Equine Diplomacy
It is hard to recall a White House trip that has afforded more access to local color than Vice-President Biden’s Asia tour, which concludes today in Japan.
In Beijing, he dined at a local canteen that specializes in pungent intestine soup. (He ordered noodles instead, igniting a small tourist rush on the joint, which, in the days since, has created a “Biden set meal” and has had to hire more staff.) He attended a basketball game one night before the arena became host to a bench-clearing, chair-swinging brawl between U.S. and Chinese players.
And arriving Monday in Mongolia—where he was the first U.S. Vice-President to visit since Henry Wallace in 1944—Biden received an official gift-horse, a handsome colt. Heeding metaphor, he immediately placed a blue ribbon around its neck and named the beast “Celtic,” after his Irish origins.
As dictated by Mongolian tradition, Biden then entrusted it to the care of a local herder. (Sorry, no pool photos of him wrestling it into the overhead on Air Force Two). One of Biden’s aides solemnly informed reporters that in Mongolia “a horse is one of the most meaningful gifts that can be given.”
Well, I once had the same impression. Mongolians, after all, say they have about four hundred words to describe a horse; thirty-six just for galloping. But when I was in Mongolia a few years ago, I decided to find out what happened to a horse that been given to Donald Rumsfeld in 2005. (Rummy named his coffee-colored mount “Montana,” after his wife’s home state.)
Mongolia is land-locked and still sorting out its lonely role as a democracy on the high plains of Asia, so it spends a lot of its time juggling the relationship with three heavy-breathing allies: the U.S., China, and Russia. It has abundant experience with the rise and fall of great powers. When I asked around about Rumsfeld’s horse, I discovered that Mongolia doled out steeds with alacrity depending on the political winds. Some gray beards at the Foreign Ministry remembered giving horses to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
It turned out that horses had been given to a few lesser V.I.P.s, as well. In 2004, a horse was given to Billy Downs, a businessman from Ferndale, Michigan, who was proprietor of BD’s Mongolian Barbeque. Mongolia, like George W. Bush, is also quick to give out nicknames: it graciously calls America its “third neighbor.” It affords the same nickname to Japan and Europe.
But these days, things are even more complicated for Mongolia: an increasingly confident and prosperous China just pulled off a remarkable bit of not-too-soft power, by getting UNESCO to agree to list Mongolian throat singing as a product of China’s heritage rather than Mongolia’s.
So it was hardly a love of archery that drove Biden to make the trip: among other things, his presence was a reminder to undemocratic neighbors that America would frown on any interference with Mongolian democracy.
China is getting into the gifting spirit. When the prime minister visited Beijing a few years ago, China presented him with two thousand tons of wheat—and a loan of three hundred million dollars.
As for Rumsfeld’s horse, I never found him. By the end of my trip, the defense ministry told me that the horse was back in Khentii province, birthplace of Genghis Khan. I was welcome to keep looking for him in the province, an area the size of Austria.
In Beijing, he dined at a local canteen that specializes in pungent intestine soup. (He ordered noodles instead, igniting a small tourist rush on the joint, which, in the days since, has created a “Biden set meal” and has had to hire more staff.) He attended a basketball game one night before the arena became host to a bench-clearing, chair-swinging brawl between U.S. and Chinese players.
And arriving Monday in Mongolia—where he was the first U.S. Vice-President to visit since Henry Wallace in 1944—Biden received an official gift-horse, a handsome colt. Heeding metaphor, he immediately placed a blue ribbon around its neck and named the beast “Celtic,” after his Irish origins.
As dictated by Mongolian tradition, Biden then entrusted it to the care of a local herder. (Sorry, no pool photos of him wrestling it into the overhead on Air Force Two). One of Biden’s aides solemnly informed reporters that in Mongolia “a horse is one of the most meaningful gifts that can be given.”
Well, I once had the same impression. Mongolians, after all, say they have about four hundred words to describe a horse; thirty-six just for galloping. But when I was in Mongolia a few years ago, I decided to find out what happened to a horse that been given to Donald Rumsfeld in 2005. (Rummy named his coffee-colored mount “Montana,” after his wife’s home state.)
Mongolia is land-locked and still sorting out its lonely role as a democracy on the high plains of Asia, so it spends a lot of its time juggling the relationship with three heavy-breathing allies: the U.S., China, and Russia. It has abundant experience with the rise and fall of great powers. When I asked around about Rumsfeld’s horse, I discovered that Mongolia doled out steeds with alacrity depending on the political winds. Some gray beards at the Foreign Ministry remembered giving horses to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
It turned out that horses had been given to a few lesser V.I.P.s, as well. In 2004, a horse was given to Billy Downs, a businessman from Ferndale, Michigan, who was proprietor of BD’s Mongolian Barbeque. Mongolia, like George W. Bush, is also quick to give out nicknames: it graciously calls America its “third neighbor.” It affords the same nickname to Japan and Europe.
But these days, things are even more complicated for Mongolia: an increasingly confident and prosperous China just pulled off a remarkable bit of not-too-soft power, by getting UNESCO to agree to list Mongolian throat singing as a product of China’s heritage rather than Mongolia’s.
So it was hardly a love of archery that drove Biden to make the trip: among other things, his presence was a reminder to undemocratic neighbors that America would frown on any interference with Mongolian democracy.
China is getting into the gifting spirit. When the prime minister visited Beijing a few years ago, China presented him with two thousand tons of wheat—and a loan of three hundred million dollars.
As for Rumsfeld’s horse, I never found him. By the end of my trip, the defense ministry told me that the horse was back in Khentii province, birthplace of Genghis Khan. I was welcome to keep looking for him in the province, an area the size of Austria.
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