WASHINGTON, May 20. /TASS/. The latest talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping underscore, among other things, the "almost catastrophic failure" of Western attempts to isolate Moscow, James Carden, a retired diplomat and former advisor to the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, told TASS.
"As leaders of what might be referred to as the non-Western world, with a combined GDP (in terms of purchasing power parity) that exceeds that of the entire G7, any meeting between Presidents Putin and Xi is significant. It is the timing of this particular meeting - coming at it does right on the heels of Mr. Trump's meeting with Xi - that makes it even more so," the US political scientist noted. The US leader’s state visit to Beijing took place on May 14-15.
"To me, it highlights the almost catastrophic failure of Washington's gambit - beginning around 2008 - to turn Russia into a pariah state, alienating Moscow (via sanctions and military threats) from the West and pushing Russia into the arms of Beijing," said Carden, who currently serves as a board member and senior advisor at the New York-based American Committee on the US-Russia Accord (ACURA).
"The world order is now undoubtedly multipolar and the policy of the Trump administration in the Middle East, I am sorry to say, is only accelerating America's isolation from the non-Western world," the expert added.