In 1945, then US President Harry S. Truman, guided by his Europhile Secretary of State Dean Acheson, reversed former President Franklin D. Roosevelt's correct policy of aligning the US in Asia with Asians, rather than with their European colonizers.

The US replaced Europe in Asia as the dominant power, and thereafter regarded itself as having the right to force Asian countries into following policies that benefit US and NATO interests rather than their own.

With the 21st century rise of China, the US has a challenger in Asia that has the potential to be bigger than itself. Hence the effort to concentrate on the issue that can turn its Asian neighbors against China, which is the South China Sea dispute. By concentrating on this divisive issue, people in the region are playing into the divisive agenda of outside powers.

If the Asian countries come together in a broad alliance, such a development will leave no space for outside powers to continue to dominate the region, the way they have been doing for about 400 years. China being the biggest, the concentration of such "Divide Asia" propaganda is on China, to seek to portray it as a predatory power. Such disinformation has been successful.

Former Chinese leader Mao Zedong disregarded the advice to hold on to the territory won by the PLA in the 1962 border conflict with India, and made his troops withdraw from all the area that the PLA had taken over in those 10 weeks of fighting. Mao knew that friendship with India was crucial to China's long-term interests and hence he made this sacrifice.

Those in China and India who are demanding a more aggressive policy are falling into the trap laid by the NATO powers, who seek to portray China as the new hegemony.

Tension and conflict would hurt the war against the main enemies of the people of Asia, which are disease, poverty and lack of education.

I would like to see an Asian Common Market, where the currencies of each country are freely traded in other Asian countries. We should learn from Europe's lessons in cooperation, rather than their lessons in conflict. We must not allow outsiders to set our agenda and divide us.

The author is director and professor of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal University in India. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Common security can calm turbulent sea
Soft power better than fierce island battles