The reverse Nixon: How China moved to the top of the power triangle

Graphics: TBS

It began with a fuel deal. 

On 9 October, in a telephone call lasting about 90 minutes, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to release Russian diesel onto world markets.

Washington would facilitate its purchase and resale, and the Treasury issued a licence covering Russian diesel until 7 April, 2027. The aim was to ease fuel prices before the US midterm elections on 3 November.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited a former Russian intelligence officer briefed on the call, Putin used the same conversation to float something far larger. He proposed a three-way summit with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. It would be held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders' meeting in Shenzhen on 18–19 November.

The idea did not stay private. After the Journal's report on 18 October, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that a meeting had been "mentioned". He stressed that no agenda or agreement existed.

Trump then said he was willing to attend, even without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A senior US official told the Journal that Trump had not formally agreed.

On Wednesday, Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the Chinese hosts were already preparing for the meeting. He called it "historic". China's foreign ministry says it has no information to offer.

Such a meeting would be the first of its kind. It would bring together the leaders of the world's three largest nuclear powers, while excluding the country whose war is the most pressing item on their agenda.

Ushakov himself conceded that it would provoke a storm of commentary, including comparisons with Yalta. It would also take place on Chinese soil, which shows how far the strategic triangle built by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1970s has been inverted.

Three leaders, three agendas

Moscow, Washington and Beijing have all acknowledged the possibility of a meeting, which Peskov described as hypothetical. Their priorities barely overlap.

Trump's stated focus is nuclear arms control, not Ukraine. Bloomberg reported that the White House has discussed for weeks a leaders' meeting centred on denuclearisation.

The New Start treaty, the last US–Russia arms control pact, expired in February without a replacement. Washington wants China inside any new framework.

Beijing has refused. Earlier this month its foreign ministry said that China's nuclear strength is not at the level of the US and Russia. It added that joining trilateral talks at this stage would be neither fair nor realistic.

The numbers support Beijing's argument. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) estimated that the world held 12,187 warheads in January.

The US and Russia account for about 86% of that total, or roughly 83% of the warheads in military stockpiles. China's estimated 620 warheads are about 5% of the total.

By stockpile, the US and Russian arsenals are six to seven times the size of China's. China's is, however, the fastest growing.

Putin wants something different. The Journal reported that he sees the summit as a way to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine on terms favourable to Moscow, without Kyiv or European capitals at the table. Peskov said no substantive proposals had been put forward by anyone.

Xi at the apex

Xi's position is the most delicate of the three. As Apec host, he gains prestige from convening the leaders of the United States and Russia.

Chinese officials, however, reportedly fear that a Ukraine-centred meeting would overshadow Beijing's own priorities for the summit. China also champions an "equal and orderly multipolar world", which would sit badly with a great-power meeting that decides the fate of smaller states.

The Kremlin has said since 6 October that Putin and Xi will hold a bilateral meeting in Shenzhen. Beijing has not confirmed a trilateral.

The geometry is the reverse of Nixon's. In 1972, Washington exploited the Sino-Soviet split to place itself at the apex of the triangle, closer to Beijing and Moscow than they were to each other.

Today the apex belongs to Xi. China is Russia's main economic lifeline and a key supplier of technology, and the two share institutional ties through Brics and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

A summit on Chinese soil would cast Beijing as host and arbiter, and Washington as the party seeking concessions from two aligned rivals.

A "reverse Nixon", in which Washington courts Moscow to isolate Beijing, looks unrealistic. Unlike the Sino-Soviet hostility of 1969, the Sino-Russian relationship rests on deep interdependence and a shared opposition to Western dominance.

Many analysts argue that Washington's simultaneous pressure on both capitals has pushed them closer together.

Yalta fears in Kyiv and Europe

The prospect has alarmed Kyiv, where the diesel deal had already caused anger. On 16 October, a week after the call, Trump signed an executive order waiving the sweeping Russia sanctions law that Congress passed and he signed in September.

Over the same period, he criticised Zelenskyy repeatedly. On 10 October he suggested that Ukraine find a new leader.

On 18 October he said on Truth Social that Zelenskyy did not want to end the war and probably never had. He cited Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, which he blames for higher diesel prices.

The next day he said it was time for somebody else to negotiate on Ukraine's behalf. Zelenskyy has accused Washington of pressing Kyiv towards capitulation.

On the summit itself, Zelenskyy said the three powers have the right to meet, but not to discuss Ukraine without Ukraine. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha went further, warning that a Washington–Moscow–Beijing meeting would encourage Putin to prolong the war.

European reaction fits the same pattern. The EU has said it will condemn Russia's invasion at the G20 summit in Miami on 14–15 December, whether or not Putin accepts Washington's invitation.

That statement followed the September invitation and predates the Shenzhen proposal. It nonetheless shows how tense relations are over Washington's outreach to Moscow.

Critics warn that settling European security without Paris, Berlin and Warsaw would set a dangerous precedent for Western cohesion.

What to watchout for

The agenda is the key variable. The idea could stall if the three capitals cannot find common ground, or it could shrink to a brief informal encounter on the sidelines of the Apec meeting. Three signals over the next four weeks will show which way it is heading.

The first is whether Beijing confirms its role. So far China's foreign ministry has said only that it has no information to offer, while the Kremlin says the Chinese hosts are already preparing. That gap matters because Xi controls the programme. A meeting the host has not agreed to cannot happen, and a host that wants to avoid the "new Yalta" label has every reason to keep it informal.

The second is whether the Putin–Xi bilateral expands into a trilateral. The Kremlin has said since 6 October that the two leaders will meet in Shenzhen, so that meeting is the likeliest vehicle. If Xi were to bring Trump into it, Beijing would keep control of the format and could present it as a courtesy extended to a guest.

The third is whether Kyiv is offered any seat in the process. Zelenskyy has said the three powers may meet, but that anything concerning Ukraine requires Ukraine at the table. Trump has said he would attend even without Zelenskyy. The talks Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff held with Putin in St Petersburg this week, and the earlier ones with Zelenskyy in Oslo, show that a separate channel to Kyiv exists. Whether it carries any weight in Shenzhen is another matter.

The next test follows soon after. The G20 summit in Miami on 14–15 December, to which Washington has invited Putin, would put Trump, Putin and European leaders in the same forum, and Zelenskyy has said he would attend if Putin does. Whatever happens in Shenzhen, the proposal already shows that the great powers are bargaining over a world in which Washington no longer sits at the centre of the triangle.