WASHINGTON — The leaders of the United States, China and Russia plan to meet Thursday on the sidelines of next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China’s technology hub of Shenzhen — an unprecedented gathering of leaders of the world’s biggest nuclear powers.
While leaders gathering for joint talks will mark a unique moment, analysts say expectations are low that the talks will lead to major breakthroughs and say they will be heavy on symbolism than substance.
Plans for a three-way summit with Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were confirmed by the White House on Friday. This comes at a complicated time in relations between the three countries.
Trump warmly welcomed Xi after reaching a truce in their short-lived trade war last year and despite differences over the U.S.-Iran war and other tensions between the world’s major economic powers.
Trump similarly has sought to strengthen his relationship with Putin, even as the Russian leader persists in his nearly five-year war with Ukraine and Moscow deepens its military, intelligence and diplomatic partnership with Iran.
The US president insisted that such a meeting would be an opportunity for the three leaders to discuss the US war with Iran and its goal of reaching a three-way deal on their nuclear weapons stockpiles.
The last nuclear weapons deal between Russia and the United States expired in February, removing caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than half a century. When that treaty – known as New START – expired, Trump rejected Russia’s call to extend the agreement between the two countries for another year and called for “a new, improved and modernized agreement” that included China.
The trilateral meeting is expected to serve as a starting point for nuclear negotiations between the three leaders and no deal is expected to be announced, according to a senior U.S. official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
But according to Pentagon estimates, Beijing’s arsenal of more than 600 warheads is far smaller than the stockpiles held by the United States and Russia, each estimated at more than 5,000 warheads. With U.S. and Russian arsenals dwarfing its reserves, China has shown little interest in developing a nuclear pact.
Beijing was least sure of the value of the summit
By agreeing to host the meeting, Xi may be calculating that the moment offers him an opportunity to showcase China’s growing influence and prestige.
For the Kremlin, the planned trilateral meeting is a coveted opportunity to present itself as a superpower on par with Washington and Beijing.
“I think the key for Putin was that it was basically signaling his desire to talk to the president and to talk to President Xi in a way that suggests that they are making decisions on Ukraine, which the Ukrainians and the Europeans obviously don’t like,” said Edgard Kagan, a former U.S. ambassador to Malaysia who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The trilateral negotiations could very well overshadow the APEC summit. The summit, which brings together 21 economies in Shenzhen, marks a big moment for China to showcase its ultra-modern and fast-growing coastal metropolis, transformed from a small fishing village into a global technological and economic center in just a few decades.
More substantively, such a gathering could also muddle China’s argument that the Cold War mentality in the West was a contributing factor to Russia’s war against Ukraine and its harsh criticism that the United States undermined international institutions and treaties in the way it waged its war against Iran.
The trilateral meeting could harm China’s efforts to present itself as an advocate of free trade within APEC, said Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University.
“You’re kind of going against Chinese support for multilateralism,” he said.
The leaders have met several times over the years.
Putin and Xi are not strangers. They have maintained a close personal relationship, meeting more than 40 times since Xi became president in 2013 and addressing each other as a “dear friend.”
Trump and Putin have met face-to-face seven times, most recently in Alaska in August 2025. Xi and Trump have held face-to-face talks eight times, including during a state visit by Xi to Washington in September.
Beijing is Moscow’s largest trading partner, a relationship that has strengthened since Putin sent troops to Ukraine in 2022.
As the EU and the West sought to economically isolate Russia, China increased its purchases of Russian energy resources and became Moscow’s main supplier of key technologies, including high-tech components for Russia’s arms industries. Beijing has ignored Western demands to reduce these supplies.
Before Russia’s war with Ukraine, Xi and Putin said their countries enjoyed “boundless friendship.” China has officially declared its neutrality in the conflict, while accusing kyiv’s Western allies of playing a role in provoking Russia’s military action in Ukraine.
Moscow, in turn, has repeatedly declared its support for Beijing’s policies on issues related to Taiwan.
Trump recently reached a diesel deal with Russia, waiving sanctions against Moscow and authorizing the sale of millions of tons of the fuel. The US leader blamed rising energy prices on Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries. Analysts, however, believe that the rise in global crude prices is mainly due to the war in Iran.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed concern that the trilateral meeting could serve as a platform to discuss a possible deal with Ukraine behind kyiv’s back.
Planning for the summit has drawn comparisons to the Yalta Conference, the 1945 meeting at which the leaders of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Germany and Berlin into four zones of military occupation and finalized plans for the creation of the United Nations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected comparisons with Yalta, stressing that potential agreements reached in Shenzhen could not be applied to others.
“It is clear that a meeting between the leaders of countries like Russia, China and the United States is extremely significant,” Peskov said. “However, let us not forget that the vision of a world order is that no one attempts to impose a particular vision of the world order, and that it must be based entirely on mutual benefit and respect.”
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