On Friday last week at an event to mark the 70th anniversary of the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General-Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平) gave a speech highlighting the importance of the five principles for China’s relations with other countries.
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 coexistence.
These sound like lofty principles and they are. They were enunciated by then-CCP chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and then-Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (周恩來) before a conference in 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia, at which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) courted the many newly independent countries that were organizing themselves in the Non-Aligned Movement headed by then-Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and then-Indonesian president Sukarno.
Like Mao and Zhou in the 1950s, Xi is eager to use the five principles to gain support from the Global South in his struggle for influence in the world, getting countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to side with China in his push back against the liberal rules-based international order, the post-World War II system that was designed to maintain global peace.
However, there is a problem: Xi does not apply the principles, even in relations with the countries with which they were originally agreed to. In the Himalayas, China and India have had significant border disputes for decades. It does not seem that Beijing has “respect for India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty” there.
Over the past few weeks, China has encroached on the Philippines’ territorial integrity near Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙), and with Indonesia there is a long-lasting territorial dispute in the southern part of the South China Sea, with part of the waters of Indonesia’s Natuna Islands (納土納) claimed by China using its infamous “nine-dash line,” under which it claims large parts of the South China Sea in contravention of the 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
It would be good if Xi not only talked about the five principles, but also implemented them faithfully. It would even be better if the rulers in Beijing applied the five principles to relations with Taiwan.
One can only imagine how life would change for the better if this were to happen, both for China and Taiwan.
The leaders in Beijing have traditionally talked about “peaceful unification,” but as most people in Taiwan know very well, unification would be anything but peaceful. The aggressive language used by Beijing’s leaders is a clear indication of that.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim recently recited the PRC’s “reunification” mantra, showing how far he has wandered from the original principle of self-determination.
The US and other friendly countries have often used the term “peaceful resolution,” which is of course good and helpful, but it mainly emphasizes the process, and does not address the desired end-state.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has included phrasing that the future of Taiwan needs to be determined peacefully, “consistent with the wishes and best interests of the people of Taiwan.”
That goes in the right direction, but still falls short of another principle in international relations, the principle of self-determination, which is enshrined in the 1945 UN Charter. It states that the purpose of the UN is “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.”
Full respect of this principle of the right of Taiwanese to determine their own future would indeed bring about the much-needed peaceful coexistence between Taiwan and China.
Gerrit van der Wees is a former Dutch diplomat who teaches Taiwan history and US relations with East Asia at George Mason University and previously taught at the George Washington University Elliott School for International Affairs in Washington.
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