All countries need to see each other as equal partners despite differing sizes and economies said Samoa's ambassador to China Luamanuvae Albert Mariner.

He commented on Chinese television as China marked the 70th anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

In his speech on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the international community to carry forward these principles under the new global circumstances.

Luamanuvae said the principles were applicable to all nations and a fine example on how nations should engage with each other.

“The fact that this framework is not formed as brief, the basis of conducting international relations is real credit to China's vision and foresight at that time. I thought President Xi was very generous with his time in terms of outlining all the key issues concerning the framework,” he said.

“And a lot of the issues that came out are very important for a country small country like Samoa so it was really encouraging to hear issues like equal sovereignty, and all the other issues that are covered by the framework.

Luamanuvae said the principles applied to Samoa when it came to international diplomacy.

“I thought the most important aspect of the framework that President Xi covered is this whole notion of sovereign equality, whereby all countries whether regardless of size, or more, being the country of only 200,000 people, China, being the largest country in the world at 1.4 billion until recently, but the fact that China still sees some more and all the other smiling countries as an equal partner, as we try and pursue our own path of development and pursue a peace in the current and very challenging global environment we face right now,” he said.

International diplomacy is changing as geopolitics has made it very challenging. The last three years has seen interest increase from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan.

There is a race between nations, some have bonded as a group to tackle geopolitics.

Luamanuvae believes that the framework of the Five Principles could become applicable to all as the paradigm of international relations changes.

“We live in a world now that we're facing the prices of climate change. We have economic division between the main economic powers in the world, but global challenges faced by smaller countries and the world at large,” he said.

“We need the big players in the international community, China, the US, Europe and others to work together and this framework and the principles give us a guideline on how every country in the world for that matter should engage.

“It's about mutual respect, mutual trust, but again, because national interest and geopolitics are at play, it is an extremely challenging environment we face right now for a country like Samoa. We see that the crisis that we face right now, there is an opportunity for big countries like China and others to work with us in partnership and collaboration to find a way forward in the challenges that we face.”