{
  "id": 8647364,
  "title": "Middle powers don’t have to wait for a Trump-Xi-Putin summit",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/20/middle-powers-dont-have-to-wait-for-a-trump-xi-putin-summit",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-20T08:30:09.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Reuters Business via SCMP",
    "slug": "reuters-business-via-scmp",
    "url": "https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3367866/middle-powers-dont-have-wait-trump-xi-putin-summit"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The concept of a Trump-Xi-Putin summit, reminiscent of the historic Yalta conference, has resurfaced amidst discussions leading up to the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen. While no such meeting has materialized, Chinese President Xi Jinping recently hosted U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin consecutively in Beijing, sparking speculation about a potential three-way meeting. This hypothetical summit would symbolize the clustering of world powers around one table as international order appears to fragment. However, the likelihood of a literal 21st-century Yalta remains low. Nevertheless, the underlying logic of great powers competing and coordinating through agreements is becoming increasingly apparent as various sectors of global governance are shaped by these power dynamics. Middle powers, though constrained in their ability to halt great powers' competition or cooperation, have a more substantial capacity to prevent such rivalry from becoming the primary organizing principle of international cooperation. This opportunity arises from the strategic importance of multilateralism's geography. Global governance functions through specialized hubs, with New York focusing on universal political legitimacy, Geneva handling trade, health, labor, humanitarian, human rights, and technical institutions, Vienna overseeing nuclear governance and arms control, Nairobi concentrating on environmental governance, Brussels on regulatory power, Basel on central banking, Bangkok on regional development, and Singapore on finance and shipping. Emerging hubs include Shanghai, which hosts the Shanghai Gold Exchange, the New Development Bank, and since July, the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation (Waico). These hubs represent ecosystems where governments, international organizations, regulators, firms, experts, and civil society interact frequently. The next step involves deliberately connecting these hubs through a system of polycentric functional multilateralism, which would link specialized centers through recurring institutional relationships, fostering cooperation across geopolitical divides and transcending the periodicity of great-power summits. The basic unit of this system could be a functional multilateral corridor, such as a Geneva-Shanghai corridor focusing on AI governance or a Geneva-Nairobi corridor addressing AI infrastructure's energy, water, and environmental costs. Basel, Singapore, and Hong Kong could strengthen collaboration on digital finance and financial stability, while Geneva and Doha could link mediation with humanitarian diplomacy. These corridors necessitate more than mere conferences; they require regular working groups, staff secondments, joint fellowships, shared data sets, reciprocal observer arrangements, compatible reporting systems, pooled funding, and predictable annual work cycles. The success of these corridors hinges on the strategic role of host states, which can provide the necessary physical, legal, and diplomatic infrastructure. Host states like Switzerland, Kenya, Thailand, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates can establish the requisite frameworks for multilateralism. Middle powers with no significant international headquarters can act as connectors, financing cross-hub initiatives, bridging regulatory approaches, integrating regional organizations into global processes, and co-chairing functional coalitions. Their leverage lies in shaping the connections between institutions. By creating interconnections, these hubs can generate institutional momentum. Regular meetings evolve into routines; staff exchanges foster professional networks and institutional memory; joint projects cultivate constituencies among bureaucracies, companies, universities, and NGOs. Shared infrastructure and funding generate sunk costs, while standards enhance interoperability. The beneficial effects of lower costs of rupture and higher costs of cooperation gradually accrue. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub serves as a partial model, operating across various global locations while maintaining a strategic partnership with the US Federal Reserve. Financial authorities can collaborate on issues without first resolving geopolitical disagreements. The United Nations is also moving in a similar direction internally with its UN80 reform process, envisioning regional commissions as physical hubs and developing joint knowledge hubs. Extending this concept beyond the UN system could connect established institutions with regional and emerging centers. This is particularly significant as China establishes new governance infrastructure like Waico. Established hubs and middle powers can enter the system through technical cooperation, institutional links, and participation, fostering openness, compatibility with broader standards, and broader representation. However, the danger is that polycentricity might merely reproduce existing blocs, such as Washington-Brussels-Geneva versus Beijing-Shanghai-Moscow. Therefore, the crucial measure of success is cross-bloc connectivity, with a resilient system requiring multiple pathways between political factions, ensuring redundancy to withstand broken relationships and maintaining functional autonomy for technical cooperation during diplomatic crises. Ultimately, 21st-century functionalism should carry minimal political ambitions, focusing on containing rivalry's spillovers by preserving finance, health, climate, AI safety, humanitarian affairs, and trade from collapsing when relations among major powers deteriorate.",
  "summary": "The prospect of United States, Chinese and Russian leaders meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen this November has revived the Yalta analogy. Talk of a Trump-Xi-Putin summit – echoing the 1945 meeting that reshaped the world – surfaced during the first Trump term, and speculation returned last year with the 80th anniversary of the second world war. No such…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "South China Morning Post",
        "title": "Middle powers don’t have to wait for a Trump-Xi-Putin summit",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/20/middle-powers-dont-have-to-wait-for-a-trump-xi-putin-summit-8647723",
        "published": "2026-09-20T08:30:09.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}