China evokes Panchsheel principles to address India's concerns

•  Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed five principles of peaceful co-existence or Panchsheel — the brainchild of China, India and Myanmar in the 1950s — as the mantra for advancing the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI), and as a vehicle for achieving sustainable globalisation.
• India’s had decided to boycott the BRF, as a mark of protest against the infringement of its sovereignty by the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

About Panchsheel:

• The principles of Panchsheel were first formally enunciated in the Preamble to the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet Region of China and India,which was signed on 29 April 1954.
• The Five Principles are: (a) mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; (b) mutual non-aggression; (c) mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; (d) equality and mutual benefit; and (e) peaceful coexistence.
• Premier Zhou Enlai and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru elaborated their vision of Panchsheel in June 1954 as a framework not only for relations between their countries, but also for their relations with other countries
• Panchsheel provided a suitable framework to China for breaking its isolation and playing a meaningful role in international affairs.
• Consequently, it also envisioned the shift of Chinese policy toward non-socialist states.
• Further, People’s Republic of China was not a member of the UN in the first two decades of its existence. Thus, the principles of Panchsheel also worked as a means to enunciate its foreign policy across the world.
• From the Indian perspective, the Panchsheel was considered a moral obligation and a projection of the Indian idea of peaceful coexistence.
• However, Nehru’s visualization of the Panchsheel as laying the foundation for peace along the border proved mistaken. Panchsheel became an inevitable casualty of the India- China conflict in 1962.
• It led to disenchantment with the significance of Panchsheel in India while in China, Panchsheel was forgotten during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

By: Vishal