Panchasheel
- The Panchsheel Agreement, formally known as The Agreement on Trade and Intercourse with Tibet Region, was signed on April 29, 1954, by N Raghavan, the Indian Ambassador to China, and Zhang Han-Fu, China’s Foreign Minister.
- The preamble of the Panchsheel Treaty lay down five guiding principles:
- Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
- Mutual non-aggression.
- Mutual non-interference.
- Equality and mutual benefit.
- Peaceful co-existence.
- The agreement aimed to enhance trade and cooperation between the two countries, establishing each country’s trade centres in major cities of the other, and laid out a framework for trade. The agreement also listed important religious pilgrimages, provisions for pilgrims, and acceptable routes and passes available to them.