Trump has said he is open to a three-way meeting with Xi Jinping and Putin, and Putin appears open to it too. People say they want to discuss everything, including the fate of Ukraine. Many now ask whether the world could come to a point where three countries decide all of world politics, or whether this is only for two more years, until Trump leaves.
All week, the Kremlin propaganda celebrated a possible “new Yalta”.
A troika that decides the fate of the world, as it did after World War II, is the model in Putin’s head. In reality, apart from nuclear arsenals, Russia today cannot be compared with China and the United States. Not in population, not in production volumes, and not in the level of its scientific and technological base. Over 25 years, Putin drove all of that deep down. He cannot compete with the United States, and now he cannot compete even with China.
Britain was once part of such a troika, and very quickly it was not, because its empire fell apart. Russia’s economy, I will not say it has collapsed, but it is at least in a deep depression. Over the last 15 of Putin’s 25 years in power, average economic growth in Russia has been roughly half of China’s. That tells you the balance of power, and how much Putin could afford to say inside this troika.
The other two sides want very different things from such talks. For Trump, the key issue is reducing nuclear weapons. For China, a country with a very powerful economy that lags well behind the United States in nuclear weapons, the interest is exactly the opposite. China has no interest in dividing the world. It has quite clear interests connected with Taiwan, and as its capabilities grow, it will keep pushing those interests. I really do not know whether America will be able to resist or not.
China vs United States
In industrial production America is no competitor to China. The real question between them is whether America is ready to accept Chinese goods on its own market, or will pay much more money to other producers. America and China will probably settle that question without Vladimir Putin.
Then there are artificial intelligence and modern technology. This issue is very pressing between the United States and China. Russia’s place in this discussion, sadly, after a quarter century of Vladimir Putin’s rule, is basically nil. We are nobody in the artificial intelligence race. Well, thank you, Uncle Volodya, you got what you wanted. In this sense the country is in very deep trouble, and sadly in many other areas too.
So when we talk about a troika dividing the world, it is Putin who wants to divide the world. China and the United States have modern disputes over trade, supply chains and high technology. One would of course like to talk about Greenland and Taiwan, but grabbing each other’s territory is not their first or even second priority.
Such a meeting is certainly possible. But Putin’s place at it would be a folding chair at the side of the table. Even a folding chair matters a lot to him, because it would give him legitimacy. To some extent it would remove from him the stamp of a pariah, a man wanted by the International Criminal Court. That is his personal wish, and it comes from his personal problems and fears.
As for the country, it cannot count on more than a folding chair. Alas, that is the result of 25 years of Putin’s rule.
China's sinisization of Siberia is the real threat to Russia, not a democratic Ukraine. Fighing wrong war; the Chinese are resource hungry snd very patient
I
The 3 Big Douchebags, xi, pootin & Dypa Don, should “accidentally” contract Ebola, Cholera & Denge Fever, along with crab lice, anal parasites, and flesh eating bacteria.