Each of them faced some kind of serious challenge to its legitimacy from its
larger neighbor. Although the Kuomintang (KMT) government in China had
recognized the independence of Outer Mongolia (MPR) in 1946, Chiang
Kaishek revoked this recognition a year later and the KMT government on Taiwan
after 1949 consistently published maps claiming the whole of Mongolia
(including the territory of Tuva, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1944). In recent
years, Taiwan governments have implied that they acknowledge Mongolia’s
independence,13 but there has been no formal recognition and Taiwan’s