The Development of Outer Mongolian Independence

Abstract

IPHE collapse of Tsarist Russia in I9I7 found neither Mongols nor Chinese ready to take up the initiative which Russia had lost.' In i9i9, a Chinese army was sent to Outer Mongolia to restore Chinese control, under Little Hsii, a member of the Anfu party, then in control of North China, which was under strong Japanese influence. There is reason therefore to regard the Chinese intervention as being at the same time a Japanese maneuver to replace Russian control in Outer Mongolia with an indirect Japanese control through Chinese agents. Representing that they had been sent only to guard the Siberian frontier and prevent the spread into Outer Mongolia of the Russian civil war, the Chinese troops entered Mongolia unopposed. Then instead of proceeding to the Siberian frontier, they seized Urga, making hostages of the Living Buddha of Urga and other high personages. The next step was to force the Mongols to renounce not only their claims to independence but even the limited which Russia had established on their behalf, and to force them to present a petition asking for the restoration of Chinese rule.2 This humiliation appeared at first to vindicate the doggedness with which China had resisted every step in the partial and illusory liberation of the Mongols. Miller, the Russian Diplomatic Agent in Mongolia, had reported at the time of the I9I5 tripartite negotiations at Kiakhta that the Chinese declaration on suzerainty and autonomy was aimed at bringing Mongolia back to its previous