The world’s two most powerful men met, exchanged compliments, and agreed to disagree on just about everything, an outcome that is actually good news. The pomp and circumstance staged for US President Donald Trump in Beijing was over the top, but so was Trump’s flattery in return. On their agenda was trade, tech, Tehran, and Taiwan. Talks were held behind closed doors, and Chinese President Xi Jinping publicly suggested that the two should be “partners not rivals,” then announced that Taiwan was off limits. Trump said China offered to help stop the Iran war, but that’s questionable. And the most dramatic development was that in the middle of their summit, Vladimir Putin unleashed his worst attack on Ukrainian civilians. JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The timing of Putin’s latest massacre of innocent people was designed to try to assert Russia’s importance. But the dictatorship sinks into oblivion, along with its military and economy. It didn’t move the dial, and overall, the bilateral summit was mostly “jaw-jaw” or talk. However, as Winston Churchill once pointed out: “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.” Putin’s aerial terrorism was a shocking tactical intrusion. His next move will occur on May 20, when he heads to Beijing for his own summit with Xi, scheduled to last for only two days. He fancies himself a hegemon, but heads a peanut-size nation, so there will be no parade or special fanfare for him in Beijing. He will be hosted for only two reasons: China has profited from the Ukraine war by getting cheap Russian oil and by exporting components at inflated prices to Russia for the war effort. Then there’s the matter of China’s whopping debt to Russia worth billions, an IOU that will be repaid one day in resources, Manchuria, and large chunks of Siberia.