The Quad grouping on Tuesday expanded cooperation in critical minerals and energy while unveiling new measures to boost maritime surveillance and port infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific against the backdrop of China's growing military posturing in the region. The new measures were announced following a meeting of the grouping's foreign ministers here, chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi. We affirm our support for a free and open Indo-Pacific that allows countries to develop resilience and strengthen capacity to determine their own paths. To that end, we concur on further enhancing cooperation and advancing concrete initiatives to deliver tangible benefits to the region, the ministers said in a joint statement. The Quad foreign ministers called for uninterrupted flow of global commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, criticised Iran's imposition of tolls on commercial shipping in the region and voiced serious concern over the situation in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. "We reiterate our strong opposition to any destabilising or unilateral actions, including by force or coercion, that threaten peace and stability in the region," the ministers said in the statement, sending a message to China. "We express our serious concerns regarding dangerous and coercive actions, including interference with offshore resource development, the repeated obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight, and the dangerous manoeuvres by military aircraft and coast guard and maritime militia vessels," they said. "We are seriously concerned by the militarisation of disputed features," they said.