Complex history and relations of China and Mongolia

Second comments on Justin Li “Chinese investment in Mongolia: An uneasy courtship between Goliath and David”, 2/02/2011, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/02/02/chinese-investment-in-mongolia-an-uneasy-courtship-between-goliath-and-david/#comments

Questions for Bold (who posted a comment there on 4 Feb 2011):

While the Mongolians may be bitter in terms of the parts lost which they may think belonged to them, much more Chinese may think that Mongolia should have never been allowed to split from China. And indeed many mainland Chinese have been very bitter towards the communists and the communist government that had ‘agreed’ to the independence of Mongolia in the first place.

In that context, the Mongols should be grateful to the Chinese communists and the communist government, because the other major political party in the last century in China was the Gomindang that is now in government in Taiwan and it has been said that they did not accept Mongolia’s independence. Should they be in government in the mainland, they may still want Mongolia back to China!

It is true that the Han Chinese and Mongolians may have fought each other for many centuries, but it is equally true and a fact they became one for hundreds of years until the Mongolia’s succession from China in the first half of the last century, whether it was the Mongols conquered China or China colonised Mongolia does not matter much. The time they were one is longer than the time the history of the current USA, and certainly than current Australia!

It is clearly difficult to evaluate the opinion polls you cited without knowing the detailed sources of those polls.

But for many Chinese, both mainland and in Taiwan, they may not trust those polls and the purposes of those Western organisations. They may think some Westerners simply want to divide China and make it weaker. And by that logic, they suspect that some Westerners clearly don’t want to see China becomes any territorially larger.