00:00Quickly shifting focus to the international arena now.
00:03U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Shri
00:07Jinping were set to hold the first ever trilateral meeting in China next week, with nuclear arms
00:13control expected to dominate the very discussions.
00:16World's three biggest nuclear powers will meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit in
00:22China, Shenzhen.
00:23However, the proposed talks could prove challenging, given Beijing's longstanding reluctance to
00:29negotiate directly with Washington on its nuclear arsenal.
00:32China, meanwhile, has maintained that arms reduction discussion should primarily involve
00:36the U.S. and Russia, which possess significantly larger stockpiles.
00:40According to the White House, the focus will be on nuclear non-proliferation, reducing the
00:45world's nuclear arsenals and the war in Iran.
00:47According to reports, cooperation on artificial intelligence will also be on the agenda of
00:52the ferry meeting.
00:53Now, we will be covering this entire meeting, as well as the very summit, right from ground
01:02zero, that is Shenzhen.
01:04As our colleague, Gaurav Sawant, is currently there.
01:06Let me take these questions to him about the very meeting.
01:09Gaurav, you know, the White House has said their agenda is nuclear non-proliferation.
01:15What are you picking up at the APEC so far?
01:19The U.S. president takes off for Shenzhen and he's on a four-day visit to Asia.
01:24He would be stopping by at Philippines before he reaches here in Shenzhen.
01:28There is already, there are two divergent notes that are being struck because China wants to
01:33showcase its economic might.
01:36China wants to showcase how Shenzhen has developed, you know, from an ancient fishing town to a
01:43garrison town to now this very bustling modern city, an economic city and an IT powerhouse.
01:50China wants to showcase its emergence as an information technology powerhouse, robotics
01:56and AI powerhouse and not talk about or not divert attention to nuclear arms reduction that
02:03President Trump, it seems, according to White House, wants to do.
02:08So, Gaurav, will China and Russia then agree to discuss the nuclear power at this trilateral?
02:14That remains to be a very big question.
02:18You know, that's a very pertinent question that you raise.
02:21The Russia-Ukraine war, which started in February 2022, in February 2027, God forbid,
02:28if it goes on till February 2027, will be five years.
02:30That's actually as long as the Second World War lasted, between 1939 and 1945, you know,
02:38Second World War, even First World War lasted one year less, 1914 to 18, that was four years.
02:42Second World War, five years.
02:44And this is almost five years now.
02:46And the two countries, they, so far, I mean, just there's been some respite, but they've
02:50been going after each other, hammer and tong and going after each other's cities and each
02:56other's power stations, each other's refineries, fuel stations, power generation centers.
03:01So, fortunately, there isn't an escalation.
03:04And, you know, there is this escalation ladder.
03:07It's both a horizontal escalation ladder and a vertical escalation ladder.
03:10So, it's nowhere close to even a full-fledged war, let alone come anywhere close to the nuclear
03:15threshold.
03:16But, when it comes to nuclear arms reduction, look, the world's effort clearly has to be
03:24to, one, get rid of nuclear weapons because, look, they were only used once in history,
03:30Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to the end of the Second World War and the collapse of
03:34Japan.
03:35But, you know, the threats have been there.
03:37Now, the bigger threat is nuclear proliferation to non-state actors or state-aided, you know,
03:44semi-state actors and this is where countries like Pakistan are extremely, extremely risky
03:50or risk-prone.
03:51But, if I may, the effort right now as far as China is concerned, their entire effort and
03:57they've shown us around Shenzhen now, you know, we've seen Shenzhen's IT power, we've
04:03seen Shenzhen's economic power, we've seen, you know, some of their museums to see their
04:08ancient history, which is what their effort is to show that to the world to showcase as
04:13the Chinese hosts were telling us a 7,000-year-old civilization moving forward, marching forward
04:20to 21st century to develop the 21st century, you know, city and state that Shenzhen is, you
04:27know, it's almost neighboring Hong Kong and they wanted to do better than Hong Kong and
04:31even surpass Hong Kong in terms of economy, in terms of size, in terms of scale and get
04:36in production here, which isn't there.
04:38So, you know, they don't want anything to be diverted with talk of nuclear race, nuclear
04:44arms race, nuclear arms reduction or nuclear non-proliferation, they don't want any of that
04:49to come into the agenda when they want to talk about economy, artificial intelligence, robotics
04:55and forward movement of economy.
04:59Right, Gaurav, thank you for putting all of that into context for our viewers and on that
05:04note.
