Letter

In response to China is building the world’s biggest hydropower dam. Why is India worried?

Confucian commitment and the dam

This is a very informative and carefully thought-out article. The question of Chinese intentions is raised with respect to potential concerns of India and Bangladesh.

Those concerns can and will be dealt with by China as it deals with all such issues, by good-faith negotiations and through the five principles of peaceful co-existence that China has adopted in the Sino-Indian Agreement of 1954.

These underlie China’s foreign policy generally.They are mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and co-operation for mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence. China has stuck pretty consistently to these principles despite constant provocations from the West.

— Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041