LegiStorm

Summary:

Mongolia is a sparsely populated young democracy in a remote part of Asia, sandwiched between two powerful large neighbors, China and Russia. It made its transition to democracy and free market reforms peacefully in 1990, after nearly 70 years as a Soviet satellite state. A quarter of a century later, the predominantly Tibetan Buddhist nation remains the only formerly Communist Asian nation to have embraced democracy. Congress has shown a strong interest in Mongolia since 1990, funding assistance programs, approving the transfer of excess defense articles, ratifying a bilateral investment treaty, passing legislation to extend permanent normal trade relations, and passing seven resolutions commending Mongolia's progress and supporting strong U.S.-Mongolia relations. Congressional interest is Mongolia has focused on the country's story of democratic development. Since passing a democratic constitution in 1992, Mongolia has held six direct presidential elections and six direct parliamentary elections. The State Department considers Mongolia's most recent elections to have been generally "free and fair" and said that in 2013, Mongolia "generally respected" freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. It raised concerns, however, about corruption and lack of transparency in government affairs. On the economic front, Mongolia's mineral wealth, including significant reserves of coal, copper, gold, and uranium, offers investment opportunities for American companies. Foreign investors and the U.S. government have criticized Mongolia's unpredictable investment climate, however. In the fall of 2013, Mongolia passed a new investment law and, after years of negotiations, signed a transparency agreement with the United States. Both developments served to reassure investors, although the Mongolian parliament has yet to ratify the transparency agreement. Mongolia was among the first nations to join the coalition for the Iraq War and its troops have been deployed in Afghanistan since 2003. It is also an active contributor of troops to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and, with the United States, hosts an annual multinational peacekeeping exercise in Mongolia known as Khaan Quest. Mongolia is an active participant in many international organizations, in which it often supports U.S. positions. It has also been an active member of international groupings dedicated to promoting democracy, including the Community of Democracies, for which it held the rotating chairmanship from 2011 to 2013. In the summer of 2014, Mongolia took over the rotating chairmanship of the Freedom Online Coalition, which describes itself as "an inter-governmental coalition committed to advancing Internet freedom—free expression, association, assembly, and privacy online—worldwide." Mongolia is also in the process of joining the Open Government Partnership, a White House-backed multilateral initiative. Mongolia seeks to maintain "balanced relations" with its two immediate neighbors, China and Russia. China has emerged as Mongolia's largest trading partner and foreign investor. Russia is Mongolia's largest source of energy products. Mongolia has diplomatic relations with both North and South Korea and has sought to play a role in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. To ensure its continued independence and sovereignty, Mongolia has also prioritized the development of relations with so-called "third neighbors," countries that do not border Mongolia, but have close ties to Mongolia. That list includes the United States. In 1992, Mongolia declared itself a single-state nuclear-weapons-free zone; in 2012, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council each pledged to respect the designation.