Favoring «deals over deterrence» will damage U.S. alliances and embolden Beijing, says Craig Singleton of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Critics say U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin—to be held without Ukraine—will revive an international order centered on great powers.
Russia’s quasi-ally China is likely the biggest beneficiary, with Xi Jinping watching the talks closely for lessons that can be applied in a Taiwan context, said Craig Singleton, senior fellow at the Washington–based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).Why It Matters
Trump has warned of «severe consequences» if Putin fails to agree to end the war against Ukraine—now in its third year—following Friday’s summit at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska. Ukraine has been excluded from the talks.
European leaders, who have spoken with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, say they hope the talks will be fruitful but have cast doubt on the chances without Kyiv’s involvement, cautioning in a joint statement last week that «international borders must not be changed by force.»What To Know
«Beijing reads Alaska as validation of Trump’s great-power bargaining instinct—Russia, China, and the U.S. treated as coequal poles, with spheres-of-influence logic back in play», Singleton said in an FDD email shared with Newsweek.
«That lets Xi applaud peace from the sidelines, risk nothing, and study the precedent for how it might translate to Asia before engaging.»
From Beijing’s perspective, excluding Zelensky signals to Moscow that it may be able to keep the Ukrainian territory it has seized in any peace deal, while also implying that great powers can alter borders by force, the analyst said.
