Freedom of Academic and Cultural Expression

Survey question: “Is there academic freedom and freedom of cultural expression related to political issues?”
Answers:
0: Not respected by public authorities. Censorship and intimidation are frequent. Academic activities and cultural expressions are severely restricted or controlled by the government.
1: Weakly respected by public authorities. Academic freedom and freedom of cultural expression are practiced occasionally, but direct criticism of the government is mostly met with repression.
2: Somewhat respected by public authorities. Academic freedom and freedom of cultural expression are practiced routinely, but strong criticism of the government is sometimes met with repression.
3: Mostly respected by public authorities. There are few limitations on academic freedom and freedom of cultural expression, and resulting sanctions tend to be infrequent and soft.
4: Fully respected by public authorities. There are no restrictions on academic freedom or cultural expression.

Freedom to research and teach

Question: “To what extent are scholars free to develop and pursue their own research and teaching agendas without interference?”
Answers:
0: Completely restricted. When determining their research agenda or teaching curricula, scholars are, across all disciplines, consistently subject to interference or incentivized to self-censor.
1: Severely restricted. When determining their research agenda or teaching curricula, scholars are, in some disciplines, consistently subject to interference or incentivized to self-censor.
2: Moderately restricted. When determining their research agenda or teaching curricula, scholars are occasionally subject to interference or incentivized to self-censor.
3: Mostly free. When determining their research agenda or teaching curricula, scholars are rarely subject to interference or incentivized to self-censor.
4: Fully free. When determining their research agenda or teaching curricula, scholars are not subject to interference or incentivized to self-censor.

Freedom of academic exchange and dissemination

Question: “To what extent are scholars free to exchange and communicate research ideas and findings?”
Answers:
0: Completely restricted. Academic exchange and dissemination is, across all disciplines, consistently subject to censorship, self-censorship or other restrictions.
1: Severely restricted. Academic exchange and dissemination is, in some disciplines, consistently subject to censorship, self-censorship or other restrictions.
2: Moderately restricted. Academic exchange and dissemination is occasionally subject to censorship, self-censorship or other restrictions.
3: Mostly free. Academic exchange and dissemination is rarely subject to censorship, self-censorship or other restrictions.
4: Fully free. Academic exchange and dissemination is not subject to censorship, self-censorship or other restrictions.

Institutional autonomy

Question: “To what extent do universities exercise institutional autonomy in practice?”
Answers:
0: No autonomy at all. Universities do not exercise any degree of institutional autonomy; non-academic actors control decision-making.
1: Minimal autonomy. Universities exercise only very limited institutional autonomy; non-academic actors interfere extensively with decision-making.
2: Moderate autonomy. Universities exercise some institutional autonomy; non-academic actors interfere moderately with decision-making.
3: Substantial autonomy. Universities exercise institutional autonomy to a large extent; non-academic actors have only rare and minimal influence on decision-making.
4: Complete autonomy. Universities exercise complete institutional autonomy from non-academic actors.

Campus integrity

Question: “To what extent are campuses free from politically motivated surveillance or security infringements?”
Answers:
0: Completely restricted. Campus integrity is fundamentally undermined by extensive surveillance and severe intimidation, including violence or closures.
1: Severely restricted. Campus integrity is to a large extent undermined by surveillance and intimidation, at times including violence or closures.
2: Moderately restricted. Campus integrity is challenged by some significant cases of surveillance or intimidation.
3: Mostly free. Campus integrity is to a large extent respected, with only minor cases of surveillance or intimidation.
4: Fully free. Campus integrity is comprehensively respected; there are no cases of surveillance or intimidation.

You might want to compare the answers you might give to these questions to the score reported to get a sense for the validity (or not, from your perspective) of the expert scores.

Changes in Mongolia’s Score

Institutional Autonomy

What are we to make of the decline in Mongolia’s score then. As far as I am aware there have been no significant legislative changes to higher education/academic freedom in the past ten years. Am I missing something?

Yes, the sense that there are some challenges with the governance structure of Mongolian higher education institutions has been common for some years. This would be captured by the institutional autonomy variable. On this variable, Mongolia is scored at 0.53 compared to a global average of 0.24 (2024). The indicator for Mongolia has been declining to approach the global indicator. But are Mongolian universities significantly less autonomous in 2024 than they were in 2014? The score here goes from 1.53 to 0.53 over this period.

