The Bandung Conference

The hot springs of Maribaya are on the outskirts of the Javanese city of Bandung, the capital of the West Java province, located about 180 kilometres southeast of Jakarta, and the third largest city in Indonesia.

The northern section of Bandung is hillier than other parts of the city, and the distinguished truncated flat-peak shape of the Tangkuban Perahu volcano, which literally means 'upside-down boat', can be seen from the city to the north. Long-term volcanic activity has created fertile andisol soil (formed from volcanic ash) in the northern outskirts, suitable for intensive rice, fruit, tea, tobacco, and coffee plantations. In the south and east, alluvial soils deposited by the Cikapundung river predominate. 

The Bandung Basin is located on an ancient volcano, known as Mount Sunda, a stratovolcano,  that is estimated to have risen to 3000 - 4000 metres above sea level before two large-scale eruptions took place.

The Tangkuban Perahu volcano (literally "upside-down boat"), rising above Bandung.

The first eruption formed the northern ridge of Bandung basin, and the other, about 55,000 years ago, blocked the Citarum river, turning the basin into a lake known as "the Great Prehistoric Lake of Bandung" The lake drained away; for reasons which are the subject of ongoing debate among geologists.

Bandung city centre and the Bandung Basin

After Indonesia declared independence in 1945, the city experienced rapid development and urbanization, transforming Bandung from an idyllic town into a dense 16,500 people/km2 (per square kilometer) metropolitan area, a living space for over 8.5 million people. New skyscrapers, high-rise buildings, bridges, and gardens have been constructed. Natural resources have been heavily exploited, particularly by conversion of protected upland area into highland villas and real estate. Also, although the city has encountered many problems (ranging from waste disposal and floods to a complicated traffic system resulting from a lack of road infrastructure), Bandung still attracts large numbers of tourists, weekend sightseers, and migrants from other parts of Indonesia.

Bandung is considered a major and significant cultural hub in Indonesia. Most people in the surrounding province of West Java are Sundanese. Sundanese language is often spoken as the first language and is commonly used as informal language for communication in streets, school, campus, work, and markets, while Indonesian is used the official language and the language of government, businesses, and instruction at schools.

Photo taken on April 23, 2015 shows the night scenery of Bandung, Indonesia. Newly-independent and non-aligned nations first gathered to assert principles of international economic and political engagement in the Bandung Conference in 1955. April 24 this year marked the 60th anniversary of the 1955 Bandung Conference.

On the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference the China Daily reported on:
Bandung, host city of Asia-African Conference in 1955

The Bandung Conference

The first large-scale Asian–African or Afro–Asian Conference is also known as the Bandung Conference (Indonesian: Konferensi Asia-Afrika)—was a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, which took place on 18–24 April 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. The twenty-nine countries that participated represented a total population of 1.5 billion people, 54% of the world's population. The conference was organised by Indonesia, Burma (Myanmar), Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and India and was coordinated by Ruslan Abdulgani, secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia.

The conference's stated aims were to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism or neocolonialism by any nation. The conference was an important step towards the eventual creation of the Non-Aligned Movement. 

Both India and the People's Republic of China sought to claim the leadership of the emerging Asian–African nations; Chinese Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai was the political personality that most impressed delegates, along with the host of the conference, Indonesian President Sukarno.

Remarkably, it was less than ten years since Indonesia had declared its independence.

Sukarno, accompanied by Mohammad Hatta (right), proclaiming the independence of Indonesia

The Proclamation of Indonesian Independence (Indonesian: Proklamasi Kemerdekaan Indonesia, or simply Proklamasi) was read at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, 17 August 1945. The wording and declaration of the proclamation had to balance the interests of conflicting internal Indonesian and Japanese interests at the time. The declaration marked the start of the diplomatic and armed resistance of the Indonesian National Revolution, fighting against the forces of the Netherlands and pro-Dutch civilians, until the latter officially acknowledged Indonesia's independence in 1949.

During the period of the 1945-1949 independence struggle against the Netherlands seeking to retake its colonies in the "Dutch East Indies", some of the heaviest battles had occurred in and around Bandung. At the end of World War II Dutch troops were virtually absent in Java. To assist the restoration of Dutch sovereignty, the British took a military hold on Java's major cities.

