Preparations are reportedly underway for the first-ever meeting between the leaders of China, Russia, and the United States during the Apec summit in Shenzhen, which is scheduled to take place in a fortnight.
According to a report by the Financial Times on Tuesday, officials from Beijing, Moscow, and Washington have been holding serious talks to arrange the trilateral summit. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told the newspaper that work to organize the meeting is "under way." The report stated that Washington and Moscow had been pressing Beijing to agree to the talks.
On Wednesday, the Chinese foreign ministry stated that Beijing is maintaining communication with relevant parties regarding the talks. However, the ministry noted last month that it had "no information to provide" regarding the trilateral meeting.
Observers suggest that while the meeting could bolster Beijing’s diplomatic standing, different priorities among the three powers are likely to limit consensus and yield few, if any, concrete concessions. Sun Chenghao, a fellow with Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy, stated that the top priorities are to avoid strategic miscalculation and reach a baseline consensus on the meeting’s purpose.
Sun noted that expectations are currently misaligned: Washington prioritizes nuclear arms control, Moscow seeks broader political engagement with the US, and Beijing is focused on the stability of major-power relations and the external environment. Zhu Junwei, director of the Horizon Insights Centre, echoed these concerns, stating that there are few issues uniquely suited for a trilateral agenda, which she called a "major hurdle" in preparations.
The conflict in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, has been a point of contention. Last month, Putin floated the idea of a trilateral meeting with China to negotiate an end to the war during a phone call with Trump. However, Beijing has shown little appetite for discussing the matter. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that during a meeting in Beijing last week, Xi Jinping explicitly pointed out that Ukraine is a European conflict in which Europeans would have to be at the negotiating table.
Sun Chenghao argued that bypassing Ukraine and Europe to have three powers dictate peace terms would "lack legitimacy and prove difficult to implement." He suggested that if the meeting occurs, it would likely yield a "limited consensus," such as reaffirming the prevention of nuclear war, maintaining crisis communication, supporting diplomatic solutions to regional conflicts, and scheduling follow-up expert-level talks. He added that even if the Ukraine issue is raised, it is likely to remain an "exchange of positions."
Regarding nuclear arms control, Trump stated last month he was open to a three-way summit to discuss nuclear arms control and denuclearisation. However, Beijing has shown no interest, as China’s nuclear capabilities are not on the same scale as those of the US and Russia. Sun warned that placing it within the same reduction framework risks turning "unequal capabilities into nominally equal responsibilities," noting that concrete disarmament requires force structures, verification, and strategic mutual trust, which cannot be achieved overnight.
Both Sun and Zhu agreed that Moscow is the most eager to hold the talks. Zhu stated that Moscow would see the summit as a way to project an image of a China-Russia-US "G3" co-governing the world, even if that is "largely an illusion." She noted that “However, whether G2 or G3, both run counter to the multilateralism Beijing champions, putting China in a delicate spot.”
Sun added that Trump seeks a signature diplomatic win and hopes to bring China into nuclear discussions. He noted that Beijing stands to gain by showing its ability to bridge major powers and signaling that its partnership with Russia and engagement with the United States can advance in parallel. Sun stated that the meeting format is unlikely to yield direct concessions on tariffs or technology restrictions, but the value lies in making parties recognize that China’s involvement helps mitigate risks. He cautioned, however, that the agenda must avoid eroding European trust, otherwise gains could be offset by costs in other relationships.