 

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Recall from the answer key above that Mongolia went from somewhere right between 2=moderate autonomy and 1= minimal autonomy  to somewhere between minimal autonomy and 0=no autonomy at all. When we look across the world, compared to many other nations, Mongolian higher education institutions have between minimal and no autonomy at all? Sure, that may apply to some appointments (though note that the formal governance structure of Mongolian universities is not dissimilar to that of the example of Canadian universities), but some academic hires at least are made by academic criteria, are they not? Some curricular decisions are made without even the threat of political interference, are they not? Cynically speaking, given that the budgets of state universities are almost entirely reliant on tuition payments, is there not some level of financial autonomy in that? And, even if none of these limited levels of autonomy exist, did they exist to a much greater extent 10 years ago?

I think of events recently that have highlighted the lack of institutional autonomy. The first example I can think of is the installation of D Badarch as president of MUIS in 2023. While Badarch seemed eminently qualified given his long service at UNESCO, many faculty members objected to the process by which he was appointed, i.e. by political fiat. He was removed as president a mere year later.

The other moment when I have come in contact with the lack of institutional autonomy is in the context of the International Congress of Mongolists in 2023 where there was significant unhappiness with the governance structure of that group. There certainly is a strong sense among Mongolian colleagues that universities are unable to act autonomously and that their research does not enjoy a lot of freedom. Note that almost all my contacts are with academics at state universities.

To me, the answer is relatively clear: I don’t think that institutions are significantly less autonomous now than they were ten years ago. To be sure, I am not saying that institutional autonomy is not important in assessing academic freedom for Mongolia, nor that institutions have a large degree of autonomy, but I am saying that I don’t see a lot of change over the past ten years when the indicator shows such change.

Freedom Indicators

What about the other indicators that make up the Academic Freedom Index then? Because I had been so puzzled by the significant decline in the Index, I wanted to be sure to speak to academic colleagues during a recent trip to Mongolia to compare my observations (nothing substantial has happened) to their experience of academic freedom. Here, I am referring to aspects captured by the three freedoms in the index, academic expression, research and teaching, and academic exchange.

When I probed colleague to ask “have you experienced any restrictions on your ability to choose topics of research, teach, etc.?”. I mostly got the answer that, “no” they had not experienced such restrictions. This confirmed my own sense (and also how I scored this variable myself). But that is not where the discussion ended.

Colleagues did refer to the fairly public dispute that National University’s Munkh-Erdene G is pursuing, but as far as I can tell, this centres on conditions of employment, course assignments, etc. not content of research or teaching.

If there don’t appear to be new substantive restrictions, some colleagues did mention rising expectations of conformity from unspecified public/bureaucratic actors. For example, some kind of compliance with Vision 2050 was mentioned, to potentially be “tested” in some fashion. I was a bit shocked by that as that document really primarily collected all kinds of strategic plan, agendas, etc. without shaping them into a coherent vision as it claims to have done. How would one even comply with such a document, never mind the ludicrousness of a notion of such compliance. But, this is a concern for academic freedom! Yet, it was only mentioned as a minor irritant, not something that had really begun to place restrictions on research and teaching, yet.

Broadly speaking, I thus came away with a reinforced notion of fairly limited substantial change in academic freedom aspects despite the notable decline in the index.

Index Contrary to my Sense of Academic Freedom. How could that Be?

Bad-vibes Bias

Assume for the moment that I’m right, meaning that the institutional autonomy of Mongolian institutions of higher education has not changed substantively over the past ten years. What could be going on in the index? The social scientific literature talks about something called bad-vibes bias. What is that bias? “experts have been increasingly negatively biased due to pessimism about the state of democracy” is how it is defined by Knutsen et al. (2024. “Conceptual and Measurement Issues in Assessing Democratic Backsliding.” PS: Political Science & Politics 57(2): 162–77. doi: 10.1017/S104909652300077X.) My fear is thus that fellow V-Dem coders for Mongolia are pessimistic about Mongolia or, I would argue, perhaps see Mongolian democracy in a more negative light than others (i.e., me) might.

However, Knutsen et al. and other analyses show that on the global level some of the fears about biases, including bad-vibes bias are unfounded. The V-Dem stewards have also taken a variety of methods and statistical measures against such biases. The V-Dem Methodology pages offer extensive discussion of various coding and statistical decisions.

