Chinese official conditions trilateral hosting on groundwork, agenda and predetermined outcome
The United States and China are at odds over the format of a proposed trilateral summit involving President Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with efforts to organize the trilateral meeting. People familiar with the effort said Beijing wants any three-way summit among the leaders of the U.S., China and Russia to be a highly scripted affair, with each reading a prepared statement and little room for discussion, while the Trump administration is pushing for a looser format that would allow more exchange among the three leaders instead of scripted monologues.
The differences between Beijing and Washington on the ground rules and agenda raise doubts about whether the extraordinary meeting will happen, despite the U.S., China and Russia all expressing initial openness to the idea. The proposed meeting would take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in southern China next Wednesday and Thursday.
President Trump has made clear that he wants to raise the issue of nuclear arms control. On Sunday, Trump said he expected that when he meets Xi and Putin, “We’ll talk a lot of things, including denuclearization.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also said the potential summit would be an opportunity for the three major nuclear powers to discuss arms control at the leader level.
The Wall Street Journal reported that China has a much smaller atomic arsenal than the United States and Russia, although it is growing rapidly, and that Beijing has long been reluctant to engage in any talks on the matter. The report said engaging in trilateral arms-control talks risks locking Beijing into a state of nuclear inferiority, a prospect the report described as a nonstarter for Xi, who has overseen the most significant expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal in its history. A Chinese official said Beijing would not agree to participate in trilateral arms-control talks.
New START, the last major nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, expired in February without replacement, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals unconstrained by any agreement for the first time in decades. The Trump administration has argued that any successor deal must include China, whose arsenal is growing faster than either Washington’s or Moscow’s.
The Wall Street Journal said Putin’s pitch for a three-way meeting appeared designed to try to take advantage of Trump’s warming stance toward the Kremlin to make progress, with China’s help, toward ending the war in Ukraine on Russia-friendly terms, and without the involvement of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The same Chinese official said Beijing is willing to host the trilateral meeting, but only if the groundwork is done in advance to ensure an agreed-upon agenda and predetermined outcome. The official said China is willing to discuss Ukraine and other major issues in that format. Without that advance preparation, the official said, Beijing would prefer to hold separate bilateral meetings instead.
A senior administration official said Xi appeared unwilling to engage in unscripted exchanges with his counterparts, saying the format demand raised questions about whether Beijing is ready for direct engagement. People close to Beijing’s decision-making said Xi wants the optics of a historic trilateral — the photos, the statements and the propaganda value — without the risk of an unpredictable conversation.
Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of state under President Joe Biden and now chairman of Washington-based Asia Group, said the meeting carries significant risks for the Chinese leader. “I think it’s very risky and deeply unpredictable for Xi,” Campbell said. Beijing, he added, would prefer to manage its relationships with Washington and Moscow separately “and extract their own quid pro quo” from each.
The Wall Street Journal described Beijing’s preferred approach — prepared remarks delivered sequentially — as a familiar playbook in Chinese diplomacy. The report said Xi’s meetings with foreign leaders are typically choreographed down to the minute, with talking points vetted in advance and little room for spontaneity.
The Wall Street Journal wrote: “The caution is especially acute now as Xi prepares for a major leadership reshuffle at the Communist Party’s 21st National Congress, set for late 2027, where he is expected to install a new generation of loyalists in top positions.”
People close to Beijing said Xi was managing purges, personnel decisions and questions about succession, and described an unscripted encounter with Trump and Putin as the kind of unpredictable variable his system is built to avoid.
Until Washington and Beijing resolve their dispute over ground rules and agenda, the proposed summit remains unsettled. A Chinese official said Beijing would not agree to participate in trilateral arms-control talks and would host the trilateral meeting only if organizers completed advance groundwork, while the Trump administration is pressing for a format that permits more exchange among the three leaders.