When Richard Nixon met Mao Zedong for the first time in 1972, he did so on the chairman's terms. Though he rightly believed it to be in the US's national interest to establish ties with communist China, the mechanics and tone of the visit were dictated by Beijing.
During their one-hour conversation, Nixon praised Mao's writings. The chairman, seated beside a white spittoon, responded that the president's literary efforts were “not bad”. When Nixon tried to bring up substantive subjects, including Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam, Mao said airily these were “troublesome issues I do not want to get into very much”.
Jonathan Fenby, from whose Penguin History of Modern China these gems are extracted, writes: “The west had come to pay court and, abetted by the premier's adroitness, a pattern was set that continues to the present day as the heirs of the guerrilla fighters outstare the superpower and the superpower takes it.”