But those analyses are global, not country-specific and as all country experts likely do, I’m inclined to think that my case is special (obviously, Mongolia is special!).

Obviously, challenges to institutional autonomy and other aspects of academic freedom will be much more visible, perhaps palatable, to colleagues who work at Mongolian institutions. But I do wonder whether the constraints on academic freedom are not being exaggerated a bit, particularly when I look at this on a global scale.

Have there been any dismissals of academics for their choice of research topic (freedom of research and teaching)? Have any academics been censured for publishing on particular topics or reaching and publicizing their conclusions (freedom of academic exchange and dissemination, freedom of academic and cultural expression)? I am honestly not aware of such cases, while examples of such decisions abound in some countries that are ranked higher than Mongolia in the Academic Freedom Index.

Perhaps, the bad vibes are being applied specifically to an examination of Mongolia, rather than responding to a more global trend?

Mongolia Pessimism

Another source of the declining index contrary to my observations, could be that coders are adopting a particular attitude toward Mongolia, still a variant of bad vibes, but perhaps due to the narrowness of the field of research on Mongolia and the limited “supply” of comparativists likely participating in the V-Dem coding.

I have long noticed that my assessments of Mongolian democracy have been more positive than many interlocutors based in Mongolia. Some of that may be my optimistic personality, but some of it I attribute to a comparative perspective differing from one that is focused internally and exclusively on domestic developments. As I said to colleagues during conversation in Ulaanbaatar when we were going through example questions and they answered 0 and 1 to some questions, “You are not North Korea!”. Yes, things may be troubling, but they are troubling in a context where you can talk about those concerns, that in itself being a significant (academic) freedom. So, I do think that a comparative perspective may lead me to underestimate some of the atmospheric changes that are happening in Mongolia compared to colleagues and potentially fellow V-Dem experts who might be more inward-looking. Presumably, that may be due to a greater portion of single-country experts for a country like Mongolia compared to other scores.

But, in the end…

Returning to earlier consideration of #academicfreedom in #Mongolia based on @vdeminstitute.bsky.social
mongoliafocus.com/2025/04/acad…
Important to keep in mind that 🇲🇳 continues to maintain much higher levels of academic freedom than neighbours!

[image or embed]

— Mongolia Focus (@mongoliafocus.bsky.social) May 5, 2025 at 5:30 PM

And, here’s another comparison: Türkiye which has been a prominent case of concern as well.

Since I continue to think abt #AcademicFreedom in #Mongolia, here’s the corresponding graph for 2019-2024, period of decline in the Academic Freedom Index components.
Note relatively (compared to 🇹🇷) even shape, pointing to, again relatively, high degree of academic freedom across all 5 indicators.

[image or embed]

— Mongolia Focus (@mongoliafocus.bsky.social) 13. Mai 2025 um 11:48

Posted in Academia, Global Indices, Higher Education, JD Democratization, Research on Mongolia, Social Change | Tagged | Leave a comment

Mongolia Focus WhatsApp Channel

Posted on May 14, 2025 by JDierkes

Yes, it’s the Meta Imperium, but we’ve created a Mongolia Focus WhatsApp channel.

Mongolia Focus logo: A mongolian hearth

Follow the channel to receive notifications of new posts published here.

For other ways to follow, see our Following page.

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Guest Post: May Day by Natsagdorj

Posted on May 5, 2025 by JDierkes

By Khishigtugs Amarbayasgalan

Natsagdorj Dashdorj (1906–1937) is widely regarded as the founder of modern Mongolian literature. Natsagdorj was part of the first generation of Mongolian students sent abroad after the revolution (1921 revolution in Mongolia), and among the earliest to study in Germany—an experience that deeply influenced his modernist, globally engaged writing. A poet, playwright, and journalist, he was part of the first generation of Mongolian intellectuals shaped by revolutionary ideals and international education. He studied in Leipzig, Germany, and his works blended Mongolian tradition with modernist influences. Despite his short life, Natsagdorj left a lasting legacy, capturing the voice of a new, modern Mongolia in transition. His detailed biography is here.

