APEC Shenzhen Explained: Will Trump, Xi and Putin Really Meet?

11 Nov

An empty round marble table with three leather chairs and three glasses of water in a high-rise meeting room at dusk, with a lit city skyline and bay behind. — Trump says he will meet Xi and Putin at APEC in Shenzhen; Beijing has not confirmed it.

Trump Says He Will Sit Down With Xi And Putin In Shenzhen, But Beijing Has Not Said Yes

Donald Trump has said it more than once: when the leaders of the Asia-Pacific gather in Shenzhen on 18 and 19 November, one of his meetings will be with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin together. If it happens, it would be a rare three-way sit-down between the leaders of the United States, China and Russia, and it would come at a moment when the last US-Russia nuclear treaty has expired, the war in Ukraine is still being fought and a war in Iran is unsettling energy markets.

But a claim from Trump is not the same as a confirmed meeting. The Kremlin says work is under way. Beijing, the host, has said only that it is "in communication with relevant parties". This guide explains what APEC is, why Shenzhen matters, what each of the three governments has actually said, and what would have to happen for the three-way meeting to take place.

What Is APEC, And Why Is It In Shenzhen?

APEC, or Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, is a forum of 21 economies around the Pacific Rim, including the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Canada and Australia. It was set up to promote trade and investment, and its annual leaders' meeting has become one of the few places where rival heads of government end up in the same building.

China holds the APEC chair for 2026. The 33rd Economic Leaders' Meeting will be held in Shenzhen, the southern technology and manufacturing city in Guangdong province, and it will be the third time China has hosted the leaders' meeting, after Shanghai in 2001 and Beijing in 2014. Beijing's theme for the year is "Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together", with three priorities: openness, innovation and cooperation. A business summit for chief executives runs alongside it on 17 and 18 November.

Choosing Shenzhen is a statement in itself. The city grew from a cluster of fishing villages into one of the world's great electronics hubs after it became China's first special economic zone in 1980. For a host keen to talk about technology and trade at a time of tariffs and chip export controls, it is the obvious shop window.

Who Is Going?

Trump has said he will travel to China for the summit. Xi, as host, will chair it.

Putin is also expected, and this is new. Marat Berdyev, an ambassador at large at Russia's foreign ministry, said in August that Putin would lead Russia's delegation and that it would be "the first time he has participated in the event in person since 2017". Russia has been an APEC member since 1998, but Putin has stayed away from recent leaders' meetings in person, including in the years since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Other leaders are planning their own meetings on the sidelines. Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, has said he will tell Xi that China should not interfere in Canada's internal affairs, a charge Beijing rejects. Japan's prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, is also expected, although China's foreign ministry has declined to say whether Xi will meet her.

What Trump Has Actually Said

The idea of a three-way meeting has grown over several weeks. In October, Trump said he was open to talks with Xi and Putin, initially "on denuclearization", and that he would do "anything I can do to end the war" in Ukraine.

On 8 November, speaking to reporters before flying back to Washington from Florida, he went further. "One of the meetings, I think, will be with President Putin and President Xi, and that'll be interesting," he said. "We're talking a lot of things, including denuclearisation, but we'll be talking a lot of things. We're trying to end the war in Iran."

Two days later, at a press conference in Paris, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the president wanted the meeting to take place "if possible" and believed the three countries should discuss "the status of nuclear weapons in the world". "We're working to organize it and to frame it in the appropriate way," Rubio said. "And hopefully, you know, we'll have some news for you about that fairly soon."

That is the American position: Trump expects the meeting, and his officials are trying to arrange it. Neither he nor Rubio has announced a date, a venue or a format.

What The Kremlin Says

Moscow has been the most enthusiastic of the three. Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy aide, first raised the idea in September, saying Putin and Xi had discussed it when they met at a regional summit in Bishkek. "If things go as planned, a meeting between the three of them could be arranged," he said.

In early November, the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said there was "a common understanding among the participants in such a potential meeting that it would be appropriate and highly useful", and that work was under way to coordinate it. He also stressed that China, as host, had the leading role.

By 8 November, Peskov was more cautious about the detail. He said the three countries were drafting proposals for an agenda, but that their priorities did not fully match. "Some points are preferable for one party and are considered entirely inappropriate for another," he said. "Therefore, a certain consensus needs to be found here."

