The historic meeting in Moscow between Chinese Leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin has sparked an unprecedented reaction from Western capitals. Former CIA agent Ray McGovern, founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, said the world was not at a "liminal moment" as the balance of power shifts to the east.
The US is preparing for a "two-front war" against both Russia and China even as the summit between the Eurasian giants' leaders heralds a shift in geopolitical power.
Chinese President Xi Jinping flew back to Beijing on Wednesday following two days of intensive meetings with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and their two governments.
The two leaders agreed to deepen economic cooperation in the face of unilateral sanctions by the US-led NATO bloc of nations and the European Union. They also touched on China's blueprint for a peace settlement in Ukraine — which the White House has rejected outright.
Former CIA agent Ray McGovern told Sputnik that the US had lost its self-declared position of global monopolar hegemony as the sole superpower.
He noted that China had scored "a diplomatic triumph bringing Iran and Saudi Arabia together" and that the world was now at "a threshold moment."
"People don't understand that the whole correlation of forces in the world at large has changed," McGovern said. "Russia and China are together as never before. If there's a dustup with the US and Russia and Ukraine or anywhere in Europe, there's going to be trouble in the Far East, South China Sea, pressure on Taiwan."
The intelligence expert said the US was getting itself into a "two-front war," and "the crazy thing is that they don't seem to be aware of it."
"It doesn't matter what I think. It matters what Putin thinks," McGovern stressed, quoting the Russian president's comments from October 2022 about Washington's confrontation with Beijing over Taiwan.
"He says, 'You know, I thought there might be some logic in it, but there isn't. They're just crazy. You know, I thought for a moment that there may be some some subtle reasons, but I no longer believe that this is a product of arrogance and a feeling of impunity'."
Russia and China "can't be sure that these 'crazy people' won't do something even crazier than they're already trying to do in Ukraine," over Taiwan, McGovern stressed. "I fear for what decisions will be made this spring when the Russians start to prevail definitively in Ukraine."
