Published: 8:17pm, 2 Sep 2025Updated: 9:54pm, 2 Sep 2025
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday urged Russia and Mongolia to deepen their energy and financial bonds with his country while fending off “external interference”.
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The three countries must further strengthen “solidarity” amid increasingly turbulent international dynamics, Xi said during his first trilateral summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa in three years.
“China is ready to work with Russia and Mongolia to strengthen political mutual trust … eliminate external interference and jointly promote high-quality development of trilateral cooperation,” Xi said at the summit in Beijing, according to state news agency Xinhua.
China and Russia have boosted economic and security ties as both face growing geopolitical pressure from the West. But Mongolia – a de facto buffer zone between the two nuclear giants during the Cold War – has seemingly placed greater emphasis on its “third neighbour” foreign policy.
By that approach, the landlocked country has worked to develop partnerships with the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union to diversify its diplomacy, trade and security relations beyond Beijing and Moscow.
As the US-China strategic rivalry continues to intensify over trade and technology, with rare earths – critical to semiconductor and clean energy sectors – now a key bargaining chip, Mongolia’s vast mineral wealth has elevated its strategic significance in the global political landscape.