Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

During his ongoing visit to China, Singapore's Senior Minister and former prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, shared a profound insight: "China's development is an enterprise that will take a century." This statement, rich in wisdom, invites us to consider the long-term implications of China's growth.

This might sound like a warning to those in Washington strategizing about confrontation with China. 

However, for those who understand what Asian-Pacific countries truly want, this statement doesn't advocate for Washington to build a long-term confrontational system against China. Instead, it acknowledges China's rise as an irreversible trend and emphasizes the necessity of establishing a more balanced, inclusive system that benefits all regional countries for a peaceful future in the Asia-Pacific.

Lee's words resonate with the unified sentiment of the entire Asia-Pacific region. Here, countries understand a simple truth that the Pacific Ocean is vast enough to accommodate the concurrent development of China, the US and all regional nations. This shared understanding fosters a sense of unity and common purpose.

The critical issue at hand isn't whether to accept China's rise as a fact, but the urgent need to achieve a peaceful and orderly power transition between significant nations. This underscores the importance and immediacy of the issue at hand.

This recalls what Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US national security advisor, writes in his book Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power: "Given the ongoing shift of global power from the West to the East, will the new Asia of the twenty-first century become like the old Europe of the twentieth, obsessed with interstate rivalry and eventually the victim of self-destruction? If so, the consequences for global peace would be catastrophic."

Unfortunately, Washington has taken a different path. Designating China as its "primary strategic competitor" reflects a black-and-white mentality - like attempting to step on your partner's foot while dancing the tango.

More concerning is the Biden administration's enthusiasm for forming various political, diplomatic and security-focused exclusive groups in the Asia-Pacific while promoting the "de-Sinicization" of supply chains. This is akin to artificially dividing a bustling marketplace into two sides and restricting customers' and providers' freedom of movement.

For Asia-Pacific nations, being forced to choose sides is like being pulled in opposite directions - torn between their traditional security partner and their largest trading partner.

During interviews in Southeast Asia some years ago, an elderly overseas Chinese man shared an intriguing metaphor: "Look at our dragon dances. Each region has its unique style. The people from Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang inherit their respective traditions, each with its own characteristics. Some excel in head movement, others in body flexibility or tail strength. You cannot connect one dragon's body and tail to another's head. It wouldn't just fail to dance; it would collapse entirely."

This metaphor strikes at the heart of the matter. The region's supply, value and industrial chains have evolved over decades into deeply interconnected networks. Forcibly severing and restructuring them would be catastrophic for the regional economy.

Washington's "confrontational mindset" is poisoning the atmosphere of regional cooperation.

Eventually, the competition against China will become a competition against ASEAN, China's neighboring countries and all Asia-Pacific countries.

Singapore's leadership has long opposed taking sides, and Asia-Pacific countries clearly understand that binary choices don't work in this region. They need "and" rather than "or," addition rather than subtraction.

Returning to Lee's statement - it's less a prophecy about China's rise and more an expression of hope for regional peaceful development.

Asia-Pacific nations aspire to see an inclusive order, not a confrontational dynamic of stark choices. After all, each country in this region is an independent entity with the right to pursue its development path.

The author is a senior editor with the People's Daily, and currently a senior fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at the Renmin University of China. [email protected]. Follow him on X @dinggangchina