Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Friday the success of the Beijing Olympic Games will boost China's confidence and help China to continue liberalizing and opening up.

Lee told a security conference that Asia's growth will contribute to a doubling of the world economy and open up a whole range of opportunities worldwide in the next 25 years, and "the most important player in Asia is China."

Speaking at the opening of the 7th Asian Security Summit dubbed the Shangri-La Dialogue, Lee noted "the Olympic Games in August will be China's coming out party to celebrate its progress and opening up to the world."

The three-day conference, organized by the London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), has brought together U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the defense ministers and military officials of 26 other countries, including China.

Lee said the disruption of the Olympic torch relay in Europe and the United States last month illustrate how things can go wrong.

"Tibetan activist groups deliberately seized this golden opportunity to embarrass China and press their case," said Lee.

The clashes have triggered the Chinese people's sense of national pride and desire to mount a successful Olympics. The sense is "sincere and passionately felt," Lee said.

He also praised China's response to the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province with a relief effort "unprecedented in speed and scale."

"This is a China the world has never seen before - a sympathetic view of a country in transition, confronting enormous problems but also mustering huge energies and unexpected capabilities, as well as displaying a shared humanity," he said.

"The Sichuan earthquake showed how much China has changed and offered a glimpse of its future: a more open and self-confident nation. The political aftershocks from this defining moment in China's history will be felt long after the ground has ceased to tremble," he added.

Lee's speech also identified food shortages and natural disasters as non-traditional security threats, which take international cooperation.

(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2008)