An ultimatum was given in March 1946 by the British commander in Bandung to Indonesian troops to leave the city. In response, part of Bandung was deliberately burned down in an act of defiance by Indonesian troops, as they retreated.

The revolutionary song Halo, Halo Bandung was famously sung by hundreds of Indonesian nationalists as they left Bandung. 

This "scorched earth" response,  an event known as the 'Bandung Sea of Fire', further galvanised the determination of those involved in this nationalist Revolution.

Monument to the "Sea of Fire" in Bandung

"I've never met a more arrogant man than Mr. Nehru." Zhou Enlai.

India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was a key organizer, in his quest to build a nonaligned movement that would win the support of the newly emerging nations of Asia and Africa. Nehru first got the idea at the Asian Relations Conference, held in India in March 1947, on the eve of India's independence. 

There was a second 19-nation conference regarding the status of Indonesia, held in New Delhi, India, in January 1949. Practically every month a new nation in Africa or Asia emerged, with for the first time its own diplomatic corps and eagerness to integrate into the international system.

Mao Zedong of China was also a key organizer, backed by his influential right-hand man, Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai; although Mao still maintained good relations with the Soviet Union in these years, he had the strategic foresight to recognize that an anti-colonial nationalist and anti-imperialist agenda would sweep Africa and Asia, and he saw himself as the natural global leader of these forces as he, after all, had also led a revolution in China marked by anti-colonial nationalism.

At the Colombo Powers conference in April 1954, Indonesia proposed a global conference. A planning group met in Bogor, Indonesia in late December 1954 and formally decided to hold the conference in April 1955. They Had a series of goals in mind: to promote goodwill and cooperation among the new nations; to explore in advance their mutual interests; to examine social economic and cultural problems, to focus on problems of special interest to their peoples, such as racism and colonialism, and to enhance the international visibility of Asia and Africa in world affairs.

The Bandung Conference reflected what the organisers regarded as a reluctance by the Western powers to consult with them on decisions affecting Asia in a setting of Cold War tensions; their concern over tension between the People's Republic of China and the United States; their desire to lay firmer foundations for China's peace relations with themselves and the West; their opposition to colonialism, especially French influence in North Africa and its colonial rule in Algeria; and Indonesia's desire to promote its case in the dispute with the Netherlands over western New Guinea (Irian Barat).

Sukarno, the first president of the Republic of Indonesia, portrayed himself as the leader of this group of states, which he later described as "NEFOS" (Newly Emerging Forces).

On 4 December 1954 the United Nations announced that Indonesia had managed successfully to get  the issue of West New Guinea placed on the agenda of the 1955 General Assembly, plans for the Bandung conference were announced in December 1954.

Major debate centred around the question of whether Soviet policies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia should be censured along with Western colonialism. A memo was submitted by 'The Moslem Nations under Soviet Imperialism', accusing the Soviet authorities of massacres and mass deportations in Muslim regions, but it was never debated.

A consensus was reached in which "colonialism in all of its manifestations" was condemned, implicitly censuring the Soviet Union, as well as the West.

China played an important role in the conference and strengthened its relations with other Asian nations. Having survived an assassination attempt on the way to the conference, the Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, displayed a moderate and conciliatory attitude that tended to quiet fears of some anticommunist delegates concerning China's intentions.

Later in the conference, Zhou Enlai signed on to the article in the concluding declaration stating that overseas Chinese owed primary loyalty to their home nation, rather than to China – a highly sensitive issue for both his Indonesian hosts and for several other participating countries. Zhou also signed an agreement on dual nationality with Indonesian foreign minister Sunario. 

World observers knew little about the new Chinese communist government, and participants and journalists closely watched Zhou. He downplayed revolutionary communism and strongly endorsed the right of all nations to choose their own economic and political systems, including even capitalism. His moderation and reasonableness made a very powerful impression for his own diplomatic reputation and for China.

By contrast, Nehru was bitterly disappointed at the generally negative reception he received. Senior diplomats called him arrogant. Zhou said privately:

"I've never met a more arrogant man than Mr. Nehru."

For the US, the Conference accentuated a central dilemma of its Cold War policy: by currying favour with Third World nations by claiming opposition to colonialism, it risked alienating its colonialist European allies. 

