An unprecedented three-way meeting between US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin could take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held this month in Shenzhen, China.
“China is in touch with relevant parties regarding the trilateral summit meeting,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that “work is underway to arrange such a meeting,” adding: “We hope that it will be finalized within the next few days.”
President Trump has stated that he is open to trilateral talks focusing on nuclear weapons. “If President Xi wants it, I will get it,” he told reporters last month.
The three leaders have met separately, but have never held a formal meeting.
So is it possible that the conference scheduled for November 18-19 will actually take place, and what does that mean for the rest of the world? Here’s what we know.
What will Russia gain from trilateral talks with the US and China?
At least a photo opportunity.
“This is a big event,” Alexander Vlatasky, a Moscow-based journalist and political analyst, told Al Jazeera.
He singled out Pyotr Tolstoy, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian parliament, who described the meeting as a roadmap to the new Yalta, the 1945 meeting where the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain formed Europe’s postwar order.
This allows the Russian government to “talk big” while keeping Ukraine on the sidelines, Vlatasky said.
He added that just having a seat at the table made Putin an “equal guru” and gave him a photo opportunity to show the world that he was one of the people who would decide the future of Europe’s security architecture after the Ukraine war.
He said any outcome from the talks would reflect China’s influence on Russia.
“We have to consider that we will be dealing with a much weaker American leader after the election,” Vlatasky said.
He said Trump will continue to be in charge of foreign policy, but his influence will weaken if Democrats, who won a majority in both chambers of Congress in this week’s midterm elections, start sending money to Kiev.
“The conference itself will be a success,” he said. “Putin will be able to sell it at home.”
Vlatasky said it should be clear within a month or so whether anything happens at the meeting, which could lead to new talks during the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Miami in December.
If nothing is produced by Christmas, he added, “it will just be a photo shoot.”
What does Trump want?
Optics and leverage.
Inderjeet Parmar, a professor of international politics at City St. George’s, University of London, told Al Jazeera that Trump wants a “personal, dramatic encounter” where he can claim he is “dealing” with the other two superpowers on his own terms.
Palmer said a tripartite meeting would allow Trump to discuss potential deals on Ukraine, trade, energy, arms control and more, and tout himself as a “necessary deal maker.”
“After the midterm elections, the need for domestic politics for foreign policy ‘wins’ becomes a reality,” he said.
He said any images of Trump sitting with Xi or Putin could be fabricated as evidence that American power still rules the table, “even if the content is limited or mostly symbolic.”
“The domestic audience and his eroding MAGA base are at least as important as the diplomatic audience,” Palmer said.
What does China want?
This is not a summit about Ukraine.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said “surprise” could be seen on Xi’s face when he brought up the idea of discussing Ukraine during their October 30 meeting in Beijing, Germany’s dpa news agency reported.
Steinmeier told public broadcaster ARD that Xi had said the three presidents would likely meet in Shenzhen but would not discuss Ukraine.
He said President Xi clearly pointed out that the Russia-Ukraine war is a European conflict in which “European countries must be at the table.”
Beijing is also likely to reject President Trump’s push for nuclear talks.
Last month, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, “At this stage, asking China to participate in so-called trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations is neither fair, reasonable nor realistic.”
What does the conference mean for the rest of the world?
Allies may be sidelined.
Palmer said the tripartite talks would mark a “clear break from the post-1945 pattern” of the United States working closely with allies in Europe and Asia before engaging with Russia and China.
“An independent tripartite[meeting]risks treating these allies as secondary players whose interests can be controlled after the fact,” he said, adding that those interests could even be traded.
He said it would be a shift to “personalized great power diplomacy.” However, Palmer added that the Trump administration still has hopes of driving a wedge between Russia and China.
Concerns about the G3 are “understandable, but institutionally exaggerated,” he said, because the three capitals have very different interests when it comes to Ukraine, Taiwan, technology and international economic rules.
“The real risk is not the formal G3 secretariat, but the normalization of the agreement between the great powers, with little consultation with the most affected countries,” he said.
“History is full of examples of such moments. Stable order is rarely created, and excluded people are often left feeling the costs,” Palmer said.
