Background
In December 1911, Outer Mongolia took advantage of the Xinhai Revolution to declare independence from the Qing Dynasty. The political system of new Mongolia was an absolute theocratic monarchy led by Bogd Khan. However, the newly-founded Republic of China considered Mongolia as part of its territory. In the 1915 tripartite Kyakhta agreement, Russia, which had strategic interests in Mongolian independence, but did not want to completely alienate China; the Republic of China and Mongolia agreed that Mongolia was autonomous under Chinese suzerainty. However, in the following years Russian influence in Asia waned due to the First World War and, later, the October Revolution. From 1918 on, Mongolia was threatened by the Russian Civil War, and in summer 1918 asked for Chinese military assistance, which lead to the deployment of a small force to Urga. Meanwhile, the Mongolian nobility had become more and more dissatisfied with their marginalization on the hands of the theocratic government, and, also provoked by the threat of the Outer Mongolia's independence from the pan-Mongolist movement in Siberia, by 1919, were ready to accept a return to the old Qing system, i.e. to be governed by Beijing, if that meant the restoration of their old privileges.
Read more about this topic: Occupation Of Mongolia
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