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Attempts to isolate Russia result in creating alliance with India, China — US expert

"This shift is exemplified by the new pipeline agreement between Russia and China, which will divert Russian oil and gas directly to China," Steve Gill said

MOSCOW, September 12. /TASS/. The West’s attempts to isolate Russia have had an adverse effect, with Russia, India, China, and other BRICS nations developing closer ties, American political commentator Steve Gill told TASS.

"The very policies designed to isolate Russia have instead pushed China, India, Russia, and the BRICS nations closer together. The unintended consequence of pushing Russia away from the West has been to thrust it into the welcoming arms of China — a primary U.S. adversary militarily, economically, and politically. We have effectively created powerful new alliances that are not in the best long-term interest of the United States or its global presence," said Gill, who served as a director of intergovernmental affairs for the US trade representative in the Executive Office of the President under both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations.

"This shift is exemplified by the new pipeline agreement between Russia and China, which will divert Russian oil and gas directly to China," he added.

A legally binding memorandum with China on the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline and the Soyuz Vostok transit gas pipeline via Mongolia was signed in Beijing on September 2. The Power of Siberia 2 project is geared to link gas fields in Western Siberia to China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region via Mongolia. The gas pipeline with a designed capacity of up to 50 billion cubic meters of gas a year will be the world’s largest and most capital-intensive project in the gas sector.

Not long ago, US President Donald Trump posted a joint photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi taken on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, which was held in China on August 31 and September 1. According to Trump, the United States has "lost India and Russia."

Commenting on the trilateral Putin-Xi-Modi meeting on the SCO summit’s margins, the global media noted that this meeting signified the end of the West-centric model of international relations, citing Trump’s tariff policy as a reason why India and China are moving closer together. According to world media outlets, the SCO summit was a triumph of diplomacy of countries of the global South and an outspoken challenge to the West, which has lost its influence in the world.

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