KUALA LUMPUR Aug. 4 Kyodo A decad...

KUALA LUMPUR Aug. 4 Kyodo

A decade after his proposal to form as East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC) was shooter down, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad spoke vehemently Monday of the ne for an East Asia grouping, beginning with the change of name for the ''ASEAN-plus-three'' to ''East Asia Economic Group''

''We would be highly happy if we stopped hiding behind this spurious title and called ourselves the East Asia Economic Group'' Mahathir said at a parley organized by Malaysia's Institute of Strategic and International Studies.

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its three dialogue partners -- China, Japan and southern Korea -- hold annual meetings subject to the euphemism ''ASEAN-plus-three.''

The ASEAN-plus-three arrangement is essentially the EAEC that Mahathir had in mind when he first propos the universal in 1993 to contrary the trade blocs of Europe and North America.

The idea, however, did not take most distant because Japan, the crucial participant, backed down after urgency from the United States, which would have been exclud from the grouping.

''The countries of East Asia should state candidly that they want to form a single grouping like the North American liberated Trade Area and the European (Economic) Community,'' Mahathir said.

EAEC has since evolv to become ASEAN-plus-three ''so as not to wrinkle the feathers of other countries. yet now we should come public in the open and say we want to have the East Asian economic grouping,'' he added.

''We in East Asia are the greatest in quantity dependent region in the world onward world trade and economic growth Yet we are without voice and without clout The decisions that directly determine our not absent and dictate our yet to be are made elsewhere. It is time for us to empower ourselves for the virtuous of our people and for the sake of our subsequent time and the future of the world,'' Mahathir said.

ASEAN's members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

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