Any commentary with a title such as this one should begin with a disclaimer: distilling a country of 1.34 billion people down to a construct called "China" is presumptuous, verging on preposterous. Who best represents "the views of China?" Its government? Its dissidents? The individuals who may be critical of government policies, but choose to go about their daily business rather than investing the time and energy to express their criticisms?

Read an excerpt in The Australian from a new book on the founding father of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, by Belfer Center Director Graham Allison and Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill, with Belfer Center Associate Ali Wyne. The book is titled: Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World.

Both in the United States and abroad, many influential observers argue that the U.S. is in systemic decline. Not so, says Lee Kuan Yew, the sage of Singapore. Lee is not only a student of the rise and fall of nations.  He is also the founder of modern Singapore. As prime minister from 1959 to 1990, he led its rise from a poor, small, corrupt port to a first-world city-state in just one generation.