A senior Russian aide suggested on Tuesday that Chinese President Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could hold a trilateral meeting at the next Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.
Leaders of the 21-member grouping are scheduled to meet in Shenzhen, the Chinese economic powerhouse in southern China, on November 18 and 19, setting up the possibility of Xi and Trump meeting four times this year.
Asked on Russian state television about the possibility of such a meeting, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said: “This issue was discussed, yes.”
Ushakov spoke from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, at the two-day summit of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) attended by Xi and Putin that ended on Tuesday.
Putin confirmed in May his intention to attend the Apec meeting but Trump has not yet done so. Trump’s presence may depend in part on whether Xi agrees to attend the December 14-15 Group of 20 meeting at the US president’s Doral golf course resort in Florida.
“And if it turns out, as has been said, then the three of them will be able to have a meeting,” Ushakov said.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said “We have nothing to offer at this time,” and White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “We have no announcements regarding President Trump’s attendance at Apec at this time.”
Even as Trump has been complimentary of Xi, however, tensions continue to fester in the bilateral relationship.
Bessent criticises China at G20 Finance Ministers meeting
On Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called out China for refusing to agree to a joint communique at the G20 Finance Ministers meeting this week in North Carolina.
“It is clear that the country with the world’s largest and unsustainable current account surplus, the People’s Republic of China, was the dissenter,” he added. “I think that the fact that 19 countries did want to address this shows the sheer enormity of the problem.”
Ushakov said Putin plans to attend the Apec summit and to hold talks with both Xi and Trump, either bilaterally or in a joint format.
But US analysts said any such three-way meeting could undercut long-standing US alliances.
“It wouldn’t surprise me because clearly Trump is seeing this Shenzhen trip as a chance to see all of his most authoritarian friends,” said Zack Cooper, senior fellow with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
“It would send just an incredibly problematic message to American allies and partners, right? Trump continues to berate many of our closest allies from Canada to Europe to [South] Korea.”
While this could help Beijing and Moscow in their long-term bid to weaken Western ties, it could also undercut Western unity, Cooper added.
“It will just further accelerate the drive from a lot of US allies to decrease their reliance on the United States,” said Cooper, a former National Security Council and Department of Defence official. “And it may embolden Russia and China to test those alliances even more. So I think it’s a very problematic possibility.”
A major factor as Trump weighs whether to attend the Apec conclave could be whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agrees to meet him.
Late last month, Trump told reporters he expected to meet with Kim this year, adding that North Korea has 57 nuclear weapons.
Trump declined to say whether his goal in any such meeting was North Korea’s denuclearisation, even as he used the opportunity to undercut former US presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
“I don’t want to talk about that, but I do have a good relationship with Kim Jong-un as you know, you’ve seen,” Trump said. “He didn’t like Biden. He didn’t like Obama. He didn’t like anybody. But he likes me.”
Jeremy Chan, senior analyst with the Eurasia Group consultancy, said Trump’s recent displeasure with South Korea – seen in his decision to cut short the US-South Korean Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises in mid-August – may be in part driving his outreach to Pyongyang.
Trump has reportedly been unhappy with Seoul’s slow movement on fulfilling a pledge to invest US$350 billion in the US and on reducing its trade surplus, an issue the US president focuses intently on.
“There’s any number of things that could have just got stuck in his craw,” said Chan. “Trump in some ways is more mercurial than Kim is.”
Xi may play influential role in leaders sitting down together
Analysts added that Xi could play broker leading up to any meeting before the end of the year between himself, Trump and Putin, either at Apec or at the G20.
“Xi will also offer to broker a tripartite meeting,” the Scowcroft Group consultancy said in a report. “Trump has previously said he would include Putin. Xi will suggest that he will try to deliver the Russian leader.”
Kevin Nealer, a partner at Scowcroft and one of the report’s authors, added that the decision to invite Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to this week’s G20 also sent a jarring signal.
“Four years into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, allowing a sanctioned Russian Finance Minister to attend a US-hosted G20 meeting is antithetical to US interests,” he said.
“Ratifying Russian aggression ... and getting nothing in return is simply bizarre.” -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
