The "Siberia-2" gas pipeline is advancing slowly, Mongolia can't sit still first, and takes the initiative to talk to China and Russia about cooperation.
Mongolia took the initiative to talk to China and Russia to speed up the construction of the pipeline
Hearing that China no longer insists on building the "Siberia 2" gas pipeline, Mongolia will not be able to sit still.
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported on January 24 that Mongolia hopes to strengthen its connectivity with China and Russia and build a gas pipeline across China, Mongolia and Russia. In a sign of good faith, Mongolia's prime minister also told The Washington Post that Ulaanbaatar was conducting further studies on the feasibility of the project, hoping to connect it to China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Mongolia thinks too well, it doesn't pay a penny, let China be the "wronged leader", and when the project is completed, it will sit back and reap the benefits of the fisherman. It is worth noting: when it comes to doing business, China is the "ancestor" of Mongolia and Russia.
It has been reported that China has put forward two core opinions to Russia on the construction of the "Siberian Pipeline No. 2."
First of all, China is no longer responsible for the project, China only builds pipelines located in China, and provides survey and construction support for the project as much as possible, and the latter will find a solution for the Russian and Mongolian sections. Second, China has demanded that Russia sign a "long-term contract", and the price of natural gas cannot be decided by Russia alone.
China's move shows that cooperation should be mutually beneficial, balanced, and that the risks should be borne by all parties, and that China has gotten rid of the disadvantageous situation of being choked by Russia or Mongolia at every turn.
When cooperating with China, we can't always think about China making profits
Some people may say that China is a big energy consumer and does not have a say in this issue. However, they ignore the reality that China, with its 9.6 million square kilometers of land, is actually a veritable energy producer, but China is relatively low-key and unwilling to show its strength.
Data shows that in 2023, China consumed about 700 million tons of oil, of which 500 million tons came from imports from Russia and other countries, and the remaining 200 million tons were produced and sold by China. 200 million tonnes is just a general answer to China's efforts to ensure that the "carbon emission plan" can continue to advance and avoid excessive damage to the environment.
If China fills up its production capacity, it is estimated that the amount of oil imported will be well below 500 million tons a year. At the moment when pure electric vehicles are popularized, China does not need to consume too much natural gas, coal and crude oil, and Russia, Mongolia and other major energy exporters must be aware of this.
China's role shift also shows that China has taken the lead in negotiations with its neighbors, and that the era of "resources are king" is becoming a thing of the past because of the success of China's industrial transformation. Against this backdrop, what confidence does Mongolia have to ask China to push forward with the China-Mongolia-Russia energy pipeline project?
Unless Mongolia uses the land as collateral, the Chinese side will not be much interested in Mongolia's proposal. After all, the relationship between Russia and Mongolia is far closer than that between China and Mongolia, and if Putin still has a grudge against China, then a lot of cooperation will not be able to start.
If memory serves, Putin has repeatedly asked China to speed up the pace of building factories in Russia, hoping that Chinese companies will help Russia achieve industrial transformation. But the problem also arises: Russia is sparsely populated, the land is vast, the market is frozen, and the conditions for the large-scale development of labor-intensive industries are simply not available.
As a result, during the two years of deepening Sino-Russian cooperation, China only symbolically built several assembly plants in Moscow and the Far East, and Chinese investment fell far short of Putin's expectations. Even basic industrial and scientific and technological cooperation cannot be fully rolled out, let alone the construction of the "project of the century" that spans China, Mongolia and Russia and has a total cost of more than $27 billion.
One more thing to mention here: the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, led by China, has not yet started. One reason is that Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan lack funds, and they may fantasize that China will do good things to the end and help them build their own railways. China is not a great benevolent person, and it is impossible for everything to be oriented towards its neighbors.
To cooperate with China, Russia and Mongolia need more sincerity
Aside from the commercial factor, there is one fact that China cannot ignore.
On the one hand, Russia still has a strong influence over Central Asia and Mongolia, and these countries are inevitably worried that strengthening cooperation with China will provoke Putin's dissatisfaction. On the other hand, the United States and Europe have constantly fenced China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, and the United States has even sent special envoys to persuade Mongolia to sign some unreasonable agreements with itself.
You see, China is very benevolent to its neighbors, but the latter does not appreciate it very much, so it is difficult to continue such cooperation. Cooperation cannot be China's "shaving its head and picking its head hot", and it requires mutual encouragement from both sides, but China's neighboring countries will only fight China's "autumn wind" vigorously, and it is even more difficult for them to pay for it than to climb to the sky.
To sum up: the reason why the China-Mongolia-Russia pipeline project is still shelved is that Russia and Mongolia are not strong, and they hope to use limited funds or policies to lure China into the game out of their own considerations. Fortunately, China has completed its industrial transformation, and its demand for energy is declining year by year.
Since Mongolia wants to connect with China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, it is better to show full sincerity first.