The US security establishment also feared that the Conference would expand China's regional power. In January 1955 the US formed a "Working Group on the Afro-Asian Conference" which included the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB), the Office of Intelligence Research (OIR), the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the United States Information Agency (USIA). The OIR and USIA followed a course of "Image Management" for the US, using overt and covert propaganda to portray the US as friendly and to warn participants of the Communist menace.

The United States, at the urging of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, shunned the conference and was not officially represented. However, the administration issued a series of statements during the lead-up to the Conference. These suggested that the US would provide economic aid, and attempted to reframe the issue of colonialism as a threat by China and the Eastern Bloc.

Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (D-N.Y.) attended the conference, sponsored by Ebony and Jet magazines instead of the U.S. government. Powell spoke at some length in favour of American foreign policy there which assisted the United States's standing with the Non-Aligned. When Powell returned to the United States, he urged President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Congress to oppose colonialism and pay attention to the priorities of emerging Third World nations.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908 – 1972) was a Baptist pastor and an American politician, who represented Harlem, New York City, in the United States House of Representatives (1945–1971). He was the first person of African-American descent to be elected from New York to Congress.

At the conference he made a positive international impression in public addresses that balanced his concerns of his nation's race relations problems with a spirited defense of the United States as a whole against Communist criticisms. Powell returned to the United States to a warm bipartisan reception.

Powell suggested to the State Department that the current manner of competing with the Soviet Union in the realm of fine arts such as international symphony orchestra and ballet company tours was ineffective.

Instead, he advised that the United States should focus on the popular arts, such as sponsoring international tours of famous jazz musicians, which could draw attention to an indigenous American art form and featured musicians who often performed in mixed race bands. The State Department approved the idea. The first such tour with Dizzy Gillespie proved to be an outstanding success abroad and prompted similarly popular tours featuring other musicians for years.

The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference

An historically significant observer of the conference was the African-American author Richard Wright. His book The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference (1956) is based on his impressions and analysis of the postcolonial Asian-African Conference. In addition The Color Curtain bases its analysis of the postcolonial world on Wright's interactions with several modern Indonesian writers and intellectuals.

While living as an expatriate in Paris, Wright learned in early January 1955 that the Bandung Conference would be held in April 1955 and immediately wanted to attend. As he explains in The Color Curtain: "Idly, I picked up the evening's newspaper that lay folded near me on the table and began thumbing through it. Then I was staring at a news item that baffled me....Twenty-nine free and independent nations of Asia and Africa are meeting in Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss 'racialism and colonialism'...." Wright saw this as "a meeting of almost all of the human race living in the main geopolitical center of gravity of the earth."

This book was one of the first substantial accounts of the gathering of Asian and African nations in Bandung, and it continues to be seen as a seminal account of the conference’s world-historical significance and its role in the foundation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961.

Wright's Methodology.
Having made arrangements for the Congress for Cultural Freedom to cover his expenses, Wright arrived in Indonesia on April 12 and staying on for more than three weeks.

During his time in Indonesia, Wright spent the week of April 18–24 reporting on the conference. He spent the remaining two weeks of his Indonesian travels interacting with various Indonesian writers and intellectuals, including Mochtar Lubis, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, Asrul Sani, Ajip Rosidi, Achdiat Karta Mihardja, Beb Vuyk, and others.

He also gave a handful of lectures: at an art event held at the home of Jakarta's mayor, for a meeting of Takdir Alisjahbana's study club, for a group of university students, and for PEN Club Indonesia. After his return to Paris, Wright "worked day and night on [The Color Curtain] and finally sent it to his literary agent on 20 June." Meanwhile, in accordance with the funding agreement Wright had made before traveling to Indonesia, the Congress for Cultural Freedom published several articles (which later became chapters in The Color Curtain) in its international magazines, including Encounter in English, Preuves in French, Der Monat in German, and Cuadernos in Spanish. The Color Curtain was published in English in March 1956, a few months after it appeared in French translation, in December 1955, as Bandoeng, 1.500.000.000 d'hommes.

Themes in The Color Curtain 
Introduced by Gunnar Myrdal, The Color Curtain contains five chapters: "Bandung: Beyond Left and Right", "Race and Religion at Bandung", "Communism at Bandung", "Racial Shame at Bandung", and "The Western World at Bandung". 