Natsagdorj died tragically young, at just 31 years old, and the exact cause of his death remains unclear. Older generations often say he drank heavily and died on the street. More recent interpretations, however, suggest he may have been a victim of political repression—possibly purged by the brutal totalitarian regime of the time (watch documentaries as well as here). I think both explanations might hold some truth. Living under a system that stifled thought and punished dissent, intellectuals like Natsagdorj often faced unbearable pressure. A value crisis—a sense of alienation, loss, or disillusionment—can be as deadly as any bullet. Oppressive systems do not always kill with violence; sometimes they destroy slowly, through despair. Today, his legacy lives on. The Natsagdorj Library in Ulaanbaatar, named in his honor, is the second-largest library in Mongolia—a quiet but enduring tribute to the power of ideas and literature.

In his well-known short story “The Old Boy”, Natsagdorj wrote: “Blue mongolia became red mongolia. The old boy became the new boy.” I think the color blue symbolizes the old, conservative, feudal society, while red represents the new, progressive, socialist society. This transformation is not just personal—it reflects the sweeping changes Mongolia was undergoing during the revolutionary period.

Interestingly, the Mongolian national flag itself reflects this tension and transition. Its background is made up of three vertical bands: red, blue, red. Red dominates two-thirds of the flag, while blue occupies only one-third. It is as if the old Mongolia—the blue, traditional steppe—now stands flanked by a new, rising force of socialist transformation. Through both story and symbol, Natsagdorj captured a nation in the midst of redefining itself.

In 1931, Natsagdorj translated Part 1 Commodities and Money of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital into Mongolian. He completed this translation in collaboration with Tseveen Jamsran, working from February to May of that year in the Yuruu River basin of Selenge Province.

Historically, on April 29, 1922, the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Mongolian People’s Government issued Order No. 31, declaring the celebration of May 1st. The order was signed by General Sukhbaatar Damdin, stating: “Year Twelve, Third Month, Third Day. Minister of Military Affairs and Commander-in-Chief of All Armed Forces, Sukhbaatar.” Mongolia has stopped celebrating this day since shifting to capitalism 1990, and even the current younger generation does not know about this significant day.

May 1 in a Capitalist Country

“May 1 in a Capitalist Country” by Natsagdorj Dashdorj, to my knowledge, has never been translated into English before—so I decided to translate it myself. Nearly a century later, I find myself in Germany too—just like Natsagdorj once was. I translated “May 1 in a Capitalist Country” while sitting on Karl-Marx-Straße in Mannheim, right outside my student dorm. There was something quietly powerful about that moment: a Mongolian student reading a Mongolian revolutionary, on a street named after Marx.

“May 1 in a Capitalist Country” by Natsagdorj Dashdorj

On a gentle spring morning, the large red sun had just risen in the northeast sky. Its radiant light streamed through the third-floor window of a tall building facing away from the street, in one of Western Europe’s great cities. The light reached inside and flickered in Ochir’s eyes, waking him from sleep.

He got up right away, stretched a few times, and was washing his face and hands when suddenly, the sound of a heavy trumpet and drums echoed from outside. Curious, he listened attentively. The music blended beautifully with the sacred freshness of the morning air and drifted in through the open window, filling Ochir’s heart with delight and a pleasant feeling.

Soon, the music grew closer—its melody delicate and flowing like a mountain spring, gentle and intermittent. Deeply intrigued, Ochir half-wiped his face and leaned out the window. Along the wide avenue, a long procession marched forward. Workers paraded, waving red flags, singing The Internationale, and staging a powerful demonstration that shook both heaven and earth.

It was the international celebration of workers on the first of May.

Though armed, harsh-faced police surrounded the area, the workers’ march neither hesitated nor faltered. Their ranks remained perfectly aligned. Singing revolutionary songs in booming voices, they marched in unison with firm steps, showing off their fierce courage and unbreakable resolve.

Coming from a revolutionary country himself, Ochir was deeply moved. He leaned out and watched the procession intently, captivated until the very end.

(1928)

The Tibetan word “dorj” in the name Natsagdorj, the great writer himself, is a Sanskrit word for “ochir”. Therefore, Ochir is Natsagdorj himself.

For Natsagdorj, May Day was not just a political event—it was a symbol of modernity, a moment when the East and West shared a rhythm. Natsagdorj wasn’t just imitating European modernism—he was critiquing capitalism from the outside, using global tools (like May Day) in a Mongolian voice.

