Opinion India and Mongolia: Beyond uranium diplomacy

In terms of location,few countries are as strategic as Mongolia. And fewer share so much spiritual heritage with India. Above all Mongolia is critical for a rising India’s Asian strategy.

After its liberation from three-and-a-half decades of international isolation,the Department of Atomic Energy has embarked on an ambitious expansion of India’s nuclear power programme.

Given the limited uranium resources at home,the DAE needs to have reliable agreements on importing the stuff.

The Foreign Office is now on a mission mode to secure uranium deals. As part of its uranium diplomacy,South Block has reached out to Namibia,Tajikistan,Kazakhstan,Russia and France to name a few.

Mongolia’s uranium reserves are estimated to be around some 62,000 tonnes,putting it in the list of the world’s top 15. That figure could be at least twice as much,according to some reports.

Mongolia with no nuclear power plants and a population of just over 3 million has every incentive to export uranium.

On a visit to Ulan Bator last month,Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed agreements on joint exploration and mining of uranium. If Russia has become the first country to sign a uranium deal with Mongolia,India could well become the second this week.

Uranium is only one element of Mongolia’s vast mineral riches. Ulan Bator is setting up a sovereign wealth fund to manage its booming mining sector. In Mongolia’s recent presidential elections,distribution of the mineral wealth was the main political question.

As India’s own demand for imported natural resources multiplies,

Mongolia is a natural and long-term economic partner. It is the geopolitical location,however,that makes Mongolia very special for India’s Asian strategy.

Land-locked by Russia to the north and China to the South (its only two neighbours),Mongolia has long been the pivot of inner Asia.

Recall that the Great Mongol Genghis Khan had conquered much of Eurasia and his descendants (including our own Moguls) had ruled it for centuries. By the second half of the twentieth century,however,Mongolia was reduced to a passive buffer between Russia and China.

Since the end of the Cold War,Mongolia’s innate strategic genius has reasserted itself in creating a dynamic foreign policy. Calling America its ‘third neighbour’,Mongolia has deftly played a balance of power game between Beijing,Moscow and Washington.

With President Elbegdorj choosing India for his first foreign destination,Delhi has the rare opportunity to emerge as Mongolia’s ‘fourth neighbour’. All it needs is to match the strategic imagination of Ulan Bator and reciprocate the special warmth that Mongolia reserves for India

(C. Raja Mohan is the Henry A Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress,Washington.)