In "Bandung: Beyond Left and Right", Wright narrates his pre-conference research into Asia and Indonesia, describing interviews conducted in Europe with several unnamed Asian, Indonesian, and Dutch informants. He also documents the reactions of the Western news media to the upcoming conference. Toward the end of this opening chapter, Wright arrives in Indonesia and, hosted by Mochtar Lubis, meets Indonesian cultural figures and interviews Indonesia's first prime minister, Sutan Sjahrir, as well as the country's fifth prime minister, Mohammed Natsir.

In "Race and Religion at Bandung", Wright travels from Jakarta to Bandung to attend the Asian-African Conference. He recounts the Indonesian President Soekarno’s opening speech: "Before [Soekarno] had uttered more than a hundred syllables, he declared: 'This is the first international conference of colored peoples in the history of mankind!'" Later in the chapter, Wright recounts speeches by several other delegates, including by Prime Minister of Ceylon Sir John Kotelawala, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Kojo Botsio of the Gold Coast, Prince Wan of Thailand, and Carlos Romulo of the Philippines, among others. Wright states: "As I sat listening, I began to sense a deep and organic relation here in Bandung between race and religion, two of the most powerful and irrational forces in human nature."

In "Communism at Bandung", Wright discusses Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai’s presence and speech at the conference, examining how Zhou Enlai worked to balance Communism’s atheism with Indonesia’s dedication to Islam as well as with the other participant nations’ religious traditions.

In "In Racial Shame at Bandung", Wright discusses the unofficial presence of the African-American US Congressman Adam Clayton Powell at the conference and situates US racism in relation to a Cold War political situation in which racism was becoming an international liability for the United States. Later in this section, Wright recounts the story of a fellow African-American reporter, Ethel Payne, who was also reporting on the Bandung Conference and was apparently looking for some Sterno to straighten her hair. Wright believes that racial shame prompts her to straighten her hair. He also reports on "an intimate interview with one of the best-known Indonesian novelists", who is quoted as saying: "I feel inferior. I can’t help it. It is hard to be in contact with the white Western world and not feel like that."

In "The Western World at Bandung", Wright notes that the West’s influence permeates the conference, observing that English is the meeting’s main language of communication. But he cautions that the West has only a limited window to appeal to and influence the postcolonial world. If the West does not use this window, "it faces an Asian-African attempt at pulling itself out of its own mire under the guidance of Mr. Chou En-lai and his drastic theories and practices of endless secular sacrifices."

As regards the matter, or issue of, "racial shame", skin colour, and the real life matter of aesthetics related to concepts of beauty, the global and the local can randomly intersect.







 
Shea Moisture I Break The Wall

Shea Moisture has seen some controversy regarding its recent advertising campaigns, alienating the core Afro-American customer base in the USA. In April 2016, the company launched the "#BreaktheWalls" campaign, which promoted more ethnic inclusion and empowerment.

One aisle is for "beauty" products, another for "ethnic" products! Is this racist neo-colonial "Americanisation" being exported around the globe?

Fade to black . . .  

. . . & being black!

A light complexion = beauty?

Bandung is, as has already been mentioned, in a region of Indonesia where most people in the surrounding province of West Java are Sundanese, and there is a popular belief among Indonesian ethnicities that the Sundanese women are well known for their lighter complexion and  outstanding beauty. 

In his report "Summa Oriental" on early 16th century Sunda Kingdom, Tomé Pires mentions that: "The (Sundanese) women are beautiful, and those of the nobles chaste, which is not the case with those of the lower classes". 

It was said that Sundanese women are — in estimation of Indonesians — one of the most beautiful in the country. It is said that because of the climate, they have lighter complexion than other Indonesians, and because the Sundanese diet features raw vegetables, they reputedly possess especially soft skin.

Eurocentrism?
Looking "European", looking "white" & being black!
Bandungite ladies, popularly known as Mojang Priangan are reputedly pretty, fashion smart and forward looking. Probably because of this, many Sundanese people today pursue careers in the Indonesian entertainment industry. 

In an article by Keith Foulcher and Brian Russell Roberts, Richard Wright and the Bandung Conference, (Published: 19th May, 2015), they draw attention to Richard Wright's legacy.

