By ZAHARI ZAHARIEV
The China factor contributes to the overall process of building new social relations, which the world increasingly needs
Seventy years have passed since China put forth the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Their importance cannot be overemphasized even though the international situation has changed dramatically.
They not only form the basis for China’s independent foreign policy of peace, but also constitute important principles in regulating state-to-state relations, transcending social systems and ideologies for most countries in the world.
The five principles are mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual nonaggression, mutual noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and cooperation for mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. These ideas were first put forward by then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and formally proposed as the norms for handling international relations.
In 1955 the Asian-African Conference convened in Bandung, Indonesia issued ten principles for conducting international relations, among which the five principles were included. Hereafter, in the process of the developing countries seeking a fairer international political and economic order, the five principles have been accepted and adopted by the overwhelming majority of developing countries, and have had an increasing impact all over the world.
Today, however, we are witnessing a global, not only ideological confrontation, but also a psychological war, which is assuming the proportions of a Cold War between the East and the West. More, there is a conscious effort, especially by those who aim to remove China as a factor in world affairs, to try and erect a new Iron Curtain as well. The West is inventing China as its imaginary enemy, despite China’s economic achievements and prosperity being an example of successful development and of finding successful answers to the challenges of the new civilizational phase.
In the 1990s, it was officially declared that the Cold War was finally over. Today, however, we are witnessing not only the repetition of some of the strategies that were used then, but also the injection of new content into efforts to isolate China.
What we are observing today, unfortunately, does not have a short historical horizon. It is a long-term strategy of the United States and NATO, which carries enormous risks. The world will not only witness a geopolitical, ideological, geoeconomic confrontation unseen in the past, but also come dangerously close to its own self-destruction. With enormous resources and forces being thrown into this new Cold War, accompanied by military confrontation and psychological aggression, it carries the constant danger of approaching a global thermonuclear conflict.
When we talk about China, we must keep in mind that we are talking about the scientific and technical potential of a country that is the most prosperous in terms of the discovery of a new page in the digital age of humanity. That is, we cannot try to remove China in any of these areas and not affect the stability of the world as a whole.
The vast majority of the modern world lives by the laws of civilizational development and sees its prosperity precisely in the direction of peaceful construction and the objective processes of internationalization — starting from the economy, passing through the spiritual sphere and reaching the field of political dialogue. Political dialogue that is cordial and sensible and which seeks to build, rather than destroy. Dialogue that can unite all humanity.
Another thing that should also not be forgotten is that despite all the psychological warfare efforts being waged against China by the West, the vast majority of people in these countries are in favor of reasonable, constructive dialogue and the all-round development of relations with China.
An interesting paradox here is that despite the efforts of imperial circles, above all in Washington, and by the political elites in many West European countries, who are largely subservient to Washington, we also have a countervailing line of behavior from the business side. There is a deep division between political elites and economic interests.
Despite calls made to US companies to stop investing or to cease having economic cooperation with China, no serious economic structure followed these “suggestions” or has succumbed to this political pressure. This confrontation between economic interests and the strategy of military-political opposition on the part of the West toward China leads to deep cracks in the sociopolitical stability of these countries. The China factor, without being officially present contributes to the overall process of building new social relations, which the world increasingly needs.
This also explains the unfading relevance of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.
*The author is president of the Bulgarian National Association for the Belt and Road.
