The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence
A historic Indonesian/Chinese vision embraced by Xi Jinping and the Global South
The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence were listed in the Preamble to the Sino-Indian Agreement, signed by China and India in Peking on April 29, 1954. The five principles are: mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual non-aggression; mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs; equality and cooperation for mutual benefit; and peaceful co-existence. The five principles provided the foundation for the six articles of the Agreement, which outlined the structures for mutually beneficial trade between the two countries and the provisions for pilgrimages by religious believers from both countries.
The five principles were originally formulated by Sukarno of Indonesia in 1945. Subsequently, they were declared to be the “five principles governing China’s relation with foreign countries” on December 1, 1953, by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during the Tibetan trade talks with India. Zhou and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru emphasized the Five Principles on June 18, 1954, at the Asian Prime Ministers Conference in Sri Lanka. Nehru declared, “if these principles were recognized in the mutual relations of all countries, then indeed there would hardly be any conflict and certainly no war.”
The five principles were incorporated into the “Ten Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” issued by the historic 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. And the five principles provided the foundation for the Non-Aligned Movement, established in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1961, an organization that persists to our times and currently has 120 member nations, continuing to embrace the founding principles of the Movement. The spirit of Bandung and the Non-Aligned Movement were making it evident that the nations of the Third World possess, from the neocolonial situation, a perspective on international relations different from that of the Western powers.
The Sino-Indian Agreement was not renewed when it expired in 1962, and war broke out between the two countries. However, the Five Principles continued to be embraced as principles that guide Chinese foreign relations. In 2004, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Sino-Indian Agreement, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that "a new international order on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence" should be constructed. And Premier Wen Jiabao stated that the Five Principles are the basis for China’s trade and cooperation with more than 200 countries. In addition, in the era of Xi Jinping, China has followed the five principles as its guide in foreign policy, as can be seen in the fact that the five principles constitute the foundation for the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. A commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Sino-Indian Agreement was celebrated in June 2014.
A Conference Marking the Seventieth Anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence was held in Beijing, China, on June 28, 2024. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, delivered an address entitled, “Carrying Forward the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and Jointly Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind.”
Xi Jinping declared that the official initiation of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence seventy years ago “marked a groundbreaking and epoch-making achievement in the history of international relations.” He further declared that the commemoration is being held for the purpose of carrying forward the goals of the Five Principles under new conditions, in order to forge human progress on the premise of a “shared future for mankind.”
The Chinese President provided the historical context for the formulation of the five principles. It was a time when, “in the wake of the Second World War, national independence and liberation movements swept across the globe, and the colonial system around the world crumbled and collapsed.” But the newly independent nations confronted a world characterized by the Cold War and the belief that “might makes right” in foreign affairs. In this threatening context, “newly independent countries aspired to safeguard their sovereignty and grow their national economy,” while China, seeking modernization, “actively sought peaceful coexistence with all countries.”
Xi Jinping noted that, although the Five Principles were born in Asia, they quickly assumed a role in the world stage, embraced as guiding principles by the Bandung Conference in 1955 and the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. They were endorsed by the Declaration on Principles of International Law of the UN General Assembly in 1970 and the Declaration on the Establishment of the New International Economic Order of the UN General Assembly in 1974. Xi Jinping maintains that the Five Principles are fully in accord with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and they have established a benchmark for international relations.
Furthermore, Xi Jinping asserted, “the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence have served as the prime guidance for the establishment and development of relations between countries with different social systems.” They enable the development of relations of mutual trust, friendship, and cooperation between countries with different social systems, ideologies, cultures, sizes, and stages of development. “They categorically oppose imperialism, colonialism and hegemonism, and reject belligerent and bullying practices of the law of the jungle.” They are part of the historic wisdom of humanity, and they are “a common asset of the international community to be valued, inherited and further promoted.” He paid tribute to “the visionaries from all countries who have been promoting the Five Principles with perseverance over the years!”
Xi Jinping observed that China today moves forward on the basis of the principles formulated by previous generations, who discerned—in the aftermath of world wars and in the context of wars of national liberation and the Cold War—the need to envision a peaceful co-existence as the foundation for world peace and the sovereignty of all nations. Today, in new conditions, China is pushing the Five Principles to a more advanced formulation, involving building in political practice a world community with shared values, mutually beneficial trade, and cooperation. Xi Jinping declared:
China has answered the call of the times by proposing a community with a shared future for mankind. Today, this Chinese initiative has become an international consensus. The beautiful vision has been put into productive actions. It is moving the world to a bright future of peace, security, prosperity and progress.
