Commentary
Russia’s Vladimir Putin has proposed a summit including himself, China’s Xi Jinping, and President Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal recently reported.
Beijing has not objected to a trilateral summit, which would include a venue in Shenzhen, China, in mid-November.
Such a trilateral summit between the heads of state of Russia, China, and the United States is historically unprecedented, and for good reason. The proposal has at least 10 major pitfalls for democracy.
First, holding the summit in China would give the regime in Beijing an advantage. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would appear as a peacemaker, pivot, and mediator rather than the main enabler of Putin’s war against Ukraine and Iran’s war against the United States. As the host of the summit, Beijing could set its agenda.
Second, it would encourage Putin. A summit without Ukraine would give Russia an edge in negotiations that it could use to demand even more Ukrainian territory than it has already taken.
Third, it would cede America’s moral high ground by making Xi and Putin appear equal to an elected U.S. president. Putin is currently attacking civilians in Ukraine, and Xi threatens to do so in Taiwan and the Philippines.
Fourth, it would encourage Xi in his plans to take Taiwan and the South China Sea. If Washington and Beijing let Putin take Ukraine, Xi is sure to demand that he be allowed to take these territories without significant resistance from the international community. This would be his quid pro quo and further the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) strategy of incrementalism.
On Oct. 20, for example, ships under the command of China’s navy had two separate incidents with U.S. and Taiwanese ships in the South China Sea. Beijing’s message is consistent: the U.S. military and its partner militaries should leave all of Asia.
Fifth, consistent with point number four, Putin would offer Beijing a “sphere of influence” as part of the November negotiations. This would likely be in Asia and would entail withdrawing U.S. military forces from the entire region.
Once the United States military has withdrawn, the PLA could fill the vacuum. The CCP could then use Asia’s resources, industry, and people to expand even further, for example into the Middle East, Russia’s Far East, and the South Seas near Australia.
Sixth, talk of denuclearization would benefit Russia, and China even more. Dictatorships in which there is no freedom of speech or freedom of the press are by nature opaque compared to democracies. There are more opportunities for Russia and China to falsely agree to arms limitations because of their opaque societies. They can leverage their lack of freedoms to continue their nuclear weapons programs while hiding them from the public and the United States.
Seventh, the United States and Russia both have much smaller populations and industrial ecosystems than does China. China’s navy already has more hulls than the U.S. Navy, and the rest of its conventional military is on track to exceed those of the Russian and American air and land forces as well. Without the deterrent effect of U.S. nuclear weapons, there would be little to stop the CCP’s conventional military from pursuing its expansionary and ultimately hegemonic goals in Asia.
Eighth, the summit ennobles two dictators who support Iran, which is currently in an on-and-off-again war with the United States. Iran has killed more than 20 American servicemen and wounded hundreds of others in this war. China and Russia have both provided assistance to Iran, which has allegedly used their intelligence to target Americans.
Meeting with both Xi and Putin so soon after these attacks would demonstrate weakness and insult the memory of the men and women who fell in the Middle East to defend America’s freedom.
Ninth, if the goal is to end the war in Ukraine, the United States should first come to a united and, therefore, more powerful bargaining position with America’s democratic allies. The democracies should go into any discussions with China and Russia with a single, unified position. At a minimum, U.S. allies from Europe, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and Australia should be at the table.
Japan, for example, is as little as two months away from running out of yttrium, a rare earth imported from China. Manufacturing in Japan reliant on yttrium is critical to the U.S. defense supply chain, as well as other Japanese defense, automobile, and semiconductor manufacturing.
Any major deal between the United States and China should take account of the needs of America’s closest allies, or China will be able to divide us.
Tenth, and relatedly, a U.S. summit with Xi and Putin without full involvement of Washington’s democratic allies will undermine the perceived reliability of America’s alliance commitments. This would accelerate initiatives in countries like Japan and South Korea to get their own nuclear deterrence (an arguably silver lining to an otherwise negative set of repercussions).
The United States should never agree to being outnumbered by dictators, especially on their own turf in China. Giving the CCP such a summit on Chinese soil only further empowers authoritarians who were never voted into office. This applies most to the CCP, which would turn the summit to its advantage against the United States and Russia.
In the foreseeable future, the CCP remains the world’s most powerful and greatest threat to democracy. Rather than striking deals that could help the CCP, the goal should be to democratize China.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
