蒙古的“第三个邻居”
Mongolia's 'Third Neighbor'
ULAN BATOR -- What is it about Mongolia that makes it such a popular destination for American leaders visiting Asia? President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrive in Ulan Bator today, barely a month after a similar trip by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Of course, visiting Mongolia is more fun than the more usual trips to Beijing or Tokyo. Mr. Rumsfeld visited a yurt and was given a horse as a gift, which he promptly named Montana. And the romance of the Mongolian steppe and the legacy of Genghis Khan all but ensures plenty of colorful press coverage.
But even fun needs justification and Mongolia has earned its place on so many crowded itineraries because it combines the big geo-strategic issues preoccupying Washington at present. For one thing it's a textbook example of the global trend toward democracy that the administration is promoting -- Mongolia earned kudos in the 1990s as Asia's only successful transition from Communism to a market economy. In addition, the country is on the front line in dealing with the rise of China, and has been a faithful ally in the war on terror.
Perhaps no other people in the world has spent so many centuries thinking how to handle the Chinese as the Mongolians. Chinese efforts to assimilate the Mongolians in the early 20th century left a legacy of bitterness and suspicions which pushed Mongolia into the Russian orbit, where it remained until the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the mid-1980s.
In the last five years, Mongolia has become a supplier of choice for China's ravenous appetite for copper, zinc, iron, and even petroleum, fueling a booming mining economy. But Mongolians still retain their East European-style consumer tastes and turn up their noses at China's supposedly shoddy imports. Optimists see their country as playing Canada to a Chinese U.S.: a supplier of raw materials and a northern wilderness vacation spot. However many more Mongolians worry about being so dependent on their giant southern neighbor. And as China continues to rise, Mongolia looks set to become one of the first test cases of whether small countries can continue to thrive next to Asia's emerging giant.
When it comes to the war on terror, Mongolia's steady support is a welcome contrast to street demonstrations that senior members of the Bush administration often face during overseas visits. Mongolia's small army is being reconfigured as a peace-keeping force and five teams of Mongolian soldiers, 130 men each, have done tours in southern Iraq, thus far without casualties and without any talk of an early withdrawal. Mongolian troops are also helping to keep the peace in Afghanistan.
What's in this for Mongolia? Since winning freedom for the stifling Soviet embrace, Mongolia's foreign policy has focused on cultivating good relations with a "third neighbor" to balance ties with China and Russia. Economically and politically, that means cultivating closer ties with the rest of the world. But militarily and strategically, Mongolia is increasingly leaning very much toward a geographically distant "third neighbor" -- the U.S.
The challenge for both sides is to overcome the geographic hurdles that risk limiting the U.S.-Mongolian relationship to romantic images and high-level visits. Ironically, it is unplanned initiatives that may be doing this most effectively. Due to a loophole in American trade regulations, the U.S. looms surprisingly large in the Mongolian economy. Under the old multi-fiber agreement that governed international textile trade, Mongolia was exempt from any quota for imports into the U.S., so Chinese and Hong Kong traders and businessmen set up assembly plants in Mongolia to do final assembly of clothes destined for the American market. As a result, Mongolia's exports to the U.S., negligible in 1995, hit 20% of Mongolia's total exports in 2000.
By 2004, Mongolia's exports to the U.S. had doubled in value again. But the end of these quotas at the start of this year knocked Mongolia's exports to the U.S. back to 2001 levels. So far, most of Mongolia's more than 30,000 textile workers have retained their jobs, as investors bet that trade spats between China and the U.S. will continue, but their future is uncertain.
People to people ties with America are also increasing, particularly in that most unplanned of ways: illegal immigration. Mongolian communities of up to several thousand strong now exist in Washington, Denver, and Chicago, with smaller concentrations elsewhere. Several Mongolian language weeklies are already published in the U.S., filled with articles on immigration procedures and advertisements for Mongolian real estate brokers -- one-time nomads now selling tract homes in the suburbs.
For almost a century, Mongolia has been searching for independence, first and foremost from the limitation of her geography. Since 1990, successive U.S. administrations have played an active role in helping this people in the heart of Asia embrace market democracy. But while both governments further their common interests and values, trade and immigration are bringing ordinary Mongolians and Americans together as never before.
Mr. Atwood is a professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University and author of "Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire" (Facts on File, 2004).
