Xi and Trump have met twice already this year and Rubio told reporters on Tuesday there was work underway to arrange a trilateral meeting on the APEC sidelines involving Trump, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump said on Sunday he thought he would meet Xi and Putin in Shenzhen to discuss ending the war in Iran and denuclearisation.
He said in October he was open to three-way arms control talks with Xi and Putin, which he said would focus on nuclear weapons, although China has appeared less keen on such discussions.
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”.
China’s state news agency Xinhua said Wang held a “positive and constructive” call with Rubio, with Beijing expressing willingness to strengthen communication and cooperation with Washington.
According to Xinhua, Wang said the current stability in China-US relations had not come easily and called it “a rational choice made by the two major countries based on respective and shared interests”.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Putin has pitched using a trilateral meeting to discuss an end to Russia’s long-running war in Ukraine.
