SHANGHAI (AFP) - Asia must unite against foreign economic domination, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said at a business conference on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit here.

"We did not fight to be free in order to learn to kowtow," he said, adding, "We must welcome advice. We must not tolerate dictation."

Mahathir, long a critic of western economic domination, reiterated his call for the creation of an Asian monetary system and stable Asian currency.

"We must cast off the tradiational mindframe of 'beggar thy neighbour' and put securely in its place the ethic of 'prosper thy neighbour'," he said.

Mahathir acknowledeged that East Asia has benefited from globalisation but said it had also suffered following the 1997 regional financial crisis.

Regional countries must be prepared to be pragmatic and discard some forms of globalisation, he said.

Fresh air

"If you open the window to let in the fresh air, some flies will enter. We should leave the windows open.

"But if we open the window to let in the fresh air and packs of tigers and bears enter, perhaps we should open the windows on the second floor and keep those on the ground floor securely closed," he said.

Mahathir said there was "too little common sense and straight thinking, too little fact and too much self-serving fiction" in globalisation.

"There are too many who are prepared to tell lies and to bend the truth to push through their sacred cause. We all need less group-think and more independent thinking, and we must make sure that we are not being led by the nose."

Mahathir said the globalisation race had created a sharp divide, with rich countries emerging as the biggest winners while poor nations did not have "a ghost of a chance" of competing.

"If we leave too many of the disempowered and the disadvanteged behind, globalisation cannot hold. It cannot even be defended. Like so many other great ideas, it too will end up in the dustbin of history."

He admitted pessimism about the chances of an effective global coalition to work for a more caring globalisation.

"We live in a world where the power of persuasion has too small a punch and where the persuasion of power packs too big a wallop. The rich and powerful are in full command."