New Delhi, July 30 -- Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation on 25 December 1991 marked the collapse of the Soviet empire. The United States of America became the single hegemon of a global geopolitical order which it had established along with its allies at the end of World War II in 1945.

But 20 years earlier, in 1971, when US President Richard Nixon visited China along with Henry Kissinger to normalize relations with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), the US had itself already set the ball rolling for the emergence of a new global geopolitical order in which China would challenge the hegemony of the US.

Nixon was prescient in describing his China visit as "the week that changed the world."

By recognizing the PRC as the sole representativ...