Beijing confirms Xi-Trump-Putin meeting under discussion

Beijing has confirmed for the first time that discussions are underway on a meeting between Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, with the gathering potentially taking place this month on the sidelines of the Apec summit in Shenzhen. Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters that China "is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state." Nothing has been finalized.

The symbolism alone is remarkable: three leaders whose alignment Washington has spent decades working to prevent, seated at the same table on China's initiative. Apec, the 21-member grouping that includes both the US and Russia, is hosted this year by Beijing — a forum originally built around American-led Pacific trade order, now serving as stage for the choreography of a rival bloc. Trump is expected to travel to Shenzhen to meet Xi for the third time this year, largely to maintain a US-China trade truce set to expire in January.

Analysts expect little substance. Danny Russel, a former senior State Department official now at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said Putin has the most to gain and that "the Russians are clearly behind the push for a meeting, which would be a diplomatic coup" — Putin appearing as an equal beside the American and Chinese leaders while his war in Ukraine continues. Russel added that Trump has been warned by advisers to steer clear of Ukraine as a topic. Sun Yun of the Stimson Center noted that China "wants the image but not the costs," will not engage on arms control or Ukraine beyond its standard refrain that wars should end, and "will have to manage Russian manipulation."

The backdrop is hardly calm. Ukraine came under renewed Russian attack on Saturday, with a missile strike damaging a residential building in Kyiv and injuring two people, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning that intelligence shows Russia preparing new strikes on energy, Dnipro bridges and civilian infrastructure. Trilateral US-Ukraine-Russia talks are scheduled in Abu Dhabi next week — the first since February — while Kyiv's allies met in Brussels with the World Bank and BlackRock to discuss postwar security and reconstruction.

Trump has separately expressed interest in the three-way meeting as a venue for nuclear arms control talks — a subject on which, by Sun Yun's account, China intends to say nothing. Craig Singleton of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies called the likely outcome a photo opportunity with diminishing diplomatic returns: "The spectacle may be historic without producing anything particularly consequential."