After unrest and scandal, Mongolians are steeled for change

In December, temperatures, amid sub-zero thousands of Mongolians turned up in Sükhbaatar Square in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, to protest about rampant corruption, and for a moment the Asian democracy, sitting uneasily between China and Russia, looked as though it might crumble.

- Patrick Wintour

That this would have mattered to the west is shown by the number of European politicians who since have travelled to the capital, including Emmanuel Macron, the French president, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, and her French counterpart, Catherine Colonna.

Mongolia, with a population of more than 3 million, is not strategically important, but is rich in coal, copper and critical minerals, including the uranium that France needs for its nuclear energy. Hundreds of international investors were in the capital last weekend for an economic forum.

One blight holding the country back, and making it more dependent on its two neighbours, is corruption, according to Nyambaatar Khishgee, the minister of justice, who has been tasked with cleaning up the country's act.

Two scandals in particular - a four-year heist involving coal exports to China, and the abuse of cheap education loans by politicians and their associates - have led to deep discontent. Nyambaatar, part of a new, younger generation of politicians not raised in the Soviet Union's shadow, does not try to hide the scale of the crisis: "Ever since Mongolia became a democracy 30 years ago, an insider group regarded state funds and state-owned enterprises as a licence for personal gain."