In 2015, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference, Wright’s 1955 observations on Indonesia still occupied a pivotal place in the conference’s historiography. Significantly, this was also the case in Indonesia itself.

At the end of April 2015, the influential Indonesian weekly news magazine Tempo published a special bound edition in both Indonesian and English to mark the Bandung Conference’s 60th anniversary. Its coverage was wideranging, liberally illustrated with historical photographs and based on historical documents as well as comprehensive reporting and informed commentary.

It was put together by a team of over 90 writers, editors and contributors. Introducing the collection was an article that drew on Richard Wright and The Color Curtain to describe some of the conference themes and aspects of the Indonesian response to the staging of the conference, as Wright had reported them in his Indonesian travelogue.

Elsewhere in the edition Wright appeared again, in comments drawn from The Color Curtain that described the deep impression left on him by his experiences in Indonesia. And in the magazine’s following edition, veteran Indonesian journalist and former Tempo editor Goenawan Mohamad again took up the role of Richard Wright as a mediator of the Bandung Conference to the rest of the world, in his signature column Catatan Pinggir (Sidelines).

Yet there is very little in the 2015 commemoration of the Bandung Conference that draws on the substantial Indonesian archive of sources on Wright’s Indonesian sojourn and its aftermath. The particular circumstances in which Wright’s visit to Indonesia was arranged and financed brought him into contact with a highly visible subset of 1950s Indonesia’s most prominent writers, intellectuals and cultural figures. This contact in turn resulted in a series of interviews, lectures and informal discussions in a variety of Indonesian settings, during the three weeks Wright spent in and around Jakarta and Bandung.

We have detailed our own concern with the need to pluralise and diversify the existing story of Richard Wright in Indonesia in a forthcoming book, Indonesian Notebook: A Sourcebook on Richard Wright and the Bandung Conference (Duke University Press, Feb. 2016). Here, we explore the transnational crosscurrents that underlay Wright’s Indonesian sojourn through a collection of historical documents that offer a view of Wright and his Indonesian experiences and observations from the point of view of Indonesian writers in the years between 1951 and 2005.

We suggest that a consideration of these documents points toward the need for a new Bandung historiography, one that gives as much credence to Wright’s Indonesian interlocutors as it does to Wright himself, a Bandung historiography that resists the traditional and complacent reliance on English-only sources. At the same time, however, we are of course aware that in translating these Indonesian sources into English to make them available to an international audience, we too are acknowledging the dominance of English across so many fields of knowledge in the modern world.

Keith Foulcher is an honorary associate of the Department of Indonesian Studies at the University of Sydney.
Brian Russell Roberts is an associate professor in the Department of English at Brigham Young University, Utah, USA.

1955-2015 - 60+ years on . . . .

What are the Bandung Conference legacies?

To mark the 50th anniversary of The Summit, Heads of State and Government of Asian-African countries attended a new Asian-African Summit from 20–24 April 2005 in Bandung and Jakarta. Some sessions of the new conference took place in Gedung Merdeka (Independence Building), the venue of the original conference. Of the 106 nations invited to the historic summit, 89 were represented by their heads of state or government or ministers. The Summit was attended by 54 Asian and 52 African countries.

Amitav Acharya, Professor of International Relations at American University, Washington, D.C. where he holds the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance at the School of International Service, wrote an opinion piece for the Financial Times during this anniversary meeting. The FT advocates free markets and is in favour of globalisation, as well as globalist policies.

The article is titled Lessons of Bandung, then and now (Amitav Acharya April 21, 2005) and begins:

As Indonesia hosts a summit of Asian and African leaders to mark the 50th anniversary of the historic 1955 Bandung Conference, it is worth recalling how worried the western world was when Sukarno, the Indonesian president, hailed the summit as "the first intercontinental conference of coloured peoples in the history of mankind".

These western world worries he points to included fears held by the U.S. Eisenhower administration that;

the conference would "enhance communist prestige in the area and weaken that of the west". In London, the British worried that the "mischievous" conference could stir up "problems affecting national sovereignty, racialism, and colonialism". 