And now, almost a century later, I find myself in a similar place—far from home, yet walking streets once familiar to Natsagdorj. Like him, I carry Mongolia with me: in my language, in my questions, in my voice. The past and present, Mongolia and Germany, Ochir and I—we all meet in that window, looking out at the world, still asking what kind of future is possible, and what it means to belong.

On May Day, May 1st, 2025, I joined a demonstration in Mannheim, Germany. As I stood among the crowd, I realized that although the form of May Day has evolved, its core message remains the same: we must not tolerate inequality, we must protect working people, and we must resist the violence—material and symbolic—of exploitative systems like capitalism. What has changed is the scope and tone of the movement. Today’s May Day includes voices from the LGBTQ+ community, the Free Palestine movement, and environmental justice campaigns. The struggle has expanded, and become more intersectional.

I also noticed that people have changed. In Natsagdorj’s time—97 years ago—the world felt more radical and polarized, split into opposing ideological extremes. Today, many people still fight passionately, but there is more room for dialogue, more respect for human rights and diversity of thought. For example, in Natsagdorj’s story, the police are portrayed as a harsh, repressive force. But at the protest I attended, the police were not violent; they simply ensured public safety.

And yet, despite the differences in era, tone, and form, one thing remains constant: people are still searching for a better world. That spirit—that refusal to accept injustice—is what May Day continues to represent.

 

I’m grateful to Julian Dierkes for encouraging me to join the May Day demonstration and for capturing some memorable photos of the day.

About Khishigtugs

My name is Khishigtugs Amarbayasgalan (LinkedIn). I published a sociological book called Alienation in 2020. Currently pursuing my master’s degree in Sociology at the University of Mannheim, Germany. My academic focus lies in the study of social inequality—including class structures, stratification, educational disparity, values crisis and the broader implications of the Anthropocene.

Posted in Germany, History, Khishigtugs Amarbayasgalan, Literature, Reflection | 3 Comments

New to Ulaanbaatar April 2025

Posted on April 29, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

I’ve been keeping lists of things that are arriving to/disappearing from central Ulaanbaatar: June-July 2024 | August 2023 | May 2023 | November 2022 | August 2022 | December 2019 | June 2019 | April 2019 | December 2018 | August 2018 | October 2017 | June 2017 | May 2016 | December 2015 | May 2015 | November 2014 | May 2014 | October 2013 | June 2013 | October 2011 | August 2011. More informal versions of these observations also appear in the /ulaanbaatar/change/ category. I’ve also collected observations about change in the countryside.

Bulgan added her observations in Spring 2022.

I’ve copied previous lists here and am adding to them. New items since previous posts appear in italics. Since this list has been growing, I’m also beginning to delete some items that I’ve had on the list for some time. Strikethrough means that these items will be off the next list.

This list was cruelly interrupted by something that was new to the world in 2020, a global pandemic and thus restrictions on travel. After not being able to visit for 32 months, I finally made it back in August 2022.

What has arrived?

  • drive-home service for drivers who have been drinking. You call the service, they drop off a driver who drives you home in your car and is then picked up again. Given – fortunately – much stricter enforcement of drunk driving laws, a great service!
  • airport road is getting ever fancier, now there’s a giant overpass just before crossing the Tuul on the way into town. Lots of fancy on/off-ramps popping up everywhere on roads.
  • fully electric cars, charging stations, green license plates for electric cars, Tesla
  • street art (several years now, but I hadn’t noted this before) and newly commissioned public art Seeing more tags though. On buildings and in pedestrian tunnels. One particularly common one in one part of town: ‘to be or not to be’. Deep!
  • several new parks: North of Winter Palace, Southeast corner of Sukhbaatar Sq, also astroturf on Sukhbaatar Square (summer 2022) seemingly quite popular as picnic spot, park in Yarmag. The park behind Government House is open to the public again.
  • As a specific park: the redesign of the Children’s Park seems to represent commitment to preservation of that open space and greater incorporation into urban centre. The new park opened on July 4.
  • Not just parks but also nearby urban recreation, such as municipal nature reserves and hiking.
  • Oat milk and lactose-free milk. Of course, good health reasons for both, but still a little odd in the land of meat and dairy.
  • Eye makeup with small glittering tears in the corner of an eye. Note that I am not much of a fashion correspondent, but I remember seeing this first in Japan in the early 1990s when it was called ピカピカ, I think. Cat eyes have also arrived.
  • Coffee choices. Not just Korean chains, but more local choices appearing.
  • Taste for spicy foods. Surely this has arrived via Korean food, but quite the contrast to years ago when spices seemed entirely absent.
  • Solar panels on commercial buildings, also on balconies, in downtown core
  • The development of Mongolian brand consumer products, especially food products has been happening for years and I can’t pinpoint the moment they started appearing on grocery shelves in big numbers. While I still find New Zealand butter in Mongolia strange, most of the dairy shelf is now made in Mongolia, for example.

