China's championing of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence is timely response to the increasing fragility of the global peace

Editor's note: The world has undergone many changes and shocks in recent years. Enhanced dialogue between scholars from China and overseas is needed to build mutual understanding on many problems the world faces. For this purpose, the China Watch Institute of China Daily and the National Institute for Global Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, jointly present this special column: The Global Strategy Dialogue, in which experts from China and abroad will offer insightful views, analysis and fresh perspectives on long-term strategic issues of global importance.

The conference marking the 70th anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in Beijing was not a mere commemorative event. It also marked the beginning of a new milestone for the principles that have been progressing and morphing from being the cornerstone of Chinese diplomacy in managing interstate relations to the foundation for dispute resolution, peace building and international cooperation.

The presidential address delivered at the event said it all. As the global peace is coming to a crunch, the offer of the evergreen principles as the Chinese solution to the prevailing conflicts and security challenges is undoubtedly tantamount to injecting a new lease of life into them.

Alongside this, China's renewed commitment to making the Five Principles a contemporary developmental vehicle for the Global South looks set to further enhance South-South cooperation, besides bridging the Global North-South gulf in the increasingly polarized world.

China's roll out of the Belt and Road Initiative and its three global initiatives have been a response to the call of the times. Bearing the aspiration to build a global community with a shared future, which is characterized by inclusiveness, symbiosis and egalitarian cooperation, the Chinese global initiatives are virtually rooted in the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. In essence, the global initiatives help reinvigorate the Five Principles in the contemporary perspective.

Amid the fragile global peace and widening trust deficit, Chinese wisdom holds that both economic prosperity and security are not mutually exclusive, but are codependencies that reinforce one another.

Conversely, the sway held by the US-led West across the world is conveniently framed as a carte blanche by the reigning hegemon to uphold its global primacy. The old "Monroe Doctrine" is no longer confined within the bounds of the Western Hemisphere or the near shores of the United States, but is further extended in essence to encompass the entire world as the US' backyard. Under the prism of the unipolar power in its bid to advance its hegemonic interests, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, alongside pledges of nonaggression, is meant to be compromised so long as the hegemon's interests are served.

This is best exemplified by the recurrence of "regime change" that has triggered widespread humanitarian disasters in the name of "promoting democracy". The recent repeated use of veto power by Washington against the overwhelming majority views in the United Nations Security Council to command an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, is an unparalleled epitome of political hypocrisy. The self-proclaimed global sheriff is callously turning a blind eye to the Israeli military operation deemed genocidal against the Palestinians, while its own sanctimonious sanctioning of others for purportedly committing genocide is still fresh in the global memory.

The practice of double standards in favor of the collective West has been getting more rampant than ever. The Global South representing about 88 percent of the world's population remains increasingly vulnerable when the unipolar power seeks to intervene in hotspot disputes. This is particularly so in the Asia-Pacific where the containment and encirclement of China is top of the agenda. The risk of sleepwalking into a full blown kinetic conflict is clearly on the cards if the prevailing belligerence is allowed to fester indiscriminately.

Against such a gloomy backdrop for peace, the relevance of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence is worth revisiting more than ever before. Over the past seven decades, the principles have been staying globally relevant through the ages of bipolarity and unipolarity as well as the contemporary age of multipolarity.

Their relevance has grown far beyond the role of managing interstate diplomacy that transcends diverse social systems and ideologies. The Global South is in dire need of such principles as mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual nonaggression, noninterference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence, in the face of the current challenges of instability induced by the external interventionists. The relevance of the principles commands due recognition and respect from all the state actors on the world stage, notably at such a crunch reminiscent of the Cold War years.

The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence made their debut in the Sino-Indian Agreement in 1954 and became known to the world when they became the mainstay of the Ten Principles endorsed by the Asian-African Conference convened in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955.

The Principles went further to be accommodated in the "Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations" which was adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in 1970. This took place before China's legitimate membership in the United Nations was reinstated, signifying that the acceptance of global public good in the interest of humanity was allowed to rise above political correctness and the ideological face-off brought about by Cold War when the international community came to its senses.

Parallel to this, on the home front in Asia, the Five Principles found their resonance in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' ZOPFAN Declaration in pursuit of a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality in 1971 amid Cold War. The collective intent of ASEAN to keep Southeast Asia "free from any form or manner of interference by outside Powers" and "broaden the areas of cooperation" was visibly echoing the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. In hindsight, this played an instrumental precursor to the thawing of relations between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors, albeit not without headwinds.

ASEAN's commitment to the Five Principles was brought to a new height when the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) was unveiled as the foundational peace treaty of ASEAN in engaging with the world in 1976. It is an ASEAN-initiated foundational peace treaty that embodies the universal principles of peaceful Coexistence and friendly cooperation among its member states and beyond.

Again, this was largely consistent with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence which were hailed as the "Asian wisdom" that underpinned the guiding philosophy of the Non-Aligned Movements then.

Fast forward seven decades later, the "rules-based order" is now the favorite catchphrase of the collective West in their attempts to contain and restrain China's all-dimensional rise, which is deemed an existential threat by the US. The latter appears increasingly insecure in picking up the gauntlet with prowess and confidence. Instead, it is resorting to a doctrine of deterrence, with the mushrooming of several US-led minilateral security alliances, ranging from the Quad and AUKUS to the latest security alliance of the US, Australia, Japan and the Philippines to serve the US interests in the region at the expense of multipolar peace.

While the collective West continues to make the saber-rattling of their naval vessels in the distant Asia-Pacific a "new normal" under the pretext of "upholding freedom of navigation and rules-based order", the antagonism it manifests lies not in the ideological face-off, but more of an evolving scenario where the entrenched forces in defence of the reigning hegemon's sagging primacy are on the collision path with the arising aspirations to preserve the fragile multipolar peace.

The author is president of the Belt and Road Initiative Caucus for the Asia-Pacific and former transport minister of Malaysia. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.