Third World means that China is a poor, developing country and not part of any power bloc such as that around the United States or the socialist bloc formerly associated with the Soviet Union.
Chinese spokesmen say that their country seeks peace so that it can concentrate on development.
The Chinese leadership originally enumerated these principles in 1954 when China, with a communist government, was trying to reach out to the non-communist countries of Asia. Today, the Five Principles still serve a useful purpose. China's alternative design for the world stresses the equal, uninfringeable sovereignty of all states large and small, Western and non-Western, rich and poor, democratic and authoritarian, each to run its own system as it sees fit, whether its methods suit Western standards or not. The Five Principles explain why America should not be able to impose its values on weaker nations. In the 1960s hegemony was a code word for Soviet expansionism.