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1 1 (October 4, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govencf0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Sers inferming th legislative diebate sin'o 1914 Mongolia Overview Mongolia is a landlocked country that shares borders with two powerful neighbors, Russia and China. With a population of about 3.3 million and a land area slightly smaller than Alaska, Mongolia is the most sparsely inhabited country in the world. About half of the country's population lives in the capital, Ulaanbaatar. While Mongolians were traditionally nomadic pastoralists, the country's economy is now highly dependent on its extensive mineral resources, with extractive industries accounting for the vast majority of Mongolian exports. For almost 70 years after it declared independence from China in 1921, Mongolia was a satellite state of the Soviet Union, under the one-party rule of the communist Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP). Following a peaceful revolution in 1990, Mongolia embarked on a successful democratic transition. Mongolia's foreign relations are driven by a desire to balance Chinese and Russian influence by engaging with a range of partners, including the United States and other countries such as South Korea and Japan. Some Members of Congress have expressed support for expanding U.S. engagement with Mongolia. Figure I. Mongolia at a Glance Sources: Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, 2023. Map created by CRS. Political Background Mongolia's political system is semi-presidential, with a parliament and prime minister as well as a popularly elected president. The Mongolian prime minister is the head of government with primary responsibility for executive ministries, while the president plays a primary role in foreign policy, chairs the National Security Council, and serves as the commander in chief of the armed forces. Although Mongolia has a multiparty system, since the country's democratization in 1990 political power has alternated between the two major parties, the Mongolian People's Party (MPP, the successor to the MPRP) and the Democratic Party (DP). The DP and the MPP have established a track record of peaceful transitions of power. For most of its democratic history, Mongolia had a divided government, with the presidency and the parliamentary Updated October 4, 2023 majority held by different parties. That changed in 2021, when the MPP won the presidency after having secured a supermajority in parliament in 2020. Mongolia's June 2021 presidential election delivered a decisive victory for MPP candidate Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Constitutional changes introduced in 2023 are to expand the size of parliament from 76 directly-elected seats to 126 members, 78 directly- elected and 48 proportionally elected from nation-wide party lists. The next parliamentary elections are due in the first half of 2024. Mongolia is the only formerly communist country in Asia classified as free by the U.S. non-governmental organization Freedom House. According to Freedom House, political rights and civil liberties in Mongolia have been firmly institutionalized. The State Department calls Mongolia's achievements in terms of democratization and market reforms considerable, but describes institutional weakness and widespread corruption as enduring challenges. According to the State Department and other observers, corruption remains widespread at all levels of government, and the politicization of anticorruption efforts hampers their effectiveness. Following large anti-corruption protests in 2022, in 2023 Mongolia's government announced a new anti-corruption strategy intended to increase transparency and bolster cooperation with civil society and international organizations. Economy Mongolia's economy is highly dependent on extractive industries, and the country sends most of its exports to China, rendering it vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices and developments in the Chinese economy. Mongolia has extensive deposits of minerals including copper, gold, coal, molybdenum, uranium, tin, and tungsten. While Mongolia's economy traditionally was based on herding and agriculture, the mining sector now accounts for over 25% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). China accounted for 84% of Mongolian exports and 35% of Mongolian imports as of 2022. Russia is Mongolia's second-largest source of imports, accounting for 30% of the total as of 2022, and provides over 90% of Mongolia's energy imports. The World Bank calculates that Mongolia's GDP contracted by 4.4% in 2020 as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a weak recovery of 1.4% growth in 2021. The World Bank estimates that Mongolia's GDP grew by 4.7% in 2022, with inflation exceeding 15% due to border closures resulting from China's zero-COVID policy and the impact of the war in Ukraine resulting in higher prices of imported food, fuel, and fertilizers. The World Bank forecasts that economic growth will accelerate to 5.2% in 2023 and exceed 6% in 2024-2025.

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