Profile
Settings
Refer your friends
Sign out
China and India are two of the oldest civilisations on the planet. They are also two of the world’s most populated countries, contributing more to the global economy than almost anyone else. As a result, it is not surprising that China and India have frequent interactions. While several treaties govern many nations’ relationships, the one that governs China and India’s relationship is unique. The Panchsheel Agreement is its official name, but you may also hear it referred to as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. The Panchsheel Agreement is one of the essential pieces of modern foreign policy since it reflects a substantial partnership between two of the world’s most powerful nations.
History of Panchsheel
China became a single-party communist republic known as the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The dominion of India became the Republic of India in 1950, completing its fight for independence from the British Empire. In the 1950s, both countries desired peace in the post-World War II world. China aimed to reclaim its former dominance and demonstrate that it could manage its affairs without the Soviet Union’s help. India desired to establish its international ties independent of the British Empire. Both wanted to show that they could participate in society without being manipulated by others.
In 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and Zhou Enlai, China’s first premier, met to define their countries’ relationship. The 1954 Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet Region of China and India signalled to the rest of the world that these two countries had defined their relationship ideologically rather than economically, culturally or militarily.
The Five Principles
The leaders of China and India articulated their Panchsheel policy in the agreement, which was defined by five fundamental concepts:
- Mutual respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of each other
- Non-aggression pact
- Non-interference with one another
- Mutual benefit through equality and cooperation
- Peaceful coexistence
According to Nehru and Zhou, China and India would have a respectful and peaceful relationship. In essence, each nation vowed not to interfere in the internal affairs of the other and committed to finding peaceful solutions to any issues that might emerge.
Impact
Panchsheel’s foreign policy was considerably different from what was going on in the rest of the globe at the time. Following World War II, dozens of colonies gained independence, quickly absorbed by ideas of either the capitalist United States and Western Europe or the communist Soviet Union. The Cold War was a time of confrontation between these two parties.
As a newly decolonised country, India was concerned that the worldwide competition between two titans would harm the world’s weaker, newer nations. As a result, the Panchsheel Treaty was never intended to define China-India ties. It was intended to serve as an example of how other countries should handle their international affairs.
More about Panchsheel Agreement
In its preamble, the Sino-Indian Treaty of 1954 declared that the two governments, eager to encourage commercial and cultural exchange between China and India’s Tibet region and permit pilgrimage and travel by Chinese and Indian peoples, based their agreement on the principles of the Panchsheel Agreement.
Panchsheel was included in the Ten Principles of International Peace and Cooperation enunciated in the Declaration issued by the Bandung Conference of 29 Afro-Asian countries in April 1955, according to papers provided by the Ministry of External Affairs. Panchsheel’s international applicability was highlighted when its ideas were integrated into a resolution on peaceful coexistence presented by India, Sweden and Yugoslavia and overwhelmingly adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1957.
Conclusion
Right from the start, India and China have been locked in a standoff in the Doklam area after the latter began building a road near the Bhutan tri-junction. India had earlier accused China of building a road through disputed territory, and the Royal Bhutanese Army had made the same issue. Doklam is the Bhutanese name for the region known in India as Doka La. China has claimed the land as part of its Dangalang region for a long time, and the two countries are currently in talks to resolve the issue.
