Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held bilateral talks with his laotian counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith and discussed regional developments including the South China Sea issue.
The two sides shared the same perspective on South China Sea, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
In his address to the ASEAN-India Summit, Modi called sea lanes as "life lines of global trade" and said securing seas was a shared responsibility.
He added that India supports freedom of navigation based on United Nations Convention on the law of the Sea (UNClOS).
The comments come amid China's muscle flexing in the disputed South China Sea and "emerging regional challenges" as Beijing is involved in a raging dispute with the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei over ownership of territory in the South China Sea (SCS), a busy waterway through which India's 50 per cent trade passes.