Category: increasing agricultural and domestic food production in #Mongolia.
No street vendors this time of year, but (fancy) supermarket offered 8 different varieties of honey for sale. The brand name won me over.

[image or embed]

— Mongolia Focus (@mongoliafocus.bsky.social) April 21, 2025 at 8:16 PM

  • So many renovated sidewalks with paving stones, benches, and planters.
  • Yoshinoya – 吉野家. How obvious are beef bowls for the Mongolian market, but their appearance is sudden to me.
  • Shisha bars. I had seen these before, but neglected to note that down.
  • Convenience stores have become a very common sight in downtown Ulaanbaatar but also beyond. Currently, this is a duopoly of CU and GS25. Note that small grocery stores have disappeared from town with the rise of these convenience stores.
  • байхгүй (“we don’t have that”) has become a frequent response of waiters in restaurants referring to items listed on the menu, but not actually offered.
  • Some new buildings appear to be considering the public space that they’re providing, for example through setbacks from the street and parks in those setbacks. One example would be large office building/mall on the way into town from Zaisan on the right before Peace Bridge with its broad sidewalk, plantings.
  • In addition to the Northwest of town and the area around the power plants which have been somewhat industrial, Yarmag seems to be turning into an industrial zone in parts as well, with the surroundings of the old airport seeing some warehouse developments.
  • In terms of city planning, many of the very large developments in Yarmag and elsewhere seem to be stand-along neighbourhoods, rather than forming a part of a larger district. Note that they all seem to have a large supermarket as an anchor.
  • Visible Korean influences continuing to grow.
  • Imagery of Mongolian People’s Republic appearing as pop cultural reference point. Not sure whether that signals nostalgia for state-socialist days (Ostalgie).
  • Blue license plates for government cars. [More on license plates]
  • Men carrying umbrellas as protection from the sun.
  • Big bus procurement scandal in 2023-24, but some very modern buses around town and major busstop construction projects.
  • Google Maps now offers transit connections as well as traffic updates. The former easier for me to use than local alternatives, as I’m familiar with Google Maps interface. Makes public transit that much more usable for visitors even before the Metro is “completed”.
  • On the drive west out of town, I passed through the underpass for the railroad for the first sign. Always such a bottleneck for traffic previously, amazing to avoid via an underpass.
  • MIAT now makes an announcement in German on the Frankfurt flight
  • Beach flags as advertisement
  • Big streets into the city now all treelined (1b tree subotnik!), those drives will look quite different in some years
  • A good portion of the trash cans in the downtown core seem to have been removed
  • There seem to be many more people using electric rental scooters in town. With them, the ringing of bells to warn pedestrians has arrived on bike paths. But in 2025, there’s a new game in town:

 

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A post shared by Julian Dierkes (@jbdierkes)

  • Have I not mentioned Ramen before?

 

Post by @jdierkes@sciences.social
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  • Traffic light LED strips in the sidewalk at some Peace Ave intersections

Always something new in Ulaanbaatar:
Traffic light strips in the sidewalk, paired with tactile tiles common across Japan as well.
Traffic strips blink and turn colour, ppl see them without looking up from screens, I imagine.
#Mongolia

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— Mongolia Focus (@mongoliafocus.bsky.social) April 20, 2025 at 8:17 PM

What has disappeared, or at least nearly?

  • for-pay scales (actually, they seem to be hanging on)
  • Victims of Political Persecution Memorial Museum. Promised floor dedicated to museum in newly-constructed large building on site does not appear to exist!
  • private fences encroaching on public land/sidewalks
  • It seems like (Korean) convenience store chains are replacing the small grocery stores that were ubiquitous in the downtown core. Not gone yet, but waning.
  • Urban heritage core. One building at a time, heritage buildings in the centre of town are being torn down, largely replaced by generic glass-and-steel towers.
  • Airplane turn-arounds. For the first few years, I often connected through Bejing and China Air pilots had the habit of taking a look at Ulaanbaatar and turning back around. Seemed like 1 of 3 flights. Reason: high side winds. I haven’t been travelling through authoritarian China for many years, but it seems like the new airport suffers less from dangerous winds and even from the fog that was rumoured to be common.

