preface
I believe everyone knows that recently Mongolia is called a dishonest:
As a weak agricultural country next to China and Russia, I don't want to hug my "thighs," but instead want to hook up with United States, which can be called "death."
In fact, this is not the first time that Mongolia has made such an outrageous operation, and in order to get rid of its dependence on the mainland, it has specifically sought India to help build a factory.
But before the start of construction, they suddenly found that they still needed to ask China for one thing...
The plight of Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked steppe country in central Asia completely surrounded by China and Russia.
This vast steppe once gave birth to the mighty Mongolia Empire and is now known for its abundant natural resources:
According to the results of geological exploration, the country's oil reserves are as high as 332.6 million tons, which is enough to make many countries envious, and in addition to oil, Mongolia also has rich mineral resources such as coal, copper, iron, zinc, tungsten, fluorite, etc.
In particular, Mongolia has considerable gold reserves.
Confusingly, however, such abundant resources did not bring the expected prosperity to Mongolia.
On the contrary, the country often suffers from energy shortages, especially in oil, and Mongolia often faces oil crises due to lack of supplies, forcing it to turn to its neighboring mainland for help.
The fundamental reason for this situation lies in the weakness of Mongolia's industrial base.
Let's take United States as a positive example, the reason why it can become the world's largest oil producer is not only because of its vast land area, but more importantly, because of its innovation in oil extraction and processing technology.
In particular, the rise of the shale oil revolution has greatly increased United States' oil production, making it dominant in the global energy market.
But Mongolia is the opposite, although it has rich oil resources, it has no refineries in the country, and completely lacks the ability to convert crude oil into usable fuel.
It's like a farmer with a warehouse full of grain, but no mill to process the grain into flour.
As a result, Mongolia has to transport its crude oil to its two neighbors, China and Russia, for processing, and then buy back the refined oil at a high price, which undoubtedly greatly increases costs.
Faced with this dilemma, the Mongolia government has been looking for a solution, knowing that to achieve true energy independence, it must build its own refining capacity.
However, building a modern refinery requires a lot of financial and technical support, which is a huge challenge for Mongolia.
After years of consideration and planning, the Mongolia government finally made a major decision in 2017: to build the country's first modern oil refinery.
This decision marks a key step on the road to energy independence for Mongolia, but the imagination is beautiful, but the reality is still difficult, and the first is that Mongolia does not have the corresponding funds and technology.
To this end, Mongolia needs to seek partners, and although China and Russia have the ability, they are obviously not suitable, and the reasons need not be said to everyone.
Therefore, Mongolia finally set its sights on India, which has delicate relations with China and Russia.
Mongolian-Indian cooperation
The reason why the Mongolia Congress and India cooperate undoubtedly contains complex geopolitical considerations and economic trade-offs:
What may surprise many is that this choice was not initiated by Mongolia alone, but was the result of India's active pursuit of cooperation.
India, as a rising power, has always aspired to play a more important role on the international stage, especially in the Asian region.
Therefore, India has made competition with China an important goal, hoping to increase its influence in neighboring countries in various ways, and Mongolia has become an ideal entry point.
Located in the north of China and bordering China for 4,677 kilometers, Mongolia's strategic position is self-evident.
By forging closer economic ties with Mongolia, India could somewhat weaken China's influence in the region while expanding its own geopolitical sphere.
In addition, India has been facing severe energy shortages before.
For a long time, India has had to rely on energy imports from Russia, Middle Eastern countries and Western countries, which not only increases the economic burden, but also puts India in a passive position in the international energy market.
By helping Mongolia build a refinery, India sees an opportunity to access cheap energy, and once the refinery is completed and put into operation, India will be able to buy petroleum products from Mongolia on more favorable terms, thereby easing domestic energy pressure.
To achieve this, India has shown unprecedented generosity, with the India government not only pledging technical support and expertise, but also issuing concessional loans of nearly $1 billion.
This loan is undoubtedly a huge temptation for cash-strapped Mongolia.
For India, the investment is not small, but it is worth it if it can be exchanged for long-term energy supply security and geopolitical influence.
In this way, driven by the common interests of both sides, Mongolia and India soon reached a cooperation agreement and decided to start the construction of the refinery as soon as possible.
However, as with many grand plans, the challenges are often more severe than expected:
The harsh natural environment of Mongolia country poses great challenges to the project, and most of the Mongolia country has a plateau arid climate, with long, cold winters and short, hot summers. In such climatic conditions, construction work can only be carried out in a limited time, which significantly extends the project period.
However, this is only a minor problem, because the most intractable issue for both Mongolia and India, and the one they are least willing to face, is that they have to seek help from China.
The reason for this is transportation, the construction of a modern refinery requires a large number of large equipment and special materials, and the transportation of these materials places extremely high demands on the infrastructure.
Unfortunately, Mongolia's transport infrastructure is seriously backward and simply cannot meet such a large-scale transport demand.
Faced with this dilemma, Mongolia had to put down its position and turn to China for help, and they implored China to speed up the construction of railway corridors to China, hoping to solve transportation problems with the help of China's perfect railway network.
The request undoubtedly embarrassed Mongolia, as one of the reasons it chose to cooperate with India was to reduce its dependence on China, but practical needs ultimately trumped political considerations.
China responded positively to Mongolia's request, after all, as a responsible major country, China has always been committed to promoting regional connectivity and common development.
Although Mongolia's cooperation target this time is India, China still agrees to speed up the construction of relevant railway projects based on the principle of good-neighborliness and friendship.
In this way, after overcoming many difficulties, the refinery project of Mongolian-Indian cooperation was finally officially launched in 2021.
According to the plan, the refinery will be put into production in 2027, which will be an important milestone in the history of Mongolia's energy development.
However, it is worth mentioning that although the project was originally a cooperation between Mongolia and India, Chinese companies are now also involved in its construction.