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This article provides an analysis of Mongolia’s foreign relations with the post-Soviet Central Asian states, particularly with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and their prospects going forward. It provides an overview of relations and analysis of why, despite shared geocultural identities and geopolitical imperatives, their relationship remains more distant than Mongolia’s relations with its other neighbors of East Asia. It then assesses the changes brought by the dynamics of a rising Chinese power projection as manifested through its Belt and Road Initiative in the region, and, using the IR theories on rising powers and weak state behavior, examines the impetus of these shifting dynamics for future Mongolia–Central Asia relations.

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