Hong Kong, March 4 -- As world respect for the USA plummeted to a new nadir on 28 February, after President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance dressed down Ukraine's leader in a televised White House meeting, the true winners are Moscow and Beijing. The capitulation of the US to tsarist Vladimir Putin's viewpoint is astonishing in its rapidity, and it bodes ill for smaller countries around the world and hotspots like Taiwan.

Chairman Xi Jinping, as well as Putin, could not have dreamed of a more perfect outcome. As Russian state TV observed, "Now everything is being decided inside a big triangle: Russia, China and the US. Within this, the new construction of the world will come to fruition. The EU as a united political force no lon...