Trump-Xi-Putin trilateral meeting at APEC: What to expect

详细摘要

A nuclear treaty and the US's war on Iran are among priority topics for China, Russia and US leaders.

US President Donald Trump, China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will hold their first trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China’s Shenzhen, the White House has confirmed.

On Friday, Washington also confirmed Trump’s attendance at the summit, which will take place from November 18-19.

Talks will focus on nuclear proliferation, the White House said. But they come amid significant global turbulence: Russia’s war in Ukraine, the US-Israeli war on Iran and ongoing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

“I think what we’ll see is some pretty impressive photo-ops with a lot of really bombastic rhetoric from Trump,” Simon Mabon, a professor of international politics at the UK’s Lancaster University, told Al Jazeera. However, he added, the three “collectively or unilaterally, are not able to bring about an end to the conflict in Iran or Ukraine”.

Each leader has his own priorities, but there are some issues all will want to discuss.

A top issue for Russia and the US is the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which lapsed in February. The treaty was first signed in 2010 and caps US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals.

Russia currently possesses the largest number of warheads, followed by the US and then China, which is rapidly building up its own arsenal.

Trump previously rejected Russia’s proposal to extend the treaty after it expired, demanding instead a “new, improved and modernised” deal that includes Beijing.

China is understood, however, to be reluctant to join an agreement it was not involved in forming.

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