Credit : Reuters' X
WASHINGTON, November 11, 2026 – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed on the importance of leader-level talks to advance peace and denuclearization, including at any trilateral meeting with Russia, the US State Department said on Wednesday.
According to the department’s readout, posted on X, the call took place at China’s request. Rubio, who is also National Security Advisor, spoke with Wang, who is also director of the Office of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission and a Politburo member.
The two discussed President Donald Trump’s upcoming travel to the APEC summit in China and President Xi Jinping’s planned visit to Florida for the G20 summit. TASS reported that the APEC summit is due in Shenzhen on November 18-19 and the G20 summit in Miami on December 14-15.
The State Department said the two recalled the leaders’ “commitment to a constructive relationship of strategic stability on the basis of respect, fairness, and reciprocity”. It added that they “agreed on the importance of meaningful leader-level conversations to advance goals such as peace and denuclearization, including at any potential trilateral leaders meeting with Russia”.
Beijing’s account differed in emphasis. China’s earlier readout, carried by the state news agency Xinhua, described the call as “positive and constructive” and made no mention of denuclearization or a trilateral summit with Russia, Reuters reported. Xinhua said Wang told Rubio that the current stability in China-US relations had not come easily and was a rational choice based on the two countries’ respective and shared interests, and that China was willing to strengthen communication and cooperation with Washington.
The call follows comments from Rubio on Tuesday that work was under way to arrange a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit involving Trump, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Reuters said. Trump said on Sunday that he thought he would meet Xi and Putin in Shenzhen to discuss ending the war in Iran and denuclearization.
Beijing has so far been cool on three-way nuclear talks. Trump said in October that he was open to arms control talks with Xi and Putin focused on nuclear weapons. China’s Foreign Ministry said last month that its “nuclear strength is by no means at the same level with that of the US and Russia” and that it would be “neither fair, reasonable nor realistic to ask China to join the so-called trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage”.
Trump and Xi have already met twice this year, according to Reuters. The South China Morning Post reported this week that a trilateral meeting could yield a commitment to control the use of artificial intelligence in nuclear arsenals, as part of a broader agenda on global governance. Neither government has confirmed such a commitment.
For now, the two sides’ readouts show agreement that leaders should keep talking before the Shenzhen summit, while leaving open whether China will take part in any three-way discussion of nuclear weapons. Both governments have said they want to keep channels open ahead of the leaders’ meeting.
Credit : Reuters’ X. Additional reporting: US State Department, Xinhua, TASS.
About The Author
