"Mina" from Beijing: will Xi Jinping really force Putin to conclude a peace agreement with Ukraine

After the bilateral meeting with the leader of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, in the South Korean city of Busan, Donald Trump said that he was satisfied with the results, noting that they managed to agree on "almost everything". "Overall, I would say that on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest, this meeting deserves a 12," the White House leader told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way back from South Korea to Washington.

In particular, according to the American leader, he and Xi "very seriously" discussed the issue of the full-scale war launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. As the owner of the Oval Office assures, during the conversation with the Chinese counterpart, it was agreed to cooperate in the direction of a peaceful settlement "to see if we can actually end this war. " "We agree that the parties are mired in hostilities, and sometimes you have to give them a chance to fight. But (Xi Jinping.

— ed. ) is going to help us, and we will work together on the issue of Ukraine. There is nothing more we can do," said the US president, adding that they did not discuss the issue of China's purchase of Russian oil.

According to the results of the negotiations in South Korea, the Chinese side did not comment on the likely further role of official Beijing in the process of peaceful settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian war, focusing instead exclusively on the case of economic cooperation between the United States and the People's Republic of China. "China and the U. S. must ensure that the giant ship of Sino-American relations moves forward confidently," Xi Jinping said.

According to the results of the meeting between the American and Chinese leaders, it was agreed that Trump will visit China in April 2026, and later Xi Jinping will pay a return visit to the United States. In view of this, some experts suggest that no developments in the diplomatic process regarding a peaceful settlement should be expected until the spring of next year.

Political scientist Oleh Lisny believes that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping "have not yet agreed on anything concrete" on the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Taking this into account, the expert outlined two likely future scenarios of the development of events in a conversation with Focus: "First, the situation will look quite good for us, because in the period until the next meeting of the leaders of the United States and the People's Republic of China, there will be no confrontation and aggressive struggle between them. This is one of the elements of some kind of stability, but none the less.

Secondly, I believe that even if Trump, speaking about the fact that Ukraine and the Russian Federation must be "let to fight", hopes for some lull, he will not succeed, because there is a powerful counterparty - Putin, who is now raising the stakes, especially in the nuclear component.

" According to Oleg Lisny, in the end it is the reluctance of the head of the Kremlin to make any concessions that will force Trump, "whose country will hold extremely important congressional elections for him next year," to react to the situation as quickly as possible. "Trump, perhaps, would be happy to wait and see what the consequences of his work with the Chinese on the Ukrainian issue will be, but I am sure that Putin, systematically escalating the situation, will not allow him to do this.

Accordingly, Trump, whether he wants it or not, will be forced to react to these actions," the political scientist states. Calling the dialogue between Trump and Xi "a dialogue not of friends, but of pragmatists," the expert concluded: "During the meeting of the leaders of the United States and the People's Republic of China, each of the parties, sorry for the expression, still kept their heads in their pockets, looking much further than April 2026.

Given the fact that China, at least at this stage, is benefiting from the Russian-Ukrainian war, it can be assumed that the PRC will not use the whip against the Russian Federation in the near future, making instead curtseys to the United States - rather demonstrative than effective. But China will still support Russia, because it is weakening itself and simultaneously weakening Europe and to some extent the USA.

"    Political scientist Viktor Nebozhenko is convinced that the freezing of the diplomatic peace process until the next meeting of the leaders of the USA and the People's Republic of China until April next year is extremely beneficial for Russia. In particular, in a conversation with Focus, he noted the following: "In the conditions of freezing the negotiation process, several additional and gentle conditions are created for Putin, but not for us.

I don't want to sound too harsh, but I would like to point out that in fact, in the current global nuclear-missile escalation, no one is even thinking about Ukraine and is not going to do so in the near future. Between the USA, Russia and China, which, by the way, is interested in the conflict between Putin and Trump, very, very complicated relations are emerging and the situation can actually get out of control.

That is, I am leading to the fact that all the horrors that are happening in our war, for the world, it turns out, are now less important than the nuclear blackmail between the USA and the Russian Federation. But it should be understood that now there is a lot of bluffing and provocations in geopolitics. Therefore, we should first of all hope that Europe will make a radical decision on December 19 to transfer a 140 billion euro loan to Ukraine under the guarantee of frozen Russian assets.

" Given the current situation between the United States and Russia, the expert believes, Donald Trump "against his own will" will have to help Ukraine more intensively "in order to somehow touch Putin's life. " "Despite the fact that Putin's special envoy Dmitriev brought some very nice sweet economic projects to the US, I think Trump will not wait three months before meeting with Xi, giving Putin time to advance in Ukraine.

He will try to "stab" the Kremlin at every opportunity, although some agreements with the Russian Federation may be signed at the same time. The same Dmitriev stated about possible agreements on rare earth materials, and the most scandalous thing in this story can happen if they partially coincide with Ukrainian agreements in terms of torture in Donbas," the political scientist emphasizes.

Viktor Nebozhenko considers the signing of agreements that American oil will go to the PRC instead of Russian oil an indicator that China is distancing itself from the Russian Federation, not in words, but in fact, and will actually join the process that can speed up the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war. But the expert does not believe in the realism of this "unambiguous and clear" scenario, predicting that Beijing will buy black gold from both America and Russia.

Instead, the political scientist believes, the Americans will "secretly or indirectly" increase their aid to Ukraine, in particular, more often agreeing with the European Union (EU) to transfer more effective weapons to Kyiv. At the same time, the analyst summarizes, it will not necessarily be about the "Tomahawks", but "certainly about something very similar to them.