The Vision of Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind carries forward the same spirit of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Both are rooted in traditional Chinese values such as "Be kind to your neighbor," "Seek amity through integrity," and "Promote harmony among all nations." Both attest to China's diplomatic tenets of self-confidence, self-reliance, justice, protection of the disadvantaged, and benevolence. Both demonstrate the broad vision of the Communist Party of China to contribute more to humanity. Both manifest China's firm resolve to follow the path of peaceful development. The Vision of Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind is the most effective move to sustain, promote and upgrade the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in the new circumstances.
The Vision captures the reality that all countries have a shared future and intertwined interests, and it sets a new model of equality and coexistence for international relations. China believes that all countries, regardless of their size, strength and wealth, are equal members of the international community. They have common interests, common rights, and common responsibilities in international affairs. All countries should join hands to overcome challenges, achieve shared prosperity, build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world of lasting peace, universal security, and shared prosperity, and realize peaceful coexistence with greater security and prosperity for mankind.
The Vision responds to the world's prevailing trend of peace, development, cooperation and win-win, and opens up new prospects for peace and progress. China calls on all countries to bear in mind the future of humanity and the wellbeing of the people, and uphold their essential commitment to equality, mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence. We should all champion the common values of humanity, promote global governance that features extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefit, and cultivate a new type of international relations. We should all work together to implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and deliver more benefits to all peoples.
The vision keeps pace with the historic trend toward multipolarity and economic globalization, and it inspires new ways to achieve development and security. China has been working together with all sides … [to boost] … the efforts for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.
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We need to uphold the principle of sovereign equality. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence center on the principle of sovereign equality. And on that basis, they promote equal rights, equal opportunities and equal norms for every country. They reject the big subduing the small, the strong bullying the weak, and the rich exploiting the poor. An equal and orderly multipolar world means every country can find its place in a multipolar system and play its due role pursuant to international law, so that the process of multipolarization is stable and constructive on the whole.
We need to cement the foundation of mutual respect. Countries must make equality, mutual respect and mutual trust the ground rules of engagement. They should show respect for different historical and cultural traditions and different stages of development, for each other's core interests and major concerns, and for the development paths and systems independently chosen by people of all countries. We must jointly uphold the "golden rule" of non-interference, and jointly oppose acts of imposing one's will on others, stoking bloc confrontation, creating small circles, and forcing others to pick sides.
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China has been advocating a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and endeavoring to deliver on the Global Development Initiative. Our goal is to benefit all with the opportunity of development, to diversify development paths, to help all nations share development fruits, to encourage common development and prosperity for all countries in the global village, and to turn win-win into a solid consensus.
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Of all the forces in the world, the Global South stands out with a strong momentum, playing a vital role in promoting human progress…. We should restore development as the central international agenda item, reinvigorate global partnerships for development, and deepen South-South cooperation as well as North-South dialogue. Together, we should be the construction team of global governance. We should actively participate in reforming and developing the global governance system, expand the common interests of all sides, and make the global governance architecture more balanced and effective. Together, we should be the advocates for exchange among civilizations. We should enhance inter-civilization communication and dialogue, and we should strengthen experience sharing on governance. We should deepen exchanges in education, science, technology and culture.
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China's resolve to stay on the path of peaceful development will not change. We will never take the trodden path of colonial plundering, or the wrong path of seeking hegemony when one becomes strong. We will stay on the right path of peaceful development.
In an article published on the Website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry on July 19, Wang Yi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, characterized Xi Jinping’s speech as an important address in support of international solidarity, cooperation, and the cause of humanity for peace and development. Wang maintains that the speech sends a powerful message to the Global South and to people of all countries working for a better future.
