The Indian Ocean’s placid waters hardly make headlines, but it is important to ensure that peace and security across its vast expanse are maintained, government leaders from several countries on its rim said at a conference yesterday.

The key artery of global commerce has been relatively free of the maritime tensions that have created ripples in the South China Sea and East China Sea in recent years, and must stay this way so trade can continue to flourish, they added.

One way, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said, is for the countries in the Indian Ocean region to set up an order that is not dominated by a single nation.

… The two-day conference, which ends today, is jointly organised by four think-tanks – Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, the India Foundation, the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, and Sri Lanka’s Institute of Policy Studies.

… Addressing the participants at the dinner, Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan noted that from as early as 3,000 years ago, South Asian influences in language and religion were “borne across the waves of the Indian Ocean” to South-east Asia.