Trump and the trap of vanity in China

The BBC’s Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, reported in one of his latest features on an exhibition organised in the centre of the Russian capital to celebrate the country’s Christian tradition. In one of the rooms, with no reference whatsoever to religion, a statuette was displayed depicting Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Stalin, seated. Russia is awaiting another meeting – a trilateral one – and the comparisons are mounting in an attempt to draw a straight line between those three who sat together to determine the fate of the world after the Second World War and another three who may sit down together shortly and who are keen to determine the fate of the world, especially now that, amongst them, there is a leader whose influence has been halved. Next week, on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen, a meeting could take place between the US President, Donald Trump, the Kremlin leader, Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. Last Sunday, Trump said he would be travelling to China and “I believe one of the meetings will be with Putin and Xi; it will be interesting”. It was the Kremlin leader who came up with the idea for the trilateral meeting and planted it in Trump’s mind during their last telephone call on 9 October, when they agreed on a number of points favourable to Moscow, including the lifting of certain sanctions and a deal on diesel exports. 

It was a productive phone call for the Kremlin leader, and from that moment on, everything changed – once again – with regard to Ukraine. Trump began accusing Volodymyr Zelensky of not wanting peace; disruptions began to affect Starlink, the satellite system that provides internet access and thus safeguards Kyiv; Moscow launched a major attack on the Ukrainian capital without the usual U.S. intelligence being shared with Kyiv. In a single phone call, Putin secured Trump’s attention and, with the onset of winter, an increasingly difficult period began for Kyiv, in which, as well as fighting the Russian army, it also had to contend with Trump’s attacks. The idea of a three-way meeting in China came from Putin; Trump liked it; Xi gave it his blessing; and now efforts are underway to bring the three of them to the table to discuss Ukraine – without Ukraine itself.

When Trump sits down with the Kremlin chief and the Chinese leader, he will be the only one of the three to have suffered an electoral defeat. Putin and Xi see democracy as a weakness, a mistake they have remedied. The US mid-term elections were viewed in Russia as a decisive moment, and Russian commentators were divided between those who mocked the US president for his defeat and the decisions that led to it, and those who instead saw the result as a national disappointment regarding a White House leader so inclined to listen to the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin saw an opportunity: a crippled Trump is a weakened Trump, easier to manipulate, even when he sits down – should the meeting actually take place – with him and Xi Jinping in Shenzhen to discuss global dynamics and how to address them. Peace plans are piling up and remain inconclusive; today in Abu Dhabi there will be a new meeting between Ukrainians, Russians and Americans, with Europeans also taking part. Few are pinning any hopes on the summit in the United Arab Emirates – which also marks a return to normality for the country, which, following the attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran, has struggled to regain its status as a meeting place and diplomatic hub – but for the Russians, these meetings serve to show the Americans just how open Moscow remains to dialogue. There is an unwritten rule: summits often become more frequent as winter approaches, that is, at the very moment when the Russian army uses its might to cut off Ukrainian cities from water and electricity. The Kremlin strikes, but it also talks – and knows that for Trump, this is often enough.

The meeting Putin is keen on is not the one in Abu Dhabi, but the possible trilateral summit in Shenzhen, where the US President will appear to be in his element amongst the leaders of Moscow and Beijing, discussing, amongst other things, the security of Ukraine and Europe. It is not a peace summit, because all the evidence suggests that Moscow intends to continue fighting, despite the cost in human lives – according to leaked data, more than 400,000 Russian soldiers are reported to have died. Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that the Russian army is resorting to doctored videos to show advances on the front line. These videos are also shown to Putin, including one purporting to demonstrate total Russian control over the town of Dobropillia in the Donbas. The facts tell a different story: Dobropillia, like so many other towns whose capture Moscow has announced, is not in Russian hands. Russia, which is failing to make any substantial advances on the front line, has used the truce in Oleshky to rotate its troops, but remains bogged down and is attempting to break out of this stalemate by pummelling towns and using Trump as its most versatile tool for exerting pressure on Ukraine.