Area of the globe? Pie is cubed

Floating in his private pool, China's helmsman Mao Zedong shared his strategic vision with visiting Soviet strongman Nikita Khrushchev in 1958: "You look after Europe, and leave Asia to us." Obviously, he expected the US to withdraw into its prewar Monroe world of the Americas, thus making the world tripolar.

- R. PRASANNAN

Khrushchev, wiser to the world and with a European disdain for the rustic comrade from the eastern paddies, retorted: "No one has authorised us to look after Europe; who has authorised you to take care of Asia?" Indian diplomat T.N. Kaul has recorded this in his memoirs A Diplomat's Diary. Guess how Kaul learnt of this private chat? Khrushchev's interpreter told him. Lesson for diplomats: walls may not have ears, but interpreters may have wagging tongues.

What Mao wanted from Khrushchev, Don Trump is delivering to Xi Jinping. With his national security document, a 21st century version of the 19th century Monroe doctrine, Trump is focusing on the American continent to make the US great again, leaving most of the rest of the world to be sorted out between Xi and Vladimir Putin.