The trilateral summit among the presidents of Mongolia, China, and Russia, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at Dushanbe, Tajikistan on September 11, 2014, was the culmination of a deliberate summer whirlwind policy blitz of Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj to position his country to take advantage of deepening Sino-Russian economic relations. Concerned that a “great game” to create a new version of the Eurasian Silk Road was being played out without any Mongolian input, Mongolia's activist president used the celebrations around the commemoration of different anniversaries in Sino-Mongol and Mongol-Russian relations to make certain that his two powerful neighbors did not proceed with transportation and energy cooperation without taking into account the role of a mineral-rich Mongolia. The landlocked Northeast Asian nation is seeking to become an international transportation hub and at the same time diversify its mineral exports. This spotlight trilateral summit moment in Mongolian-Chinese-Russian relations, together with the trips of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to Mongolia a few weeks previous, attracted attention, bordering on concern, of other Eurasian countries, the European Union, and the United States who do not fully comprehend Mongolia's strategy.

In 2010, Rina Bovrisse, then a 36-year old senior retail manager of Prada Japan, lost her job at the Italian fashion company after she accused the company of harassment and discrimination based on age and physical appearance. After a two-year trial in the Tokyo District Court which ended in October 2012, she also lost her claim to financial compensation of 58 million yen on the grounds of sexual harassment (Asien Spiegel, 2013). Bovrisse, who was in charge of approximately 500 employees working in Prada stores in Japan, Guam, and Saipan at that time, was told by Prada Japan Senior Human Resources Manager Takahashi Hiroyuki that she needed to lose weight in order to represent the fashion company. Furthermore, Takahashi had transferred thirteen managers and shop assistants, who were considered “old, fat, ugly” or simply did not have “the Prada look”, to remote locations (Matsutani, 2010). In court, Judge Morioka Reiko ruled that - given Bovrisse's visible position in the fashion company - her employer had every right to tell her to improve her physical appearance, and that this was not a sufficient reason for claiming financial compensation.