China’s Panchsheel embrace: A smokescreen for aggression

On June 28, 2024, Beijing hosted a conference titled “From the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” to mark the platinum jubilee of the Panchsheel (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence) declaration. Former political leaders from South, Central, East, West and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, representatives of several global and regional organisations, diplomats, academics, journalists, and business leaders from over 100 countries participated. China’s President  Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang addressed the gathering.

It is strange that seven decades after the proclamation of the Panchsheel, China now swears by it in a new tone and tenor. This is reflected in the four sub-themes of the conference: the contemporary value of Asian wisdom, the vision and mission of the Global South in a shifting landscape, contributing to global prosperity through Chinese modernisation, and promoting global governance featuring extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefits. These themes broadly echo the Chinese government’s vision for “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by the year 2049, the centenary of the establishment of China.

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Earlier in 2014, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), on the golden jubilee of the Panchsheel, brought out a 13-page document, according to which the Panchsheel was formally enunciated for the first time in the contours of the “Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India (April 29, 1954).” The preamble of the agreement elaborated the Five Principles as - i) Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, ii) Mutual non-aggression, iii) Mutual non-interference, iv) Equality and mutual benefit, and v) Peaceful coexistence.

During former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai’s visit to India, the MEA document states that Zhou and Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru, in a joint statement on 28 June 1954, elaborated the Panchsheel as the “framework, not only for relations between the two countries but also for their relations with all other countries, so that a solid foundation could be laid for peace and security in the world.”

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The Panchsheel has remained relevant despite the shifting sands of time. The first half-dozen years after its declaration were eventful. Three pieces of information given here are essential. For instance, the Panchsheel was incorporated into the “Ten Principles of International Peace and Cooperation of the Bandung Declaration (April 1955),” duly approved by all the participating Afro-Asian nations. Further, the basic tenets of the Panchsheel were incorporated in a “Resolution on Peaceful Coexistence” presented by India, Yugoslavia, and Sweden, which the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted on 11 December 1957. Lastly, in 1961, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit held in Belgrade accepted the Panchsheel as its “principled core.”

China, however, has blatantly violated almost all basic principles of the Panchsheel over the last 75 years, particularly in the context of its South Asian neighbour, India. It is crystal clear that China has scant or perhaps no respect for India’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the first basic tenet of the Panchsheel. This is evident from the fact that the communist nation has forcibly and illegally occupied over 40,000 square kilometres of Indian landmass in the Union Territory of Ladakh since the 1950s. Indian territories such as Aksai Chin and Shaksgam Valley are now under Chinese occupation.

China has encroached upon India’s sovereignty umpteen number of times. The latest is the construction of the Chinese-funded China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which passes through Gilgit-Baltistan, an Indian territory illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1948. Pakistan is known as India’s inveterate enemy and China’s all-weather friend. What is a matter of grave concern for India is the presence of a sizeable number of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops in and around Gilgit-Baltistan, which poses a serious security challenge.

China claims the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory and has renamed it Zangnan (South Tibet). It has renamed over 62 villages, townships, and cities of Arunachal Pradesh, the details of which this author had elaborated in a short piece. Besides, there have been innumerable incursions by the Chinese into the Indian territory, both in the eastern and the western flanks, along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Furthermore, China has always exhibited an aggressive posture towards India. The Chinese perfidy in 1962 resulted in a full-fledged war between the two Asian neighbours. Further, a violent clash in June 2020 in Galwan (Ladakh) led to the deaths of 20 Indian brave hearts, and since then, China has continued its anti-India designs. Tacit Chinese support, both in economic and military terms, has encouraged Pakistan to maintain its animosity against India over the last seven decades. This Chinese stance violates the second tenet of the Panchsheel, “mutual non-aggression.”

In complete contravention with the third principle of the Panchsheel, China has intervened in Kashmir and provided all kinds of support (men, money, and materials) to Pakistan to keep the fire burning there. After the developments in August 2019, when Kashmir was made a Union Territory following the abrogation of Article 370, China was one of the trenchant critics (after Pakistan and Turkey) of India’s move, dubbing it “illegal” and “invalid.” China tried to flag this at the UN Security Council as part of its bid to internationalise the Kashmir issue.

While India has been religiously following a one-China policy, China has never believed in “peaceful coexistence” with a neighbour like India. Former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, during his state visit to China in 2003, declared Tibet as an integral part of China, thereby ending Chinese suspicions of India playing the “Tibet card” and harbouring the Dalai Lama, the supreme leader of Tibetans in India. However, China has often not restrained itself from maintaining an anti-India stance. The lack of a peaceful relationship between the two neighbours endangers peace and stability in the entire region.

In addition, China’s double standards on the issue of terrorism are known worldwide. It has been playing the victim-of-terrorism card for decades but opposes any move to designate Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad Chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist in the UN Security Council and other regional and international fora. The massive cache of made-in-China arms and ammunition seized by Indian forces from Pakistan-sponsored terrorists in Kashmir from time to time exemplifies China’s duplicity.

It is evident that what China has professed over decades, particularly in the context of the Panchsheel, has not been put into practice. Its current penchant for the Panchsheel appears to be mere eyewash, aimed at deflecting global attention from its domestic and global wrongdoings. The Indian government should take note of the Chinese design to hijack the Panchsheel for its own gains, and should mobilise the Global South to prevent falling into this Chinese trap.

Mahesh Ranjan Debata teaches at the Center for Inner Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views

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