Five principles resonate today, say British experts

By XING YI in London | China Daily Global | Updated: 2024-07-12 09:40 The Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, a foreign relations concept proposed by the Chinese leadership 70 years ago, still resonate today, providing a fundamental framework for building peace and advancing economic cooperation, British experts said. The five principles — mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual nonaggression, mutual noninterference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence — were put forward by the Chinese leadership in the 1950s as a guideline for handling bilateral relations with other nations. The five principles are in turn embodied and further developed in the important global initiatives put forward by China with regard to security, development and civilization, said Bennett. "It is among the most successful contributions of the older generation of socialist China's leaders to world peace and international respect and friendship," he said, adding that China's leaders today continue to emphasize those principles for the well-being of peoples of all countries, each of which is entitled to choose its own path and methods.