Resource extraction and national anxieties: China’s economic presence in Mongolia

Abstract

Over the last two decades and particularly in the last 10 years, Chinese investment in Mongolia has skyrocketed, with the vast majority of the country’s exports now flowing to China. As foreign investment has grown in Mongolia, particularly in the mining sector, apprehension circulates about the extension and meaning of increased Chinese power. We argue that contemporary anxieties about China’s economic influence in Mongolia go beyond recent and contemporary political economic issues and are tied to memories of the Qing Dynasty. Controversies surrounding Mongolia’s flagship mine, the Oyu Tolgoi copper–gold mine in South Gobi province, demonstrate how even non-Chinese foreign mining operations are intertwined with Mongolia’s past and future relationships with China. Rather than acting simply as resource nationalists, the people and government of Mongolia often see contemporary Chinese economic power through a historical lens, with fears of declining sovereignty and becoming Chinese through control over land and resources. This paper draws on fieldwork conducted by the authors in Mongolia from 2009 to 2015 and contributes to discussions about fears of Chinese influence, extractive industry development, and resource nationalism in Mongolia.