US wants India to take leadership role in Asia

Chennai: Betting on India's future, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said the country should play a "more assertive" role across Asia-Pacific, noting that this is a "time to lead" by seizing emerging opportunities.

In comments against the backdrop of growing Chinese assertiveness in Asia, Clinton said India's leadership has the potential to positively shape the future of the Asia-Pacific and that the US encourages the country to not just to look east, but continue to engage and "act east" as well.

Clinton, who is the first American top diplomat to visit Chennai during a India trip, also asserted that the bondage outweighed differences in Indo-US ties and that the bilateral relationship would be a defining partnership of the 21st century.

"We have a common commitment to combating terrorism and achieving economic prosperity," she told students and opinion makers at the Anna Centenary Library hall in Chennai.

"It is true we are different countries with different backgrounds. We will from time to time disagree. But we believe our differences are far outweighed by the bondage," Clinton said, addressing students and opinion makers at Anna Centenary Library in Chennai.

Clinton began her address saying "Vanakkam," a vernacular greeting, triggering a round of applause. Noting that the role she was asking India to play is ambitious, Clinton said, "Yes, it is an ambitious agenda, but we can afford to be ambitious."

"It's time(for India) to lead. It has to do more to integrate economically with neighbors Afghanistan and Pakistan and take a more assertive role across the Asia-Pacific," Clinton said a day after attending the second Indo-US joint strategic dialogue in New Delhi.

"This is not a time when any of us can afford to look inward at the expense of looking outward. This is a time to seize the emerging opportunities of the 21st century. This is a time to lead." she said

"We are betting on India's future...that the opening of India's markets to world will produce a more prosperous India and South Asia. We are betting that India's vibrant pluralistic society will inspire others to follow a similar path of tolerance. We are making this bet not out of blind faith but because we have watched your progress with great admiration," she added.

In Clinton's view, the US was not making this bet not out of some blind faith but because it has watched the progress of India with "great admiration".