On 11 November, Ushakov said a separate one-to-one meeting between Putin and Trump at the summit was being worked out "through the appropriate channels". Trump and Putin held a summit in Alaska in August 2025, and Putin publicly welcomed the prospect of a three-way meeting on 1 November, while noting that it would depend "to a large extent" on the Chinese hosts.

What Beijing Says, And What It Does Not

China's wording has been careful and consistent. Asked about Trump's remarks on 9 November, the foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun did not rule out the meeting, saying China was in communication with relevant parties about a meeting of the Chinese, Russian and US presidents. Days earlier, the spokeswoman Mao Ning had used almost identical language.

That is not a confirmation. It signals that the idea is being discussed without committing China to anything. Beijing also has its own reasons for caution.

The first is Ukraine. Germany's president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who met Xi in late October, said the Chinese leader looked "surprised" when asked about possible Ukraine talks and rejected the idea that China, Russia and the United States would discuss Ukraine in a three-way meeting.

The second is nuclear weapons. China has refused for years to join arms control talks with the United States and Russia, arguing that those two countries hold far larger arsenals and should cut first. When the US pressed for a new three-way deal after the last US-Russia treaty expired in February, China's disarmament ambassador, Shen Jian, said: "China will not take part in nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage." A meeting framed around "denuclearisation" puts Beijing in an awkward position on its own turf.

The third is image. Su Liuqiang, a scholar at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told Chinese state media that Russia was "most enthusiastic" among the three, and that "a low-profile trilateral meeting is the more realistic option" than a formal summit. Unconfirmed accounts attributed to unnamed sources suggest Beijing would prefer a tightly scripted format, while Washington wants a freer exchange. None of the three governments has commented on that.

What Would Be On The Table?

If the leaders do meet, three subjects are most likely, based on what each side has said.

Nuclear arms control. New START, the last treaty limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, expired on 5 February 2026. Trump has said he wants a "new, improved, and modernized" agreement, and that it would be "appropriate" for China to be part of one. This is the topic Trump and Rubio have mentioned most.

Ukraine. Su Liuqiang described Russia's core concern as negotiations on a ceasefire in Ukraine, and Trump has said he believes a deal to end the war is "very close". Volodymyr Zelensky has warned against any big-power deal that leaves Kyiv out. "I really don't want this to be a 'Yalta – 2, 3, 4,' when there is a redistribution of influence," he said in late October, referring to the 1945 conference at which the US, British and Soviet leaders shaped post-war Europe.

Iran. Trump named ending the war in Iran as a goal of the meeting. Russia and China both have close ties to Tehran and a stake in energy flows through the Gulf, and Su suggested any practical outcome might focus on stabilising global energy supplies.

How Likely Is It?

Nobody outside the three governments knows. What can be said is where each one stands.

Trump has stated it as an expectation. The Kremlin says preparations are under way but that consensus on the agenda is still needed. Beijing has not ruled it out but has not confirmed it either. All three leaders are expected in the same city on the same days, which makes some kind of encounter far more likely than a formal summit with an agreed agenda and a joint statement.

That distinction matters. A handshake on the margins, a brief group conversation or a photograph of the three together would be very different from a structured meeting with outcomes, even if any of them is later described as a meeting. When the summit begins, watch the official readouts from Washington, Beijing and Moscow. If all three describe the same meeting in the same terms, it happened. If only one does, treat it with care.

Why It Matters

Even an informal three-way conversation would be symbolic. The three countries hold the world's largest militaries and, between them, the great majority of its nuclear weapons, and their leaders usually deal with one another in pairs. A shared table in Shenzhen would suggest that Trump sees the world as a negotiation between a handful of great powers.

That is precisely what worries Ukraine and many of America's allies in Europe and Asia. It is also why Beijing, which prefers to describe itself as a champion of multilateralism, may want to keep any meeting small and quiet.

Trump and Xi are already set to meet one to one in Shenzhen, their third in-person meeting this year after Trump's visit to Beijing in May and Xi's trip to Washington in September. They are due to meet again at the G20 in Miami in December. Whatever happens with Putin, the US-China relationship will be the main event.

For the background to the Kremlin's first push for a three-way summit and Kyiv's warnings, read our earlier report, Kremlin Raises Trump–Putin–Xi Summit As Ukraine Warns Against Talks Without Kyiv.

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James Taylor