蒙古的“第三个邻居”
蒙古何以成为美国领导人每每出访亚洲时非常热衷的目的地呢？总统布什 (George W. Bush) 和国务卿赖斯 (Condoleezza Rice) 将于周一访问乌兰巴托，这距国防部长拉姆斯菲尔德 (Donald Rumsfeld) 访问蒙古仅有一个月的时间。
当然，访问蒙古比多次出访北京或东京更加有趣。拉姆斯菲尔德参观了一座蒙古包，得到了一匹马作为礼物，他当即给这匹马起名为蒙大拿。蒙古草原的浪漫和成吉思汗 (Genghis Khan) 的传奇都成为众多媒体绘声绘色描写的重心。
但即使是有趣也需要充分的理由，蒙古在如此紧凑的访问日程中赢得了自己的一席之地是因为它存在目前令华盛顿著迷的地缘战略问题。首先，蒙古已经成为向民主体制转变的全球趋势中的教学范例──它是 90 年代亚洲唯一一个从共产主义成功转变为市场经济的国家。此外，蒙古还处于直接面对中国崛起的前沿，并成为反恐战争中值得信赖的盟友。
也许世界上再没有其他人象蒙古人那样用了这么长的时间考虑如何同中国人打交道。中国在 20 世纪初试图同化蒙古人的努力给他们留下了苦涩和猜忌，使他们投入了苏联的怀抱，这种状况一直持续到 80 年代中后期苏维埃联盟解体。
在过去 5 年里，蒙古已经成为中国进口铜、锌、钢铁，甚至石油的来源之一，带动了采矿业的蓬勃发展。但蒙古人仍保留著东欧式的消费习惯，对来自中国的伪劣进口品嗤之以鼻。乐观主义者认为他们同中国的关系就如同加拿大对于美国一样：原材料的供应国、北方的度假胜地。不过，越来越多的蒙古人对如此依赖于南方的强大邻国感到忧心忡忡。随著中国的继续崛起，蒙古将成为首个面临考验的国家：紧邻亚洲新兴巨人的小国能否继续保持繁荣发展。
在反恐战争方面，蒙古坚定的支持同布什政府高官在访问其他国家时经常遇到的街头抗议形成了鲜明对照。蒙古弱小的军队被重新武装成维和力量，共有 5 批蒙古士兵（每批 130 人）进驻伊拉克南部，迄今为止还没有伤亡事件，也没有任何关于提前撤军的言论。蒙古军队还参与了阿富汗的维和行动。
这对蒙古意味著什么？自从摆脱了苏联的束缚后，蒙古的对外政策就强调同“第三个邻居”构建良好的关系，以平衡与中国和俄罗斯的关系。在经济上和政治上，这意味著同世界其他国家建立更密切的关系。但在军事上和战略上，蒙古越来越向地理上非常遥远的“第三个邻居”──美国倾斜。
双方面临的挑战是克服可能影响美蒙关系深入发展的地理障碍。具有讽刺意味的是，计划之外的行动却可能最为有效。由于美国贸易规定中存在的漏洞，美国在蒙古经济中的地位显得尤为突出。根据老的管理全球纺织品贸易的多边纺织品协定，蒙古在美国进口产品中可免受配额约束，因此中国大陆和香港的贸易及商业人士纷纷在蒙古设立组装厂，从事以美国为目的地的后期服装成型工作。因此，蒙古对美国的出口在 1995 年还几乎可以忽略不计，但在 2000 年就占到蒙古总出口额的 20% 。到 2004 年，蒙古对美国的出口额又增长了一倍。但在今年初取消配额制后，蒙古对美国出口受到冲击，又回到了 2001 年时的水平。迄今为止，蒙古 3 万多名纺织工人中的大多数仍保留著工作，因为投资者认为中美之间的贸易纠纷仍将持续，但这些人的未来充满著不确定性。
同美国有所联系的人也在不断增加，尤其是以完全没有计划的方式：非法移民。在华盛顿、丹佛和芝加哥，现在已经出现了拥有数千人的蒙古人社区，其他地区也有一些规模较小的社区。几种蒙古语周刊已经在美国发行，充斥著移民程序的文章和蒙古房地产经纪人的广告。
近一个世纪以来，蒙古一直在寻求独立，这首先就面临著地理位置的局限性。自 1990 年以来，历届美国政府在帮助蒙古走向市场民主方面发挥了积极作用。不过，在双方政府加强共同利益和价值的同时，贸易和移民也使普通蒙古人和美国人前所未有地走到了一起。
（编者按： Christopher P. Atwood 是印第安那大学中欧亚研究教授，《蒙古及蒙古帝国百科全书》 (Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire, Facts on File, 2004) 的作者。）
