Chinese President Xi Jinping referred to “Panchsheel" principles in his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Summit at Tianjin recently.

India has been a full member of the SCO since 2017, after enjoying an Observer status since 2005. PM Modi had attended several SCO summits previously, in addition to hosting one in virtual format in 2023. However, this SCO Summit, which comes in the backdrop of US President Donald Trump’s tariff diktats, is important as it might lead to new regional economic and security realignment.

Xi’s reference to “Panchsheel" is important. However, PM Modi might not enjoy it, as he has little fondness for Jawaharlal Nehru, who first applied this term, which is derived from the precepts of Buddhism.

Nehru originally used the term to describe the Sino-Indian Agreement signed on April 29, 1954, in Peking (now Beijing) between diplomats Chang Han-Fu and Nedyam Raghavan in Chinese, English and Hindi. Though this agreement centered on trade and pilgrimage between India and Tibet (annexed to PRC in 1949), five principles were enumerated in its Preamble. These were 1) Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty 2) Mutual non-aggression 3) Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs 4) Equality and mutual benefit; and 5) Peaceful co-existence.

Though the term “Panchsheel" nowhere appeared in the text, it was used while emphasising on the five principles in a joint statement issued in New Delhi on June 28, 1954, on the conclusion of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai’s visit. In the following years, informs Subimal Dutt, the former foreign secretary of India, these principles were used in joint statements by Nehru and Heads of States and governments of foreign countries paying visit to India. Among these were Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Poland, Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Yugoslavia. They were also substantially included in the Declaration of World Peace and Co-operation adopted by the Asian-African Conference at Bandung in April, 1955 (With Nehru in the Foreign Office, P.90).

However, even as “Panchsheel" assumed a sort of global popularity, those principles failed to stand the turbulence in India-China relationship. Chinese violations of Indian territory at Shipkila Pass (1956) and Bara Hoti (1958) as well its “cartographical misadventure" in........

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