“Xi Jinping proposes Global Development Initiative: The President of China seeks win-win cooperation,” October 19, 2021
“China’s Xi Jinping has a better plan: But the Western media cannot see it, let alone report it,” April 26, 2022
“China’s Global Security Initiative: The security of each is rooted in the common security of all,” March 3, 2023
“China proposes Global Civilization Initiative: Diverse development paths and dialogue across civilizations,” March 21, 2023
“China explains its Belt and Road Initiative: The Tenth Anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative,” October 20, 2023
“Xi Jinping invokes the Silk Road spirit: Belt and Road cooperation represents the advancing of our times,” October 24, 2023
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Further Considerations
As the colonies of Africa and Asia were driving toward independence from European colonial rule in the post-World War II era, there was much hope that the world was in transition to a more modern and more equal world, constructed through transformation of the economic and political structures that colonialism had imposed. But the European powers, led by the new hegemon in North America, maneuvered to ensure that the world-system would continue to provide cheap raw materials and cheap labor for the manufacturers of the core as well as markets for the surplus goods of the advanced economies. There thus emerged structures of political independence that did not permit a true independence marked by national control of the natural and human resources of the former colonies, a situation that Kwame Nkrumah famously called “neocolonialism.”
As can be seen from the story of the Five Principles, the People’s Republic of China in cooperation with exceptional leaders of the newly independent countries, like Sukarno and Nehru, were formulating the fundamental principles that ought to provide the foundation for a more just, equal, and politically stable world. The movement for a more just world-system reached its zenith in 1974, with the UN Declaration on the Establishment of the New International Economic Order.
But the powers-that-be soon made evident the decadence of the neocolonial world-system that they controlled. They ignored the unified call of the peoples of the once-colonized regions, and they turned, beginning in 1979-1980, to the imposition of neoliberal economic policies, using international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The weak sovereignty of Third World states was constrained even more, creating new possibilities for core financial speculation, accompanied by deepening underdevelopment in the peripheral and semi-peripheral zones of the world-economy.
The 1980s and 1990s were lost decades for the struggle of the neocolonized, characterized by confusion and accommodation to the powerful forces of the new and decadent imperialism. But by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the resistance of the neocolonized recovered its voice in the new conditions. The signs of the renewal included: the retaking by the Non-Aligned Movement of its classic principles, led by Cuba; the emergence of projects of regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia, and the Arab world, pointing toward a pluripolar world order; and the emergence of BRICS, which sought not only mutually beneficial trade among large emerging economies from different regions but also a reform of the norms that would guide the world order. The process has been significantly aided by the opening of the People’s Republic of China to an economic engagement of the world, which has established the foundation for a more consistent and deeper diplomatic engagement on the foundation of the Five Principles.
We thus have arrived to a worldwide conflict between a new imperialism in decadence and the anti-imperialist force of the emerging Global South and East. The new imperialism seeks to contain and destroy progressive forces that it unleashed, thereby seeking to reverse unalterable world-historical dynamics. The new imperialism has characteristics fundamentally different from old imperialism and colonialism, which provided the foundation for modernization and greater economic productivity. The new imperialism has no positive dimension; it merely deepens global inequalities and provokes political conflict, environmental destruction, and uncontrollable international migration. In contrast, the anti-imperialism of the Global South and East has become the force that is advancing economic modernization and bringing into reality a world of peace and stability.
As Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, writes: “In the new century, the collective rise of emerging market and developing countries is unstoppable. The Global South stands out with a strong momentum, and groupings such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have gained notably stronger influence. The trend toward multipolarity and greater democracy in international relations is irreversible. Championing the essence of the Five Principles under the new circumstances is a crucial step to fully capture the political and economic reality of today’s world, and move toward a more just and equitable international order.”
In the process of unfolding worldwide change, Xi Jinping has become the exceptional leader of our times, giving powerful formulation to a systematic theory of international relations proposed by developing countries; while the imperialist powers in decadence double down on “power politics, bullying, and the law of the jungle.” As Wang notes, “humanity must make a historic choice between peace and war, prosperity and recession, and unity and confrontation.”
Finally, we should not overlook the epistemological question. Xi Jinping speaks of the “shared values” and the “common values of humanity,” standing against the post-modern discourse of Western leftists, who see truth as a matter of personal construction. On this matter, Xi is in tune with the leaders, intellectuals, and peoples of the Global South, who see with complete clarity that the negation of the sovereignty of states is morally and objectively wrong as a matter of principle, with the consequence that it denies to states the possibility for the economic development necessary for providing human needs, creating a world where there are children without food, schools, or safety.
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