International: Matter of Ritual

If it is really possible to govern a country by ritual and yielding, there is no more to be said. But if it is not really possible, of what use is ritual?

—Confucius

China's claim to suzerainty over Mongolia was mostly ritual and yielding. In 1921 Russia's Bolsheviks, taking advantage of China's own Civil War, helped out a local revolution against Chinese rule, and in 1924 Bolshevik Choibalsan set up the Soviet puppet People's Republic of Mongolia (pop. 900,000), an area more than twice the size of Texas, wedged between Soviet Siberia and China....

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