From Yalta to Shenzhen: A Trilateral Meeting That Could Make History

On 19 November 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to hold trilateral talks during the APEC summit in Shenzhen. If the meeting goes ahead, it will be the first formal trilateral meeting of the heads of state of China, the United States and Russia, marking a significant moment in diplomacy.

Several major meetings of national leaders have profoundly influenced the modern international order. In November 1943, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss the war against Japan and the post-war order in Asia. A few days later, Roosevelt and Churchill joined Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Tehran for trilateral talks to coordinate military strategy in the European theatre.

In February 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met again at Yalta to negotiate major questions including the post-war settlement for Germany, the political future of Europe and Soviet entry into the war against Japan. The Yalta Conference became an important historical landmark in the formation of the international order after the Second World War.

China participated in the Cairo Conference of 1943, but the Soviet Union did not. The Tehran Conference and the Yalta Conference of 1945 brought together the leaders of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union, without China. In the decades that followed, Chinese, American and Russian leaders attended many of the same international gatherings and held numerous bilateral talks, but never convened a formal trilateral meeting involving all three heads of state.

This gives the planned Shenzhen meeting a particular historical significance. Compared with the wartime conferences, the participants will now be China, the United States and Russia. Three major powers with a substantial influence on today’s strategic landscape will sit at the same negotiating table for their first trilateral meeting at head-of-state level.

One distinction deserves particular emphasis. Although the APEC leaders’ gathering is called an “informal meeting”, that term primarily describes APEC’s consultative arrangements and meeting format. It does not mean that the gathering lacks importance, or that summit talks held alongside it amount only to casual diplomatic contact.

According to the arrangements announced by the White House, the China–US–Russia meeting is a deliberately planned diplomatic engagement. It is not a chance encounter between leaders exchanging a few words in a corridor. Its significance is especially clear against the current international backdrop: the war in Ukraine continues, tensions surrounding Iran remain high, the nuclear arms control system faces severe challenges, and strategic competition between China and the United States carries the risk of further escalation. The political weight of the three leaders choosing this moment for their first trilateral talks cannot be adequately captured by the word “informal”.

Nevertheless, expectations of an immediate breakthrough should remain limited. China, the United States and Russia have complex differences over nuclear arms control, regional security and the international political order. As host, China may prefer to use consultations beforehand to clarify the agenda and coordinate basic positions, helping the meeting proceed as planned. The United States and Russia may retain more tactical flexibility over particular issues and negotiating approaches. These different interests will also make substantive agreements harder to achieve.

At major international summits, important agreements generally require extensive negotiations in advance, with leaders providing the final confirmation. If the three parties have yet to establish agreement in principle, a brief first meeting will be even less likely to produce a breakthrough. The US side has already indicated that it does not expect specific agreements to be announced at this meeting.

Yet the significance of the talks cannot be measured solely by the number of agreements reached. As global strategic competition becomes more complex and the risks associated with war and international security persist, establishing a shared forum for dialogue among the leaders of these three powers has significance in its own right. Even without an immediate major agreement, the meeting could open a new diplomatic channel for future trilateral coordination.

For Shenzhen, the APEC gathering has another significance.

The city has devoted substantial resources to preparing for the event, with careful attention to conference venues, transport infrastructure, the urban environment and services for international visitors. Shenzhen clearly hopes to use this rare international occasion to present itself to the world as a modern, open city with a dynamic technology sector.

A city’s international recognition, however, does not depend entirely on its economic size, infrastructure or urban development. Shenzhen already occupies an important position in technological innovation, electronics manufacturing and international trade. For many people overseas who are unfamiliar with China, however, it may still lack a clearly recognisable identity of its own. Compared with Hong Kong, Shanghai and Guangzhou, whose long histories of international contact have helped establish their reputations, Shenzhen still needs time to build similarly widespread and enduring recognition.

International audiences also tend to understand Shenzhen’s achievements within the broader story of China’s development, rather than seeing it as a city with a distinct place in historical memory. Hosting a well-organised international conference can certainly help, but urban presentation and publicity alone are unlikely to create a deep and lasting international impression in a short period.

If the first formal trilateral meeting of the Chinese, American and Russian heads of state takes place in Shenzhen, however, the picture could change.

Shenzhen would then be associated with a major diplomatic event without precedent. The names of Cairo and Tehran in 1943, and Yalta in 1945, signify more than geographical locations: the international conferences held there made them part of historical memory.

Of course, the historical circumstances of the Shenzhen meeting will be entirely different from those of Yalta. Their political outcomes and international influence cannot simply be equated. The forthcoming talks may not produce any breakthrough agreement at all.

Their symbolic significance could nevertheless extend beyond the immediate results of the negotiations. Whether or not a major agreement is reached, the first formal trilateral meeting of the heads of state of China, the United States and Russia would itself establish a new diplomatic precedent.

For China, this would be an important engagement among major powers. For Shenzhen, it could be a rare opportunity to leave a distinctive historical mark on the international stage.

Shenzhen has made extensive preparations for APEC in the hope of showing the world a newly transformed modern city. What ultimately gives the world a lasting memory of Shenzhen, however, may well be this historic trilateral meeting.