What will appear in the future

  • navigation systems. Google now offers in-town traffic updates. Countryside systems still limited.
  • mental maps shifting to street names/addresses instead of landmarks
  • subway (really, I wish they had selected light rail instead, but who knows whether either will come)
  • urban renewal and historical restorations embracing district north of government house (National University of Mongolia, German embassy, etc.), but perhaps it will be too late for that
  • Combined Heat and Power Plant #5 (yeah, right!)
  • hipsters discovering УАЗ (minivan and jeep), but also Porters, perhaps as platform for mobile raves?
  • giant hole blown into Bogd Khaan mountain to “drain” polluted air out of the valley (that actually is a proposal, but it will not appear! There also seems to be a proposal to blast away mountains on either end of the valley to let bad air escape!)
  • some kind of traffic routing system with overhead displays
  • Mongolia-themed bicycle stands, for example roof structure of a ger as a steel structure
  • vending machines
  • Chinese cars. I see more of these in 2025, esp. the green license plate electric cars, but still not a very large number.
  • Misters at outdoor restaurants. Very attractive feature in cities like Almaty and Bishkek when it gets hot.
  • In the very long term, current young people (starting from 2000s birth cohorts) will think of themselves as the Prius generation, analogous to German Generation Golf.
  • Given that the drive into Ulaanbaatar may now take longer than the flight to Ulaanbaatar, airport hotels must be on their way.

What will disappear in the medium-term future

I’m going out on a predictive limb here… 2-3 years is what I mean by “near future”.

Actually, since I have been predicting this as “near future” change for some years now, I guess I was wrong with all these predictions, and have changed the listing to medium-term future.

  • stretched-out hand to signal for a car ride
  • that awkward extra half-step on most stairs
  • whitening make-up.

What will disappear in the long-term future

I mean beyond 7 years or so. None of these seems to be coming true quite yet, so I’ve changed the name of this category from medium-term to long-term.

  • new (to Mongolia) cars that are right-hand drive
  • the neo-classical Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, with its Stalinist (if that’s an architectural style) spire [Tough call to make as the MFA building is now dwarfed by its own annex]
  • deels in the city [actually, they seem to be making a bit of a fashion comeback among young people]
  • some of the downtown university campuses
  • buildings of 4 floors or less in the urban core
  • Russian minivans (УАЗ452)
  • the Winter Palace. It won’t disappear entirely, but it is more-and-more surrounded by a very urban and very tall landscape making it look somewhat forlorn, a fate it shares with many other buildings
  • heritage buildings
  • street vendors with their little cardboard boxes of tissues, lighters, soda, perhaps rounded out by pine nuts or other offerings
  • that colour in staircases and hallways of apartment and public buildings
  • streetsweepers
Posted in Change, Curios, Ulaanbaatar | Tagged | 3 Comments

Plus ça change

Posted on April 22, 2025 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” = The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I feel like I experience perpetual déjà vu (yes, this is turning into a French post) in discussing constellations of political actor. Many people seem to want to talk about the personalities involved in current politics and rely on this as a lens to understand democratization or backsliding. Yet, most of the constellations of actors are repeating patterns that have been seen before.

In part, I think this is due to the prominence of international actors who are on medium-term stays in Ulaanbaatar only (diplomats, donor organizations, etc.) and to whom these constellations are new. Mongolian analysts also participate in these discussions as the fragmented and personalistic nature of politics in Mongolia seems to point to a focus on the people involved.

Repeating Patterns

Having gone through many cycles of politicians over the past 20 years that I’ve been paying close attention to Mongolia, I have to ask, do we really deepen our understanding of the political system and of democratization by gossiping about the personal relationships between various actors. Did understanding N Enkhbayar’s decades-long feud with his own party (MPRP/MPP) help us understand anything about the political system in the late 2000s, through the 2010s? Did figuring Kh Battulga out tell us anything about the presumed decline of democracy that we seem to be seeing now? What about the N Enkhbold vs U Khurelsukh battle? And, for the debate that has been raging for the past several years, do we need to understand the relationship and/or rivalry between U Khurelsukh and L Oyun-Erdene, or now between Khurelsukh, Oyun-Erdene and N Uchral?

