No – Trump, Xi and Putin are not about to divide the world between them

Résumé détaillé

Next week, Chinese President Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to have a meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific…

Next week, Chinese President Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to have a meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Shenzhen. Two words have been attached to this encounter, which all three governments have confirmed is being discussed: “historic” and “Yalta”.

“Historic”, because the three heads of state have never had a formal trilateral before; indeed, it has also been described as “unprecedented”. And “Yalta”, because many see parallels with the 1945 conference held in the Crimean city in which the “big three” – British prime minister Winston Churchill, US president Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin – discussed the post-Second World War status of Europe after it was liberated from the Nazis.

The second comparison is not a compliment: the conference is seen as having set the stage for the communist domination of Eastern Europe that lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Those who warn of a second Yalta are suggesting that the three leaders may use the planned meeting next week to divide the world between them.

This is alarmist, for a variety of reasons – not the least of which is that, while history is certainly a useful guide, the habit of constantly viewing current events through the era of the Second World War ignores the realities of the very different time we are living in.

For starters, the “big three” were aptly named and could make decisions as though other states were mere pieces on a chessboard. In 1945, the US share of global gross domestic product alone was about 50 per cent; today it is about half that. The US, China and Russia are great powers still, yes, but we are moving into an age of increasing multipolarity where middle powers and associations of smaller countries can – and do – exert agency. The fact that the expected meeting will be during a gathering of Apec, which has 21 member states, is a case in point.

Could the three men talk…

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