Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier after his trip to China, said in an ARDinterview on theReport from Berlinthat he had Xi Jinping in Beijing directly about media reports of a possible three-way meeting with the United States and Russia on Ukraine According to Steinmeier, Xi appeared visibly unsettled. Steinmeier saw this as an indication that Beijing is not actively pursuing such a trilateral summit format.
Steinmeier’s statement should be understood as an account of his own impression. It was picked up by the Deutschlandfunk There had initially been no specific new statements from Beijing on the matter. The Chinese leadership regularly emphasises its official preference for negotiations and political solutions, but avoids formats it sees as one-sided or instrumentalised. International discussions have repeatedly speculated about possible formats for talks on the sidelines of major meetings, such as APEC; to the best of current knowledge, China has made no firm commitments.
The episode matters for German foreign policy because Berlin has relied on multilateral levers since the start of Russia’s war of aggression and hopes to make use of Beijing’s influence over Moscow. Steinmeier’s observation points to a limit to such expectations: the Chinese president’s visibly reserved demeanour suggests that Beijing is sticking to its own cautious calculations and will not be pushed into acting as a mediator in a trilateral format. At the same time, by publicly interpreting the encounter, the German president underscores that Berlin openly addresses political signals from personal conversations.
In their initial assessments, German foreign policy figures and experts point out that impressions from confidential conversations are inevitably subjective and can be interpreted in different ways. The main thing that is clear is that there are still no signs of an imminent agreement on a three-way meeting between Washington, Moscow and Beijing on Ukraine. The dynamics of war diplomacy therefore remain shaped by bilateral contacts and broader formats, in which China combines its position with its own initiatives and general calls for ceasefires and negotiations, without binding itself firmly to Western or Russian expectations.
The immediate trigger is Steinmeier’s statements of 1 November 2026. They form part of the ongoing discussion about possible channels between the parties to the conflict and the influence of major powers, but do not demonstrate a change of course by Beijing.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).