In December, amid sub-zero temperatures, thousands of Mongolians turned up in Sükhbaatar Square in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, to protest about rampant corruption, and for a moment the Asian democracy, sitting uneasily between China and Russia, looked as though it might crumble.
That this would have mattered to the west is shown by the number of European politicians who since have travelled to the capital, including Emmanuel Macron, the French president, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, and her French counterpart, Catherine Colonna.
Mongolia, with a population of more than 3 million, is not strategically important, but is rich in coal, copper and critical minerals, including the uranium that France needs for its nuclear energy. Hundreds of international investors were in the capital last weekend for…