The leaders of the United States, China and Russia are to hold an unprecedented three-way meeting next week on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen, the White House has said, with Donald Trump pressing for nuclear arsenals to be on the agenda.
Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in China’s tech hub, Al Jazeera reported, citing a confirmation from the White House assistant press secretary. Hiru News, attributing its report to Reuters, puts the meeting on Thursday 19 November.
It would be the first time the three leaders have gathered for talks of this kind.
Why nuclear arms are on the table
The talks come nine months after the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) lapsed in February, leaving the two largest nuclear powers without caps on their arsenals for the first time in more than fifty years.
Trump rejected a Russian proposal to extend the treaty by a year, demanding instead a “new, improved and modernized” agreement that includes China. Russia holds the most nuclear warheads, followed by the United States and then China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Hiru reports the White House as saying Trump regards nuclear proliferation as a serious threat to global security and is prepared to discuss reductions.
Expectations are low
A senior Trump administration official told Reuters, in remarks carried by Al Jazeera, that “we do not expect to get to any kind of agreement”, describing the meeting as the start of a conversation rather than a negotiation.
The emphasis has also irritated the host: China is staging a summit built around trade and commerce, and has rebuffed attempts to draw it into nuclear arms talks alongside Washington and Moscow.
Trump is expected to raise the Iran war with both leaders but to steer away from Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a senior US official who briefed reporters anonymously. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is concerned the meeting could become a venue for discussing a Ukraine settlement without Kyiv.
Elon Musk will travel to China with Trump but will not attend the meeting. Trump is not expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during the trip.
Yalta comparisons, rejected by Moscow
The plan has drawn comparisons with the 1945 Yalta Conference, where the US, Britain and the Soviet Union shaped the post-war order. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the parallel, saying anything agreed in Shenzhen could not be imposed on other countries — while still calling the meeting “extremely significant”.
Not reported
Neither filing says what format the talks will take or how long they will run, and neither gives a figure for what reductions Washington would propose. Hiru names a White House spokesperson whom Al Jazeera’s account does not identify; this desk has not independently confirmed the name and does not reproduce it.
