== ATTENTION -quotes on China ///
India is ready to do its part to ensure peace and stability in East Asia including helping protect the busy Strait of Malacca, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Saturday.
He told a high-level regional security conference in Singapore that India would increasingly become a key driver of Asian prosperity alongside other big countries like China, Japan and Indonesia.
"India's role is crucial for ensuring and maintaining long-term peace, stable balance of power, economic growth and security in Asia," Mukherjee told the annual gathering of officials and experts known as the Shangri-La Dialogue.
The East Asia Summit (EAS) that took place for the first time last year in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur can accelerate regional cooperation, Mukherjee said.
"As a member of the EAS, India fully supports and looks forward to constructive cooperation with others in the group to create the framework for greater regional integration and cooperation," he said.
Mukherjee said his country was ready to help strengthen security in the Malacca Strait, one of the world's most important waterways with 50,000 ships carrying about one-third of the globe's trade passing through it each year.
Security in the straits is important for India as more than 50 percent of its maritime trade passes through it, the minister said.
"There is a need to increase and strengthen regional cooperation to enhance maritime security,' Mukherjee said.
"We believe that through the coordination of our individual efforts, the security of the sea lanes will be enhanced," he said.
India's participation in ensuring safe passage in the Malacca Strait will however be subject to approval of the nations located along the waterway, Mukherjee said.
"Subject to the desire of the littoral states, as a major state-user, India would be willing to assist the project in whatever capacity is deemed suitable," he said, referring to the initiative involving Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia to monitor the strait.
India is already playing a key regional role with growing trade ties in Southeast Asia and China, as well as rising investments in India from Japan and South Korea, Mukherjee said.
On ties with China, Mukherjee said relations "have reached a certain degree of maturity where we are determined to build upon our existing commonalities and identify newer areas of mutually beneficial cooperation.
"At the same time, we are striving to address our differences in a proactive and purposive manner, without allowing them to affect the comprehensive development of our relationship," he said.
