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Panchsheel and the
Future: Perspectives on India-China
Relations
This book released on the occasion of the golden jubilee of an agreement relating to Tibet between the two countries in 1954 is an indirect attempt to rectify these misconceptions about one another. Panchsheel or Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence were included as the preamble to the 1954 agreement. The principles are: (i) mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; (ii) non-aggression; (iii) non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; (iv) equality and mutual benefit; and (v) peaceful coexistence. The book is not only about Panchsheel, but goes much beyond that. It hammers home the fact that India and China have a shared history of thousands of years. In this long history, the 1962 skirmish does not comprise even a paragraph. What is even more remarkable is that the neighbours lived together for the millennia without any war. The commonality in various spheres like trade, investment, agriculture and environmental management is highlighted through essays written by 19 authorities in various fields. These include G. S. Bhalla, a former member of the Planning Commission, Lokesh Chandra, Director of the International Academy of Indian Culture, Geng Yinzeng, Professor of the Institute of Afro-Asian Studies, Prof Hua Biyun, Senior Fellow, China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, Nagesh Kumar, Director-General of the Research and Information System for the Non-Aligned and Other Developing Countries, Vinay M. Kwatra, Counsellor in India’s Embassy in Beijing and Rajendra K. Pachauri, Director-General of the Energy and Resources Institute. The Editor, C.V. Ranganathan, was successively Deputy Chief of Mission in the rank of Ambassador in Moscow, Ambassador in Beijing and then Paris. The recounting of the close ties that they enjoyed comprises the first part of the book. The scholarly details about which traveller visited which city and which ship landed at which port in which year are indicative of the synergy that the ties always had. Even the discoveries of Chinese porcelains in India have been fondly recalled. Panchsheel was the culmination of such close interaction. This unique relationship has been described as "back-to-back"—rather than face-to-face—due to which the two great civilisations of the East never clashed as did their counterparts in the Western hemisphere. Buddhism, of course, played a major cementing role. Even after the Sinification of Buddhism during the Song dynasty, the Chinese always looked towards their "western" neighbour with a lot of respect. Ironically, the Chinese contributors to the book insist that they always followed Panchsheel. None of them acknowledges that the five principles failed in removing the friction between the two. They put it in a roundabout way that "the principles were not transformed into practice". Nearly all writers agree that the future belongs to India and China. They are optimistic that the blueprint provided by the principles can be used to normalise relations. A fairly detailed route map is provided by C. Raja Mohan in his essay. What is also agreed is that economics will be the major component. That is why the greatest focus is on cooperation for economic development. Taking an overview, Amit Mitra and Anjan Roy, Secretary-General and Advisor of FICCI, respectively, suggest that the two should collaborate at three distinct but related levels. The first will be the level of multilateral negotiations like those under the framework of the WTO, or within the regional trade blocs. The second area of contact should be through a greatly enhanced level of bilateral trade and investment flows. The third element should be in the cutting-edge areas, as in the knowledge-driven industries. Noted strategic-security expert Jasjit Singh and Prof N. S. Siddharthan, Head of the VKRV Rao Centre for Studies in Globalisation, Institute for Economic Growth, Delhi, put various common concerns and policy options in a global perspective. Other specialists focus on agriculture development (G. S. Bhalla) and climate change, bio-diversity and environmental protection (R. K. Pachauri). In short, Panchsheel is projected as a dependable foundation on which a grand edifice can be still erected. This may have looked like a futile exercise till a few years ago but the convergence of the recent past has rekindled hope eternal. |
FOR
those Indians who lived through the heady days of "Hindi-Chini bhai
bhai" in the fifties, the 1962 war was the ultimate act of
betrayal. The victim mentality continues half a century later.