Credit, Ira L. Black/Corbis/Mohd Rasfan/Kristina Solovyova/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Preparations for the first trilateral meeting between the leaders of China, Russia and the United States have provoked concern in Europe, where some see parallels with the division of the world into spheres of influence after World War II.
On November 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting an exhibition at Moscow's Manege on Red Square, accompanied by a group of students, when he stopped in front of a large sculpture depicting then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference in February 1945.
"These were the leaders of the three main powers, who met to discuss how the world should be organized after the war," Putin told the students.
The previous day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin had announced consultations for a meeting between Putin, United States President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on November 18 and 19, when they will be at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, China. On Friday (11/13), White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales confirmed that the meeting would take place.
When news first emerged that the Kremlin was proposing such a meeting in mid-October, it provoked concern in the European Union—and in Ukraine—as it reminded many of the meeting of the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition at the former residence of the Russian tsars on the shores of the Black Sea in Yalta.
In exchange for Stalin's agreement to enter the war against Japan after victory over Germany, the expansion of Soviet influence throughout Eastern Europe was accepted.
A secret agreement on East Asia also granted the Soviet Union the Japanese territories south of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, as well as reestablishing the Soviet naval base in the Chinese city of Port Arthur and special economic interests in Manchuria.
Since then, in Eastern Europe, "Yalta" has become an expression often used as a synonym for a cynical agreement between great powers to divide the world into spheres of influence, without regard to smaller countries, including those whose territories were being partitioned.
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"I in no way want this to turn into Yalta 2, 3 or 4, where spheres of influence are simply redistributed," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"After Alaska, this would represent a second major diplomatic victory for Russia if events unfold in the way that Russian officials are currently suggesting regarding their desire for a new 'Yalta'."
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said any discussion about ending the war in Ukraine must involve Europe. "Europe must and wants to play a role in this process," he said.
"Fundamental issues of a peace agreement, be it sanctions or the future security structure, can only be resolved with the participation of us Europeans — and everyone involved knows this," Merz added.
'Unusual shape'
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While Putin may indeed be trying to gain support to end the war in Ukraine on terms favorable to Russia, as the American newspaper Wall Street Journal has suggested, it remains unclear what exactly he intends to discuss with Trump and Xi.
"Ukraine will inevitably be addressed in one way or another," said Yuri Ushakov, an adviser to the Russian president. But he added: "So far, there are only preliminary sketches of what could be discussed in such a high-level meeting and in such an unusual format."
Trump has denied that Ukraine is on the agenda and stated that instead "we could come together to discuss nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament."
China has no interest in participating in negotiations on Ukraine from which Europe is excluded, as it is doing everything possible to weaken the perception that it supports Russia in the war, according to Joseph Torigian, an associate professor at American University in Washington.
Although Chinese elites have given less and less importance to the European Union in recent years, they remain interested in maintaining good relations with European countries, key trading partners.
But Beijing also displays skepticism toward nuclear weapons talks, Torigian notes. "They consider that, because they have a smaller nuclear program, one of their advantages is precisely the lack of transparency," he says.
Russia's interest in a meeting of this type is evident: excluding Europe from negotiations on Ukraine and demonstrating, once again, that Moscow cannot be isolated on the international stage.
The appeal to the American leader is also clear. “Trump is excited about the idea because of the pomp and ceremonial atmosphere,” notes Torigian.
"He will be able to tell the story of how wonderful it is that these great powers came together, that he was the first to do it and that he is promoting peace," adds the analyst.
But for Beijing, the benefits are much less clear. "Yalta is not a pleasant memory for the Chinese," notes Torigian.
The Chinese were outraged that Stalin had guaranteed special interests for the Soviet Union in Manchuria.
"Even Mao Zedong, after the communist victory in China in 1949, considered that everything the Soviets had asked for at Yalta and continued to demand was a huge point of friction," notes Torigian.
These disputes help to explain, in part, the later rupture between China and the Soviet Union.
As far as Eastern Europe is concerned, historians still debate the extent to which the expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence was simply a recognition of an inevitable reality. By February 1945, the Red Army already occupied Romania, Bulgaria and large parts of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
But today, the Russian Armed Forces don't even control all of the territory in eastern Ukraine that the Kremlin has already claimed as Russian — and, unlike in 1945, only one of the possible summit participants is directly involved in the war.
International prestige
Russia is also the only country that still has an interest in a clear division of the world into spheres of influence, says Torigian.
Although the National Security Strategy adopted during the Trump administration describes the Western Hemisphere as a US sphere of influence, the country is not willing to abandon its support for Taiwan. And China's presence in Latin America remains important to Beijing.
Russia considers itself a superpower on par with the US and China — and official Chinese statements often describe Russians as equals.
"But behind closed doors, neither Chinese experts nor the country's leadership consider Russia to be a power on an equal footing with China," says Marcin Kaczmarski of the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
“The only country that Chinese leadership and elites truly consider to be on par with China is the US,” he notes.
A trilateral summit could raise Beijing's international prestige, Kaczmarski says, projecting Xi as a global statesman whom leaders of other major powers travel to meet.
Credit, AFP
But Trump's position on the international stage also became less secure after the Republicans' defeat in the midterm elections for US Congress.
The question, according to Kaczmarski, is whether China wants to strengthen Trump's international standing. He adds: "I still have a lot of questions about the meeting itself."
During visits to Eastern Europe in the 2000s, then-US President George W. Bush repeatedly called the Yalta accords a historic evil.
According to the New York Times, the statements were directed specifically at Putin. Bush said that Russia had no right to interfere in the affairs of its neighboring countries and should apologize for the actions of the Soviet Union.
"No more Yaltas," Bush declared in 2002, in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
If, almost 25 years later, Putin manages to secure a meeting with the leaders of the US and China in a format that even remotely resembles the Yalta Conference, it will represent a symbolic victory for him — even if the meeting does not produce concrete results.
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