What China wants from a Trump-Putin summit on Ukraine

The administration of US President Donald Trump has stepped up diplomatic efforts this autumn to revive stalled negotiations aimed at ending Russia's war in Ukraine. 

Washington has increased pressure on Kyiv and its European partners while seeking to draw Moscow back to the negotiating table through a series of concessions, including a deal involving Russian diesel exports to the US and the temporary easing of some sanctions. 

Yet the Kremlin appears in no hurry to resume meaningful peace talks. Moscow is ready to hold negotiations with Ukraine at a technical level next month, the Kremlin said after the meeting between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on November 21.

Putin agreed to resume the peace talks mediated by Washington after November 10, his aide Yury Ushakov said after the meeting. He added that the next round of negotiations could take place in Abu Dhabi and would focus on "building the security system for Russia and Ukraine after the end of the war."

According to his aide, Putin also shared some thoughts with Witkoff on the possible trilateral summit involving US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Ushakov pointed out that Beijing is already preparing the meeting.

Trilateral summit in China without Ukraine

Moscow proposed to hold a three-way meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, scheduled for November 18-19 in Shenzhen, China, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week. According to WSJ sources, Putin hopes to reach an agreement with Trump and Xi on ending the war in Ukraine on terms favorable to Russia. 

Moscow's proposal for the three-way summit involving Russia, the United States and China — but excluding Ukraine and the European Union — offers a glimpse of the negotiating format the Kremlin would prefer. Russia insists that Ukraine must be prepared to make territorial concessions before negotiations can move forward. Putin has also repeatedly stressed that he is willing to negotiate only if Russian interests are taken into account. 

According to the WSJ, Putin views the proposed gathering in Shenzhen as a potential new Yalta Conference, referring to the 1945 meeting of the leaders of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union to discuss the defeat of Nazi Germany and the postwar order in Europe.

The newspaper reported that Chinese officials had indicated through diplomatic channels that Beijing would not object to the three-way format if Trump agreed to participate. Trump, whose relations with Kyiv have deteriorated significantly in recent weeks, has also expressed openness to such talks.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed out during his visit in Oslo on October 20 that talks concerning the future of his country will be acceptable only if Ukraine gets a seat at the negotiating table.

What does China stand to gain from the talks? 

Temur Umarov, a researcher at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin who specializes in China-Russia relations, is not surprised by the Kremlin's proposal. He told DW that Moscow wants to feel respected by Washington and treated as a major international power. 

The previous US administration was unwilling to discuss questions affecting Ukraine's sovereignty with Russia without Kyiv's participation. Now, Umarov said, the Kremlin believes such negotiations may have become possible. 

Moscow apparently hopes that any agreement reached at the proposed meeting would prompt the White House to pressure Ukraine and the EU into accepting its terms. But what role would China actually play? 

Umarov believes Beijing would participate largely as a symbolic partner, rather than as an active mediator responsible for the outcome. "Beijing has no intention of taking responsibility for Ukraine's future," he said. 

Simply attending the summit would not impose any additional obligations on China. "It is hardly surprising that the Kremlin insists on this format," Umarov explained. "Russia wants to demonstrate that it is on an equal footing not only with the United States, but also with China. Yet, objectively speaking, Moscow is not the senior partner in that relationship." 

Umarov believes China has little direct interest in such negotiations. Even if the leaders issued a joint statement, Beijing would seek language that was as vague and noncommittal as possible, he said. That would allow China to present almost any subsequent development in the war as consistent with the understanding reached at the summit. For Umarov, such flexibility would be essential to Beijing's participation. 

However, Yurii Poita, a senior associate researcher at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), offers a different assessment. He believes China and Russia have overlapping strategic interests, particularly in their efforts to promote an alternative security architecture across Eurasia. 

Both countries, he argues, would benefit from a reduction in Western military presence in Europe and Asia and from a weakening of NATO's influence. "If Russia and China manage to convince the United States to reduce its military presence in Europe and military assistance to Ukraine, Russia would gain additional advantages on the battlefield," Poita told DW. 

He added that such a development would further undermine the EU's confidence in the United States as a NATO ally. Poita believes Moscow and Beijing would seek precisely these outcomes in any negotiations with Washington. 

Is Putin's political survival crucial for China?

Michael Kimmage, director of the Kennan Institute in the United States, also doubts that Beijing is preparing to take a more active diplomatic role in ending the war. 

Speaking to DW, Kimmage said China may see the conflict as destabilizing and would prefer to maintain trade relations with Ukraine and other countries in the region. But he believes another priority outweighs those concerns. "More important to China is the political survival of Vladimir Putin," he said. 

According to Kimmage, Russia provides China with several geopolitical advantages, including low-cost energy and a foreign policy partner that rarely stands in Beijing's way. 

He believes China will continue indirectly supporting Russia's military efforts to prevent a Russian defeat. An outright Russian victory may not necessarily be Beijing's objective, he said, but ensuring Putin does not lose is crucial. For that reason, Kimmage does not expect China to pressure the Russian president into ending the war if Putin is unwilling to do so. 

Does excluding Europe reveal the EU's weakness? 

Neither Ukraine nor the European Union would be part of the proposed talks in China. 

Kateryna Krasina, a junior researcher at the Kyiv-based New Geopolitics Network, believes their exclusion could reveal how Beijing actually views their international influence. 

In her assessment, China's approach suggests that it does not regard Ukraine as an independent player in the negotiations and considers Europe relatively weak. 

Kimmage, however, argues that excluding Europe from the summit would not necessarily diminish its influence over the course of the negotiations. 

He acknowledged that European governments may have little power to prevent a meeting between Trump, Putin and Xi. But he pointed to European efforts surrounding the 2025 Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, which he believes helped prevent outcomes that would have been unfavorable to Europe. 

Kimmage said Europe's influence has grown through financial assistance to Ukraine and extensive defense industry cooperation, particularly involving Germany and other European countries. 

He argued that European support has played an important role in Ukraine's ability to resist Russian advances. "And that support equals leverage," Kimmage said. 

He believes Russia, China and the United States may all be interested in portraying Europe as a secondary power, but that such a portrayal would overlook Europe's actual influence. 

"The optics and the reality are not quite the same," he said, drawing a distinction between the appearance of great-power diplomacy resembling the Yalta Conference and Europe's role in supporting Ukraine. 

Umarov offers another perspective. 

He believes that any diplomatic agreement between the US, Russia and China would face the reality on the ground. 

"China understands that whatever the outcome of negotiations with the United States and Russia, the reality on the ground will be very different and will depend above all on Ukraine," he said. 

"Whether the Kremlin likes it or not, Ukraine has agency of its own. Neither the United States nor Western countries can fully determine what happens on the battlefield through diplomatic pressure alone."