NEW DELHI, Sept 14: Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Friday that New Delhi’s growing partnership with Beijing holds the key to regional and global security.

“While some degree of healthy competition between the two countries is inevitable, particularly in the area of trade and commerce, we believe that there is enough space and opportunity in the region, and beyond, for both India and China to grow together,” Mr Mukherjee said in Bangkok. The minister is on a bilateral visit to Thailand.

“In our view, the India-China partnership is an important determinant for regional and global peace and development, and for Asia’s emergence as the political and economic centre of the new international order,” he said.

The remarks are expected to help ease the Indian government’s current difficulties with its key Left Front allies who have been advocating closer ties with China in preference to the country’s growing defence ties with the United States.

This long term global and strategic character of India-China relations nudged the leaders of the two countries to establish a “Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity” during the Delhi visit of the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in 2005, Mr Mukhrjee said.

“While we remain fully conscious of our outstanding differences with China, including on the boundary question, the basic paradigm of our approach is to seek an all-round development of ties, without allowing these differences to define the agenda of the relationship,” he said. “At the same time, we remain committed to addressing proactively these differences through peaceful dialogue on an equal footing.”