As you can probably tell by the tone of my question, I think that a focus on the personalities can be a distraction and a bit of an analytical trap that we as a community of analysts fall into.

Yes, of course, some positions in a political system come with greater power than others. Understanding how the individuals who occupy those positions think and how they relate to each other has to be an element of an understanding of contemporary developments. Those positions include decision-making powers as defined by the constitution, most prominently, the members of the National Security Council, president, prime-minister and speaker of the Great Khural. Various cabinet-secretaries have also played important roles in shaping policy agendas (such as they are). The leaders of political parties and of factions of political parties do not  hold constitutional power, but they also have a clear role to play.

Fragmentation of Power

However, there is that fundamental observation of a fragmentation of political power. This is a topic I have written about in the past, perhaps most explicitly in a 2021 post. I initially came to this observation by thinking about investments and corruption. Whenever boom times arrive in Mongolia, I tend to get calls from international investment advisors or potential investors to ask whom they need to know to push into a certain market. Often, investors will tell me, “I met the vice minister for … and they reassured me that they would help me enter this market.” My response is always, “that’s very nice, but there are many vice ministers”. That’s why some of the grand corruption charges in the context of large projects like Oyu Tolgoi never made much sense to me. What single politician was ever in a position over the past 20 years to actually make a project happen? There were always rivals within the party and in the political system who would oppose any initiative by any given individual and would be able to restrain the power of others. This is at heart of one of the puzzles of the past several years, i.e. even with super-majorities in parliament and now the presidency, the MPP does not seem to be able to get all that much done. And, the government has felt compelled to bring the DP and KhUN on-board in their grand coalition because it has been afraid of opposition. That is fragmentation of power in action! And that is a pattern that I’ve seen repeatedly over the past 20 years entirely irrespective of the people involved. Powerful-seeming actors come and go, but the pattern of fragmentation remains and provides some checks-and-balances on the domination by single individuals. Once-powerful-seeming individuals are still active, yet seem to be relegated to the sidelines: Su Batbold, S Bayar, N Enkhbayar, M Enkhbold in the MPP, but also Lu Bold, S Erdene, Ch Saikhanbileg, even Ts Elbegdorj are all examples of that.

Political Vacuousness

Another pattern is the emptiness of the various power struggles. Did Enkhbayar have a substantive disagreement with the rests of the MPRP? Have Battulga and Elbegdorj pursued different policies? Do Khurelsukh and Oyun-Erdene have different goals? Generally, no. In fact, one of the puzzles about actors like Enkhbayar, Battulga, and Khurelsukh especially is that it remains unclear to me why they are even in politics. Has one of the three of them actually had a political project? Can you name a general political idea that any of them have pursued to make the world or Mongolia a better place? No, 1 billion trees do not count for a political goal. So, when the individuals involved in today’s political struggles (not debates!), the impact on decisions is actually entirely unclear. If any of the speculation about various changes of government (oh, have we had a lot of speculation of that kind over the past 20 years!) ever came true, would any actual policies have changed?

Of course, it is this vacuousness and absence of any actual political goals that fuels a lot of the concern about these individuals. If my observation that neither Battulga nor Khurelsukh really have any kind of substantive agenda for the future of Mongolia, their apparent desire to run for second presidential terms is a concern, because it seems to be a desire to be in power for power’s sake. And, I think that’s why many debates are consumed with speculation about specific constellations of actors. Since we cannot engage with factions led by these kind of politicians about the substance of policies they might pursue, we are left to speculate about their power ambitions and what those ambitions might mean for democracy (generally, nothing good).

Speculation

So, I generally try to stay away from speculation about the future trajectory of “leaders”. Perhaps, that is an important role to play for someone who continues to observe the political scene over many years. “Remember M Enkhbold? Oh you don’t? So, don’t worry so much about Khurelsukh.” I am more interested in finding underlying patterns like the fragmentation of power, the absence of substance from political debates, or the persistent belief in single “best” solutions, sometimes justified as “pragmatism”.

Of course, that bears the risk, that one of these times, I will be wrong and some leader will actually emerge to become authoritarian or destroy democracy, and that is a real worry. But, that was a worry just as much eight or twelve years ago, as it is now.

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