Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted the relevance of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which together with the Non-Aligned Movement sought to end current conflicts and expand influence in the global South amid tussle with the West.
Xi Jinping, 71, cited India’s five principles of peaceful co-existence called ‘Panchasheel’ at a conference in Beijing to mark its 70th anniversary and sought to link them with his new concept of global security initiative that envisages a shared future for mankind.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the ‘Panchasheel’ indicators were first formally included in the Agreement on Trade and Relations between China and the Tibet Region of India on April 29, 1954.
The ‘Panchasheel’ or five principles became part of the legacy of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Chinese counterpart Zhou Enlai in their unsuccessful attempt to find a solution to the contentious border issue.
President Rajendra Prasad, Vice President S. Radhakrishnan and Prime Minister Nehru with Zhou Enlai at Rashtrapati Bhavan on June 26, 1954
Photo Credit: Photo Credit – mea.gov.in
Xi Jinping said, “The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence met the requirements of the times and its introduction was an inevitable historical development. In the past, the Chinese leadership for the first time specified the five principles in their entirety, namely ‘mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity’, ‘mutual non-aggression’, ‘mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs’, ‘equality and mutual benefit’ and ‘peaceful coexistence’.”
“They incorporated the five principles into the China-India and China-Myanmar joint statements, calling on the two countries to jointly make them the basic norms for state-to-state relations,” Xi said at the conference, which included former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and a number of political leaders and officials from various countries that have been closely ties with China over the years.
The five principles of peaceful coexistence ‘Panchasheel’ were born in Asia (India) but soon caught on the world stage. Xi Jinping recalled in his address that the Bandung Conference in 1955 was attended by more than 20 Asian and African countries.
The Non-Aligned Movement, founded by Jawaharlal Nehru, which emerged in the 1960s, adopted the ‘Panchasheel’ or Five Principles as its guiding principles.
“The five principles have established a historic benchmark for international relations and the rule of international law,” he said, highlighting their relevance in ending current conflicts.
These are fully in line with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, the emerging trend of international relations of our time, and the fundamental interests of all nations, Xi said. He sought to link these with his new concept of the Global Security Initiative (GSI), which advocates joint security of nations and a “vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind.”
Xi, who began his unprecedented third five-year term in power last year, has been pushing a number of initiatives, including his billion-dollar pet project the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to expand China’s global influence.
Under the BRI, Beijing invested heavily in infrastructure projects in smaller countries, leading to accusations of debt diplomacy in later years as many countries had difficulty paying back loans they had taken from China.
Furthermore, facing growing strategic competition from the United States and the European Union, China has in recent years competed with India and other developing countries to strengthen its influence in Asian, African, and Latin American countries, broadly referred to as the global South.
Xi said China will set up a Global South Research Center to better support global South-South cooperation.
He said China will provide 1,000 “Excellence Scholarships based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence”, 100,000 training opportunities to Global South countries over the next five years and also launch the “Global South Young Leaders” programme.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)