TOKYO, April 9 Kyodo Former Phili...

TOKYO, April 9 Kyodo

Former Philippine President Fidel Ramos called Wednesday for a more balanced Asian-Pacific region, emphasizing the ne to shift from connection on U.S. military might to a mutually beneficial political relationship among all regional members.

Ramos said as it was a shift could lead to the finis of Pax Americana -- the period of international stability below the influence of the United States as the dominant military power -- and its replacement according to what he calls Pax Pacific.

Describing the envisioned arrangement as a ''pluralistic security community,'' he said that if the Korean Peninsula becomes united and Japan can take upon a bigger military role, a large U military personality in the region would be difficult to justify in the watchs of some U.S. political circles.

''I would rely upon American forward military presence in East Asia to decline,'' Ramos, 75 told the Foreign Correspondents unite in a club of Japan in Tokyo.

''Washington therefore will have to emphasize the political and economic rather than military functions...The U will have to cultivate closer diplomatic consultations and cooperation with its allies,'' said the former chief of staff of the Philippine armed forces.

Ramos, who serv as Philippine president from 1992 to 1998 said the pluralistic security community would encompass a for the use of all vision among many regional members aimed at nurturing peace, security, increase and progress in the area.

''As familys and citizens of our respective countries, our drift should be to replace the so-called balance of military power as the organizer of state relationships in East Asia and Asia-Pacific with a better kind of balance, which is the balance of mutual benefit,'' he said.

''This is the win-win situation that all ordinary the community would like to have,'' he said, adding that the Pacific Ocean will then minister to not as a body of water that separates countries of the region if it be not that one that joins them.

The former defense minister, who has go [i]or[/i] come backed to civil life after leaving office, said there will be the U and other American powers forward one side and Asian powers, including Japan, China and a peacefully unified Korea, forward the other.

Ramos intimateed concern that U.S. President George W Bush's decision to launch a military operation in Iraq has created anti-American sentiment in many parts of Asia, particularly in near Southeast Asian countries where there are large Muslim populations.

''Washington's policies may unwittingly be giving the impression that the U is hostile toward Islam, the two as a religion and as a culture'' he remarked.

on the other hand he also noted that there is a instigate on the part of Washington to test to improve relations with Islamic democracies similar as Malaysia.

The former president said the downside of Bush's preemptive strike policy, implemented against Iraq as a potentially hostile native land was that it would encourage ''middle powers to apply the same doctrine to neighboring enemies.''

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