After Mao takes power in China, is it possible for him to invade Mongolia and annex it? Can this happen without the USSr threatening to go to war over this? And if so when’s the best time for Mao to do so?
After Mao takes power in China, is it possible for him to invade Mongolia and annex it? Can this happen without the USSr threatening to go to war over this? And if so when’s the best time for Mao to do so?
Mongolia and the People's Republic of China (PRC) recognized each other in 1949, and the PRC relinquished all claims to Outer Mongolia. However, Mao Zedong privately hoped for Mongolia's reintegration with China. He raised this question before the Soviet leadership as early as 1949 (in meeting with Anastas Mikoyan at Xibaipo), and then, after having been firmly rebuffed by Stalin, again in 1954, a year after Stalin's death. In 1956, following Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin, the Chinese leaders attempted to present Mongolia's independence as one of Stalin's mistakes in meetings with Mikoyan. The Soviet response was that the Mongols were free to decide their own fate.[16]
Mao did request Stalin to allow Inner and Outer Mongolia to be united as part of the PRC. But given the PRC's dependence on the Soviet Union, requesting was all he could do, and of course Stalin tuned him down:
"And on September 29, 1949, at another informal meeting at Sochi on the Black Sea, Stalin tested Choibalsang's reaction to Mao Zedong's recent request to Moscow that Inner and Outer Mongolia be unified as an autonomous part of China. Choibalsang protested that he supported unification but only with the resulting united Mongolia as an independent state. Stalin agreed, but asked Choibalsang to be patient; Lenin had allowed Finland and Poland to become independent, but Mao Zedong was no Lenin. In any case, he assured the Mongolian leader, the Bolsheviks would always stand for the unification of nations. The idea of unification had become just another topic of idle political speculation." https://books.google.com/books?id=BoWGituXr8MC&pg=PA157
That likely leads to war with the Soviets though. Which China is unlikely to win.Maybe during the Sino-Soviet split these could try.
That likely leads to war with the Soviets though. Which China is unlikely to win.