GS Paper II

News Excerpt:

China will hold commemorative events to mark the 70th anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. It was a foreign policy concept that was first articulated in an agreement with India in 1954.

More about the news:

• The event has been given a forward-looking focus, with the theme of “From the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind”.

What is the Five Principles of Policy of China

• It was proposed in 1954 by China.
• This Five Principles of China is known in India as Panchsheel, which was a key aspect of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of the world and the relations between nations and neighbors.
• The word Panchsheel traces its origin to the Buddhist concept of Pañcaśīla, which describes the five moral vows of Buddhism: abstinence from murder, theft, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxicants.

Background of Five Principles’ of foreign policy

• India attained Independence from the British in 1947 after several decades of nationalist struggle. Two years later, the Chinese communists emerged victorious in the civil war, and Mao Zedong pronounced the People’s Republic of China. 
• Nehru was keen to establish good relations with China based on trust and mutual respect, and the Chinese appeared to reciprocate, at least initially.
• In 1954, while inaugurating bilateral talks between India and China over Tibet, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai proposed the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

Panchsheel: The Five Principles

• The Panchsheel Agreement, formally known as The Agreement on Trade and Intercourse with Tibet Region, was signed on April 29, 1954, by N Raghavan, the Indian Ambassador to China, and Zhang Han-Fu, China’s Foreign Minister.
• The preamble of the Panchsheel Treaty lay down five guiding principles:
  • Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty;
  • Mutual non-aggression;
  • Mutual non-interference;
  • Equality and mutual benefit; and
  • Peaceful co-existence.

• It aimed to enhance trade and cooperation between the two countries, establishing each country’s trade centres in major cities of the other, and laid out a framework for trade.
• The agreement also listed important religious pilgrimages, provisions for pilgrims, and acceptable routes and passes available to them.

Panchsheel to Non-Alignment

• A year after the Sino-Indian Agreement, the Five Principles would feature prominently at the first African-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia.
• Twenty-nine countries of Asia and Africa took part in the Bandung Conference of April 1955, and signed a 10-point declaration that co-opted the Five Principles of Panchsheel.
• The Bandung Conference served as the precursor to the Non-Aligned Movement, a grouping of nations that consciously chose to not align themselves with either of the two global power blocs led by the United States and the Soviet Union.