The clear winner of the recent Anchorage summit was not the United States or Russia. Nor was it the European Union, NATO, or Ukraine, all directly affected by the war in Eastern Europe.

The big winner, at least for the moment, is the People's Republic of China. And China's only military ally, North Korea, did not do too badly either.

Both Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at their post-meeting press conference tried to create the impression of momentum toward ending the three-year-old conflict in Ukraine. Putin used the word "agreement" and Trump mentioned "great progress."

Nonetheless, it was clear that the summit was a disappointment for the American side. There was, for instance, no ceasefire, which Trump publicly said he wanted.

"There's no deal until there's a deal," an uncharacteristically somber Trump said after the shorter-than-expected face-to-face with Putin. "We didn't get there."

No, they didn't. And no deal is precisely what China was looking for.

Beijing, from all indications, hopes that the war in Ukraine will continue indefinitely. Hong Kong's South China Morning........

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