Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and Donald J. Trump on the margins of the November 18-19 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is alarming on two counts.
At first blush, it raises the specter of a new Yalta, and it threatens talks on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine without Ukraine and its European allies at the table.
Yet that may not prove the greatest consequence — such a meeting would most likely prove inconsequential, because a deal along those lines would almost certainly run counter to Xi’s and Trump’s more immediate interests (including their desire not to fixate on Ukraine or be upstaged by Putin).
Where it could prove consequential is in how the world interprets it.
Regardless of how serious Putin might be about ending his war on anything close to acceptable terms to Ukraine and its allies, he would certainly like to capitalize on and deepen the past two weeks’ rancor between Washington and Kyiv. Trump’s demand that Ukraine cease targeting Russia’s diesel production in light of global shortages and rising prices, and Zelenskyy’s refusal in light of Russia’s continued strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, fueled tensions between Kyiv and Washington.
This has been exacerbated by the unannounced and temporary drop in service of a US-based satellite warning system, and intelligence sharing that significantly enhance Ukraine’s defenses against incoming Russian missiles. (Ukraine said on October 24 that service had been fully resumed after more than a week.) Trump’s waiving, on national security grounds, of the congressional sanctions he had recently signed into law has also contributed to tensions.
Meaningful peace talks would require far more serious preparation than an idea floated ad hoc. Still, the moment offers Putin a chance to come as close as he ever has to what he has sought for the past two years. A year ago, an article on this site argued that one way for Putin to escape the impasse of the war and restore Russia’s standing on the global stage would be to strike a grand bargain with Washington.
He is now closer than ever to receiving the recognition he has long sought from the world’s two superpowers. Should the summit take place, it might even exceed the Kremlin’s expectations. It would not only secure recognition from Washington; by seating Putin between Trump and Xi, it would also give him enough symbolic capital to reassert Russia’s standing in a relationship of growing, asymmetric dependence on Beijing.
That alone would be the summit’s most consequential outcome. Such recognition would further complicate the path to peace and the role Europe could play in it.
Xi, for his part, would not want to give Trump or Putin an opening to pursue their own agendas and distract from China’s leadership role as host. Chinese media have already pointed to the absence of an agreed agenda as a possible obstacle to the meeting. Beyond broad calls for peace, Xi would be reluctant to engage in talks centered on Ukraine, which would spotlight a European conflict with unpredictable outcomes and divert attention from a major multilateral event focused on Asia.
A more likely result is a compartmentalized agenda, in which the parties signal willingness to discuss a broad range of issues — including but not exclusively about Ukraine — covering a lot of ground while avoiding details and commitments. Initial reactions to the summit idea already point in this direction.
Putin would seek to legitimize his demands through a joint Trump-Xi endorsement, but signals from Washington already indicate a preference for negotiating a peace deal on American soil at the G20 summit on December 14–15. Likewise, Beijing is likely to reject Trump’s suggestion of talks on nuclear arms, in keeping with its longstanding policy.
Such a compartmentalized, commitment-free format might be precisely what persuades Beijing to accept the summit on its own turf. Expecting little from the United States and denying Russia the chance to trade on its closeness to China, Beijing could still present the trilateral meeting as a showcase of responsible Chinese statecraft and peaceful diplomacy. As host, China would be seen as the country capable of bringing the world’s most powerful states to the table and orchestrating the conversation.
The challenge for the White House would be to navigate these competing agendas of status-seeking while striking a balance of its own. For example, Washington might strive to further its improved relations with Moscow, and so distance the Russians from China.
Putin, in turn, might try to make himself useful to Washington by embracing the nuclear arms agenda. Yet no symbolic gesture can substitute for the depth of the economic and political ties Russia and China have already built. With the gains for Russia and China clear in advance, the benefits for US foreign policy remain to be seen.
Finally, the meeting could be damaging in yet another way.
Whether by design or by accident, it could sideline Europe as a geopolitical player and thereby strain both US and Chinese relations with the continent. Moscow would certainly welcome that, but for Washington and Beijing, both of which count Europe as a large and vital economic partner, it would be a cost that is neither necessary nor worthwhile.
Dr. David Abramson served for 20 years as an analyst in the US Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, where he covered Russian foreign policy (2017-2025) and Central Asia (2005-2017). In 2023, he was seconded to the UK’s FCDO Research Analysts, where he wrote and briefed on Russia-China relations. Prior to INR, he worked for four years in the Office of International Religious Freedom within the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Dr Abramson received his PhD in cultural anthropology from Indiana University. He has numerous publications on Central Asia spanning topics such as Muslim identity, Islamic education, political Islam, and civil society.
Dr. Evgeny Roshchin leads the Democratic Resilience program at CEPA and serves as a Visiting Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is the author of the book Friendship among Nations (Manchester Uni Press), as well as Exit as Voice and Crime and Punishment in International Politics and many other academic articles, and media commentaries. Until March 2022, he was the Head of School of Politics and International Relations, RANEPA St. Petersburg. He resigned in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
