SINGAPORE (AFP) - Indonesia's defense minister called on Japan, China and South Korea Sunday to help his cash-strapped nation secure the vital Malacca Straits sea lane.
Juwono Sudarsono asked the three nations, East Asia's wealthiest economies, to provide technical assistance.
"What we lack in Indonesia is effective capacity to deploy resources, equipment, ships," Sudarsono said at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue regional security conference organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"We would like to appeal to China, Japan and South Korea to provide the technical assistance on an ASEAN-wide basis as well as on a bilateral basis to the littoral states," he said.
ASEAN is the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.