By Venus Upadhayaya
US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have decided to cooperate to end the Ukraine war, with Trump saying that the topic had come up “very strongly” during their talks, according to the reports of their Oct. 30 meeting at Busan.
“He’s going to help us, and we’re going to work together on Ukraine,” said Trump.
Before landing in Busan, Trump had made it clear that he’ll seek Chinese help to end the Ukraine war. The European Union has also expressed the same wish last week and it’s thus an important question as to why the US is seeking Chinese help which is the top purchaser of Russian oil and is hit by the just levied US sanctions on the top Russian oil companies but is pressurising and hitting at India for the same reasons.
India is the second largest purchaser of Russian oil after Beijing and has been under constant pressure from the US for ending its purchase which President Trump has said is helping President Vladimir Putin run his war economy. Trump hiked the tariffs on Indian exports to 50 percent just to pressurize India to stop purchasing oil from Moscow. The European Union has also continued to import gas from Russia though it has substantially decreased from 40 percent in 2021 to 11 percent in 2025 and has said it’ll stop importing completely by the end of 2027.
On the sidelines of the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 28, European Council President António Costa in his meeting with China’s Premier Li Qiang expressed the council’s expectation that China will help end the Ukraine war.
“I also raised Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. I expressed the EU’s expectation that China helps to put an end to the war,” Costa said while adding that the war has created an existential threat for the European Union.
In this context, it’s important to understand as to why both the US and EU want to seek China’s help to end the war but want to pressurize India so that it stops purchasing the Russian oil to in turn pressurize Russia to end the war. Why did the US not levied additional tariffs on China for purchasing the same Russian oil? Why was this factor used to hit the Indian MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium enterprises) which constitute 45 percent of India’s overall exports and has an overall 70 percent share in the sectors hit hard by the US tariffs.
India defines MSMEs as a major player in its overall economic growth including its goal to become the third largest global economy by 2027.
Meanwhile the war in Ukraine has continued and to make things worse the scheduled second in-person meeting between Trump and Putin in Budapest was also cancelled before Trump started his Asia trip. In its aftermath, the US treasury went beyond the ‘tariff on trade’ approach of Trump and on October 22 announced a new set of sanctions against the two biggest Russian oil firms–Rosneft and Lukoil.
With these sanctions the tug-of-war between India and US and US and China over the Russian oil has shifted from tensions between the governments and leaders to directly between the trading companies. The Indian and Chinese import of Russian oil is thus ending or at least substantially decreasing. Reliance Industries, India’s biggest private purchaser of Russian oil has already issued a public statement that it’s currently “accessing the implications including the new compliance requirements.” Media reports said Reliance Industries is “recalibrating.”
US Wants No Hegemony to Dominate Eurasia
The US has always fought wars in two theatres–the Atlantic and the Pacific and this concentration of US power and focus has determined a lot of geopolitics in the world. Jonathan D.T. Ward writes in his new book, “The Decisive Decade–American Grand Strategy for Triumph Over China” that American strategists don’t want any “hegemon” to dominate Eurasia.
“A world in which two primary theatres exist, Europe and Asia, is a world that American strategists have been able to manage for decades from a position of preponderant power. It is also a world that America’s enemies, when working together, have tried to exploit,” writes Ward.
Fabian Zuleeg, the Chief Executive and Chief Economist at the European Policy Center wrote in an analysis titled “Russia Wants War” that Russian maneuvers go beyond the Ukrainian battlefield and the former is testing “Europe’s and NATO’s defences through airspace incursions by drones and fighter jets.”
Thus it’s quite visible why both the US and EU want an end to the war but why would they then seek China’s help at ending it? Is it because Moscow and Beijing have a comprehensive strategic partnership which gives China more leverage over Russian leadership or is it because Beijing has some upperhand in negotiating with all the stakeholders? And by validating Beijing’s leadership in Eurasia everyone has everything to gain including rare earths?
Trump agreed to reduce tariffs against China to 47 percent from 57 percent in a one-year deal after his meeting with Xi in Busan. Beijing reciprocated by resuming its import of US soybeans, continuing its exports of rare earths to the US and agreed to crack down on the fentanyl trade. But please note the time frame of the one year deal!
They did this deal after many tug-of-wars for trade in 2025 including for rare earths on which Beijing has a monopoly? Trump had threatened 100 percent tariffs on Beijing for the new restrictions it has imposed on the exports of its rare earths and had even threatened to cancel his just happened meeting with Xi.
Last week’s negotiations in Kuala Lumpur and the October 30th meeting happened just to resolve this stalemate and before Trump left for the Asia tour he made a loud statement about seeking Beijing’s help to reach out to Russia. It appears more like an appeasing negotiatory move!
Ward describes four arenas of victory for Washington in its contest with Beijing in his book, “The Economic Arena, The Diplomatic Arena, The Military Arena and the Arena of Idea” and said, “Without victory in one above all, the possibility of victory may never come to pass.”
The developments between the US and China can very well be fathomed through this lens. Trump tariffs were to design America’s victory arenas and the tug of wars denote China’s negotiatory ability. In fact Beijing had started to prepare for it after Trump’s victory in elections–the first thing they did was to de-escalate on the Indian border because they knew they would need to prepare and fully focus for Trumpian times.
So eventually Trump’s protectionist policies have brought a lot of investments back home, a lot of rearranging of the world order has been achieved by just the American maneuvering and while this has happened the Chinese have continued to negotiate for their interests and their version of the global order.
However, as the year ends, there’s status-quo across the Taiwan strait with Trump saying in Busan that Taiwan “never came up. That was not discussed actually.” It not being discussed carries a louder message. Meanwhile India has almost halted its purchase of Russian oil from the sanctioned entities before the signing of its much awaited trade deal with the US which is expected to reduce the tariffs to 15 percent. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), a state-owned oil and gas company said it’ll continue to buy Russian oil but from non-sanctioned entities.
The year is coming to an end with a rearranged world order where America has amply messaged to the world including China and India that their economic rise isn’t unchecked by the Americans.
Indians and Chinese on the other hand have continued their “active communication” on the border related issues of the western sector last week indicating that they are preparing for another year of geo-political uncertainties. The path for Russia has become narrower than before and the next two months could be the key–the US will use the Russian card to further negotiate with China and vice versa but in a different tone than it does with India. The 2026 stage is all set for new geopolitical powerplays.
