Chinese officials in recent weeks have raised a proposal with the Trump team through intermediaries to hold a summit between the two leaders and to facilitate peacekeeping efforts after an eventual truce, according to people in Beijing and Washington cited by the newspaper.
Asked about the WSJ report at a regular news conference on Thursday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said he had "no information to offer".
Trump said Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had expressed a desire for peace in separate phone calls with him on Wednesday, and Trump had ordered top US officials to begin talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
The Kremlin had said Putin and Trump had agreed to meet, and Putin had invited Trump to visit Moscow. Trump said their first meeting would "probably" take place soon in Saudi Arabia.
"China is happy to see Russia and the United States strengthen communication on a series of international issues," said Guo Jiakun, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman.
"Russia and the United States are both influential major countries."
No Ukraine peace talks have been held since the early months of the conflict, now approaching its third anniversary. Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, oversaw billions of dollars of military and other aid to Kyiv and had no direct contact with Putin after Russia's invasion.
"China has always believed that dialogue and negotiation are the only viable way to resolve the crisis and has always insisted on promoting peace and dialogue," Guo said. "China supports all efforts conducive to a peaceful resolution of the crisis, and will continue to maintain communication with relevant parties and continue to play a constructive role in promoting a political solution to the crisis."
Russia occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine and has demanded Kyiv cede more territory and be rendered permanently neutral under any peace deal.
Ukraine demands Russia withdraw from captured territory and says Kyiv must receive NATO membership or equivalent security guarantees to prevent Moscow from attacking again.
China has been repeatedly urged by the West to use its close relationship with Russia to help end the war. Beijing has said it was not a party to the crisis but that it had been consistently promoting peace talks on its own terms.
In a peace plan last year, China, jointly with Brazil, proposed an international peace conference "at a proper time" and called for equal participation by both Ukraine and Russia.
After speaking with Putin for more than an hour, Trump said the Russian leader, who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, wants the war to end and they discussed "getting a ceasefire in the not-too-distant future".
"He wants it to end. He doesn't want to end it and then go back to fighting six months later," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
"I think we're on the way to getting peace. I think President Putin wants peace, President Zelenskiy wants peace and I want peace. I just want to see people stop getting killed," he added.
In a post on his social media platform, he said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, national security adviser Michael Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff would lead negotiations on ending the war.
Trump and Zelenskiy spoke after Trump's call with Putin, and Zelenskiy's office said the conversation lasted for about an hour.
"I had a meaningful conversation with @POTUS. We... talked about opportunities to achieve peace, discussed our readiness to work together ...and Ukraine's technological capabilities... including drones and other advanced industries," Zelenskiy wrote on X.
Earlier, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered the Trump administration's bluntest statement so far on its approach to the war, saying it was unrealistic for Kyiv to hope to recover all of Ukraine's territory occupied by Russia since 2014, as was securing its membership in NATO.
"We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective," Hegseth told a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
"Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering."
Russia in 2014 annexed Crimea, which Ukraine and many Western countries consider to be occupied Ukrainian territory.
Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Spain, UK and European Union said in a joint statement Ukraine's fate must not be decided without Kyiv's active participation.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said any solution to the conflict must involve the United States.
"It is very clear to me that there must be no solution that does not also involve the US," Scholz said in an interview with Politico published on Thursday.
"The next task is to ensure that there is no imposed peace."
