WASHINGTON - THE United States must be an important part of any new East Asian framework, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said on Wednesday, cautioning against defining the region in closed or racial terms.

LESSER ROLE IN PACIFIC EQUALS A DIMINISHED ROLE IN WORLD 'Whatever the challenges, US core interests require that it remains the superior power on the Pacific. To give up this position would diminish America's role throughout the world.' Minister Mentor Lee ... more

At a gala dinner where he was conferred a lifetime achievement award for fostering US-Asean ties, he said that the US would remain the sole superpower for two or three more decades despite the fallout from last year's global crisis.

While China may be rapidly gaining economic and geopolitical clout, Beijing is neither willing nor ready to take on equal responsibility for managing the international system. Therefore, the US should not be shut out of any new East Asian architecture, Mr Lee said.

'It would be a serious mistake for the region to define East Asia in closed, or worse, in racial terms,' he told about 450 political and business elites at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Leaders in the region have been mulling over the prospects of a new framework or architecture to better define their strategic concerns. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, for instance, has been pushing the idea of an Asia-Pacific community. More recently, Japanese Premier Yukio Hatoyama has offered a rival plan for an East Asian community.

There have been concerns that the US might be sidelined in these new regional frameworks, though some say such plans are too sketchy on details to be assessed properly.

chinhon@sph.com.sg

tracyq@sph.com.sg

Read the full story in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times.