China's Communist Party celebrated its 70th anniversary on October 1 by parading an array of advanced weaponry through the streets of Beijing. Two weeks earlier, Khaltmaagiin Battulga, the charismatic and populist president of neighboring Mongolia, paid his first state visit to India.
The two events were connected, an example of the way smaller countries on China's periphery are busily seeking new allies to balance their neighbor's growing might. Yet Battulga's visit, and Mongolia's attempts to seek new friends more broadly, also show the limitations of that approach.
