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For investors, three potentially market-moving political events will play out over the next month. The first, for those with a South African footprint, is South Africa’s local government elections on 4 November, which will provide an important indication of the country’s political direction and prospects for reform. The second is the United States (US) midterm elections on 3 November, which will determine the balance of power in Congress and Donald Trump’s ability to advance his political agenda. But it is the third event, a potential summit between Trump, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin in China on 18 and 19 November, that may prove the most consequential. Although the summit has not been confirmed, it raises the possibility of a grand geopolitical bargain capable of materially shifting global markets and restoring a measure of peace and stability to both Europe and the Middle East whilst calming Taiwan tensions.

The three leaders have the potential to strike a market-moving peace settlement across three theatres of conflict. The first is Taiwan, where Washington might agree to recognise and support any freely expressed domestic Taiwanese decision to pursue reunification with mainland China. The political basis for such a settlement may be developing through the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, which governed Taiwan for decades and favours closer relations with Beijing while opposing a unilateral declaration of Taiwanese independence.

Under its current leader, Cheng Li-wun, the KMT has pursued a more active relationship with Beijing, including direct engagement with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Its approach rests on the principle that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait share a common Chinese historical and cultural identity, even if they disagree about the political institutions through which that identity should be expressed. This creates an important distinction between the KMT and its primary opposition in Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Whereas the DPP places greater emphasis on Taiwan’s separate political identity and its strategic relationship with the US, the KMT sees the restoration of dialogue and economic integration with mainland China as a means of reducing the risk of conflict,which in turn creates the political foundations from which full unification could eventually be negotiated.

The KMT's presidential candidate secured 33.5% of the vote in 2024 against 40.1% for the DPP, whilethe KMT emerged as the largest party in Taiwan’s 113-seat legislature with 52 seats, while the DPP won 51 seats (a minor party, the Taiwan People’s Party, won eight seats and independents won two seats). Taiwan’s next elections are scheduled for 28 November 2026, about a month away. These are local elections for mayors, councillors, and other municipal officials. The next presidential and parliamentary elections are expected in January 2028, although the precise voting date has not yet been officially confirmed and polls are as yet non-definitive.

The second component would be Ukraine, where a settlement could recognise Russian control over the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as the Donbas. These territories have longstanding linguistic, cultural, and economic ties to Russia with over 70% of residents identifying Russian as their native language. Polling conducted immediately before the February 2022 spike in hostilities also revealed significant support for Russian sovereignty, particularly in the separatist-controlled territories, where approximately half favoured joining Russia, with a third favouring other options, and a fifth undecided.

Such an arrangement would also have a precedent in the strategic thinking of Henry Kissinger, who argued in May 2022 that negotiations should seek to restore the territorial position that existed before the escalation of hostilities, while leaving room for further negotiated adjustments. A contemporary agreement might go further by recognising Russian sovereignty over parts of the Donbas, subject to an agreed political settlement and the departure of Volodymyr Zelenskyy through a Ukrainian political transition and the emergence of a government willing to accept new security and territorial arrangements. For Putin, the settlement would greatly mitigate against the threat of future encroachment by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

The third component would involve Iran and the Middle East. In exchange for American accommodation of their strategic interests in Taiwan and Ukraine, Moscow and Beijing could use their economic and diplomatic influence over Tehran to persuade Iran to support a battlefield settlement with the US and Gulf states. Russia’s military relationship with Iran and China’s economic importance to the Iranian economy give both governments vast leverage.

None of these elements is part of a publicly confirmed negotiating package, and the obstacles to reaching such an agreement would be considerable. But the potential consequences explain why the proposed meeting deserves the attention of investors. A settlement that simultaneously reduced the risks of conflict over Taiwan, ended the war in Ukraine, and lowered tensions in the Middle East could produce a major repricing of geopolitical risk, with implications for equity markets, energy prices, currencies, bond yields, and international capital flows. More fundamentally, it would signal the emergence of an international order in which Washington, Beijing, and Moscow increasingly negotiate directly over the world’s most consequential strategic disputes.