Three of the world’s five largest economies are now in an energy partnership that will hurt both Europe and the U.S. From Tilak Doshi at tilakdoshi.substack.com:
The recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin, China, offered vivid optics of a shifting global order. Images of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping sharing smiles and warm embraces spoke volumes about a realignment that few could have predicted at the start of 2025. Against the backdrop of a “binding memorandum” for the Power of Siberia 2 (POS-2) pipeline supplying Russian natural gas to China, this summit was no mere public relations exercise.
The summit marks a profound shift in global energy geopolitics, one that underscores Europe’s slide into irrelevance, the competitive headwinds facing US LNG exports and the spectacular failure of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s vision of US strategic supremacy over Russia largely constructed during the tumultuous 1990s. The United States, in its pursuit of Eurasian hegemony, has alienated a critical ally in India, pushed Russia and China closer together, and left Germany — once an industrial powerhouse — prostrate. This is a tale of hubris, miscalculation and unintended consequences.
The Tianjin Summit: A New Energy Axis
The Tianjin summit crystallised a new geopolitical reality. The warm camaraderie among the leaders of India, Russia, and China —three of the world’s five largest economies — signalled a growing alignment, not just in rhetoric and optics but in tangible energy partnerships. The “binding memorandum” for POS-2, a 50 billion cubic meter pipeline to deliver gas from Russia’s Yamal fields to China via Mongolia, is a cornerstone of this realignment.
Windmill and solar will power the AI Wakanda when you can’t get hypersonic or high speed rail going?
Even Kazakhstan has HSR.
There is no Magic Soil.
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