Beijing is weighing a three-way summit with President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin. China confirmed on Wednesday that it is in talks about a meeting later this month. Expert Xin Qiang said, "It is a historical lesson of great-power politics that China will never forget." Risks remain for China.
A summit could bolster Xi Jinping's stature. But talks about Ukraine's future and limits on nuclear weapons pose uncomfortable choices for China.
In early 1945, the leaders of the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain met in the Crimean city of Yalta and struck a secret deal promising Moscow special rights in China in return for joining the war against Japan.
But China was not at the table.
"It is a historical lesson of great-power politics that China will never forget," said Xin Qiang, a U.S.-China expert at Fudan University in Shanghai. "It was all done behind China's back and at the expense of Chinese interests."
More than eight decades later, Beijing is weighing whether to host a three-way meeting of President Trump, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping, China's leader.
The meeting could affirm China's ambition to be an indispensable global power on an equal footing with the United States, but it risks echoing the kind of great-power bargaining Beijing has claimed to resent. The prospect of such a gathering, floated by the Kremlin, has raised fears in Ukraine that Mr. Putin might push for a deal with Mr. Trump to end his war and decide the fate of Ukraine -- without Kyiv's involvement.
China confirmed on Wednesday that it is in talks with Russia and the United States about a meeting between the countries' leaders, presumably on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, later this month. But it remained unclear if such a gathering would take place.
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