Late last month, the sprawling campus of the Great Hall of People in Beijing, lying to the west of the infamous Tiananmen Square, was the seat of a commemorative program celebrating the 60th anniversary of the signing of the five principles of peaceful coexistence — better known as Panchsheel in India. Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari along with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Myanmar’s President Thein Sein came together to relive a long-gone yet cherished historic moment. Exactly six decades ago, the Chinese and Indian leadership discovered the importance of pursuing a non-interventional foreign policy hitherto unheard of in global politics. Its unique concept was actually derived from ancient Buddhist scriptures and denoted five taboos, which governed the personal behavior of monks.
Perhaps no other Sino-Indian treaty had such a significant impact in evolving an environment of mutual trust, security and confidence than the Panchsheel Agreement of 1954. However, it was not conceptualized as a confidence building measure in terms of security given the fact that the treaty was all about streamlining Sino-Indian trade cooperation in Tibet. It entailed movements across the border by local traders and pilgrims without passports and visas.
Many, however, believe that the Panchsheel Agreement effectively put an end to Tibet’s existence as a distinct nation state. Incidentally, India’s “one-China policy” is rooted in Panchsheel. Skeptics argue that Panchsheel left the door ajar for China to militarily dominate the strategic Tibetan plateau. The Chinese military establishment in fact wasted no time in building vast network of roads and airstrips that stretched up to India’s northeastern frontier and maintains its aggressive posture till date.
Even Krishna Menon, defense minister in Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cabinet and known China sympathizer, did not hesitate to criticize the deification of Panchsheel. Indeed, Nehru’s administration wanted to emulate the Asokan principle of renouncing violence and instead wanted to adopt a compassionate approach to eliminate bitterness in bilateral relations. But the truth is, Beijing failed to live up to the huge faith that Nehru and the people of India reposed on it.
Even though, the spirit of Panchsheel featured prominently in Mao Zedong’s proclamation of the new post-revolution republic in 1949, these five principles were in reality a trump card for the Chinese leadership to manipulate India into accepting China’s sovereignty over Tibet.
It is nothing but an irony that a bellicose Beijing has put Panchsheel at the heart of its reoriented diplomatic endeavor vis-à-vis burning regional and international issues today. Chinese President Xi Jinping, while outlining his vision for regional stability at the fourth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, called for the setting up of an appropriate mechanism to enable Asian people solve Asian problems without extraneous intervention.
“We should keep up with the changing times and cannot allow it to happen that your body has entered the 21st Century but your mind still sticks to the old era of Cold War and zero-sum mentality,” said Xi while unveiling the Chinese concept of a new Asian Security mechanism. And a reoriented Panchsheel forms the core of this idea as Beijing is assiduously working on resolving key regional security matters like reconstruction of a war ravaged Afghanistan, re-starting six-party nuclear dialogue on North Korea and introducing crisis-management process to deal with regional exigencies.
In fact, the Chinese leaderships’ soft power push is seen as a deliberate attempt to counter international concerns arising out of continuous tension over maritime and territorial rights between China and her eastern neighbors. Beijing is now turning-around to confess that the five principles that its leadership initiated together with India and Myanmar has become a basic norm for governing state-to-state relations. By falling back on Panchsheel to criticize the global hegemonic role of United States, President Xi has effectively accepted the universality of the five principles. Panchsheel indeed has attained new relevance in the prevailing political and security scenario in Asia and across the globe.
President Xi warned that “one country’s national security should not be at the expense of others” even as revolutionary China’s powerful military continues its aggressive stance against neighbors on all sides. Moreover, as long as Beijing’s extreme sensitivities on Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang remains unaltered, Panchsheel will not lose its centrality in Communist China’s worldview.
It is therefore not surprising that China would suddenly seek to develop friendly relations and cooperation with other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. “China’s peaceful development begins here in Asia, finds its support in Asia, and delivers tangible benefits to Asia” asserted President Xi. Perhaps, this is the most opportune moment for India to explore the prospect of expanding trans-border cooperation in order to facilitate formation of a trans-Himalayan economic growth zone. Besides, Prime Minister Narendra Modi being a known entity to the Chinese Communist leadership is in a better position to attract Chinese manufacturers to set up base in India.
The economic equivalent of a mutually assured destructive situation with major Chinese stake in Indian economy will undoubtedly stabilize the unpredictable Sino-Indian relationship, marred by suspicion and tension. Moreover, India and China can play a significant role in crisis management in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both these war-ravaged nations plagued by fratricidal conflict can be the testing ground for the proposed “Asian Security Concept.” Finally, given the contemporary challenges, signing of a new Panchsheel Agreement, which includes a formal Sino-Indian non-aggression pact, commitment to no-first-use of nuclear weapons on each other and renunciation of the secessionist card can alter the Asian fortune significantly.
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Seema Sengupta is a Kolkata-based journalist and columnist.
Email: [email protected]
