Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to meet China’s top leader Xi Jinping in Beijing shortly after the May 14-15 China-US summit. Do these consecutive visits indicate a new phase of triangular diplomacy? Contrary to Sino-American summits of the Nixon eraAs U.S. and Chinese leaders sought to use their rapprochement to further isolate the Soviet Union, the upcoming meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Xi is unlikely to pressure Russia over Iran or Ukraine.
Trump is no stranger to triangular diplomacy. In April 2017, while hosting Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, Trump revealed that the United States had just bombed Syria, an ally of Russia. China then abstained from a United Nations resolution condemning Syria’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, instead vetoing it, alongside Russia. At the time, a Chinese expert on the United States argued that Trump may have attempted to create discord between China and Russia over Syria with this decision, as well as demonstrate his own distance from Putin to domestic audiences.
As Xi and Trump prepare to meet this week, Western media reported that Russia was shipping drones to Iran with features improving on the Shahed models that Iran had provided Russia for the war in Ukraine. The US Treasury Department also sanctioned three Chinese companies – Meentropy Technology Co. Ltd, The Earth Eye and Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd. – for providing satellite imagery to Iran to aid in missile targeting and to nine other Chinese companies for their involvement in Iranian oil shipments to China.
Both China and Russia have partnership agreements with Iran, but both do not constitute a military alliance. Moreover, despite considerable overlap in their critical statements about U.S. actions in Iran, their interests in the conflict don’t always line up. Although China’s economy has weathered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz thanks to its oil reserves and a growing renewable energy sector, rising energy prices and their impact on trade in other Gulf products – particularly chemicals needed to produce fertilizers and semiconductors – create economic risks for China in a protracted conflict.
Russia, on the other hand, has benefited from rising oil prices and is much less dependent on trade from the Gulf. However, some Russian experts claim that Russia must balance its ties with Iran with relations with other Gulf States and takes some advantage of continued US engagement in the Middle East, as long as Moscow plays a stabilizing role.
For Xi Jinping, the war in Iran constitutes an additional challenge for Sino-Russian relations. Last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged: “closer and stronger strategic coordination” within the partnership, which is usually a sign of a perceived lack of coordinated activity (Wang made a similar statement on the right). after Russia’s large-scale invasion of UkraineFor example). Still, Xi is unlikely to agree to urge Russia to pressure Iran to withdraw from the war with the United States and Israel. While presenting itself as a potential interlocutor in the conflict, China has not yet played a direct role in the talks, now mediated by Pakistan.
Like many European leaders, Trump also urged China to urge Russia to end the war in Ukrainein vain. As with the war in Iran, China has presented various peace plans for Ukraine, but has not played a central role in the negotiations. With China, it seems providing 90 percent of Russian dual-use technology in the war in May 2026, Ukraine does not consider China a neutral party. In addition to its material support, China has repeated Russian language about its legitimate interests, further tarnishing any potential mediating role between the Europeans. In April 2026, for the first time, the European Union imposed sanctions on several Chinese entities for their role in this dual-use trade.
Many others likely topics of discussion at the Sino-US summit – trade and investment, Taiwan, critical minerals, AI – have no direct impact on Russia or Sino-Russian relations. Nonetheless, a major trade or investment deal between China and the United States would highlight the considerable gap between China-US and China-Russia economic relations. By 2025, trade between the United States and China will reach $414.7 billionalmost double the volume of Sino-Russian trade. $234 billion. Although education has been designated as a priority area of Sino-Russian cooperation in 2026-2027, the number of Chinese students in the United States (265,919), although declining in recent years, still far exceeds the number of Chinese students choosing to go to Russian universities (56,000).
Even if the China-US summit achieves notable results on trade, investment and other key issues, by comparison, the upcoming Xi-Putin meeting – one of more than 40 such interactions – is likely to showcase the China-Russia partnership as a key force for global stability. The strategic context of the US-Israeli war in Iran will provide a welcome opportunity for Xi and Putin to highlight their areas of agreement and downplay their differences on Iran, North Korea and many other issues.
Although an authoritative article in the People’s Daily refers to economic ties as “the ballast” of Sino-American relationsChinese officials have often referred to the Sino-Russian partnership itself as “ballast stone to safeguard peace and stability”. Wu Dahui, deputy director of the Russian Research Institute at Tsinghua University, who worked for the People’s Liberation Army, recently spoke about the more than 60,000 communication lines between the two countries, connecting the two like blood vessels into one body.
The Sino-US summit represents an important step in stabilizing relations, but the Sino-Russian summit will appear more robust, at least in terms of the frequency and scope of bilateral dialogue. In this context, the prospects for American triangular diplomacy in Beijing do not seem promising.