He then sets out some of the actions in response of the U.S. and the U.K:

With the support of Washington, Britain carried out a widespread diplomatic campaign to prevent the emergence of an Afro-Asian bloc, and "to cause maximum embarrassment" to communist China. British "guidance" documents, covering such topics as "communist colonialism" and religious freedom in the communist world, were passed to friendly governments attending Bandung, including Ceylon, Thailand, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran.

This was, in his opinion, evidence of; "the west's excessive level of neurosis about anti-western sentiment in what was then labelled the third world."

Today, however, the situation appears to be very different: The widespread mistrust of foreign capital and demands for economic self-reliance that characterised Bandung 1955 have given way to greater receptivity to globalisation. At tomorrow's summit, neither colonialism nor communism will be big issues.

But there were tensions, including the growing Sino-Japanese tensions, but also with the west;

especially in a climate marked by rising anti-Americanism in Asia. The Bush administration's slogan, "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists", has eerie parallels with Dulles' cold war slogan: "Those who are not with us are against us".

The demise of the Non-Aligned Movement by 2005, that attempted winning converts to the group of the so-called "neutrals", was an important objective of western guidance at Bandung.

In 1955, Nehru faced resistance in advocating the engagement of China by the west and its Asian allies. Few in Asia today would deny that engaging China is likely to yield more benefits in the long-term than isolating and containing it. But today's sole superpower, the US, is worried that a rising China would threaten its global and regional pre-eminence. Can the west, however, afford to isolate and contain China in the way it attempted in 1955? At Bandung 1955, such tactics backfired; instead of causing "maximum embarrassment", a British Foreign Office assessment noted, the conference engendered "greater respect and sympathy with communist China".

The NAASP "Declaration"


The 2005 Asian African Summit resulted in the Declaration of the New Asian–African Strategic Partnership (NAASP), the Joint Ministerial Statement on the NAASP Plan of Action, and the Joint Asian African Leaders’ Statement on Tsunami, Earthquake and other Natural Disasters. The conclusion of aforementioned declaration of NAASP is the Nawasila (nine principles) supporting political, economic, and socio-cultural cooperation.

Another 10+ years on . . .

On the 60th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference and the 10th anniversary of the NAASP, a 3rd summit was held in Bandung and Jakarta from 21–25 April 2015, with the theme Strengthening South-South Cooperation to Promote World Peace and Prosperity. Delegates from 109 Asian and African countries, 16 observer countries and 25 international organizations participated.

So, what happened?  

China?

This was the report from the China Daily

"President Xi joins Asian, African leaders in Bandung commemorative walk"

President Xi Jinping (2nd L) his wife Peng Liyuan (L) walk with Indonesian President Joko Widodo (2nd R) and his wife Iriana (R) as they lead the re-enactment of the historic walk from 1955 along Asia Africa Street in Bandung, West Java, at the conclusion of the Asian-African Summit, April 24, 2015.

BANDUNG, Indonesia - Chinese President Xi Jinping and other Asian and African leaders participated here Friday morning in a series of events to commemorate the historic 1955 Bandung Conference.

The 60th-anniversary commemoration of that landmark bicontinental gathering opened with a repeat of the "historical walk," with the leaders strolling from Savoy Homann Hotel to Gedung Merdeka, or the Independence Building.

Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, walked alongside their Indonesian counterparts in the front of the array, which marched forward to the cheers of the crowds that had gathered on both sides of the avenue.

The first Asian-African Conference took place in Bandung on April 18-24,1955, and was attended by representatives from 29 Asian and African countries and territories.

At the 1955 gathering, the leaders crafted a new ethos to govern international relations known as the Bandung Spirit and embodied by the Ten Principles of Bandung.

Over the past 60 years, the Bandung Principles, centered on peaceful coexistence, have been embraced by more and more countries. And today the Bandung Spirit of solidarity, friendship and cooperation remains relevant and potent in world affairs.

By following the footsteps of their predecessors, the leaders demonstrated their determination to remember and carry forward the time-honored guiding norms.

After the walk, the participants entered the Independence Building, where they reviewed the Ten Principles of Bandung and watched a commemorative video and an Indonesian art performance.

At the formal commemorative conference, Xi, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Swaziland King Mswati III signed into effect the Bandung Message, a set of 41 items adopted Thursday at the conclusion of an Asian-African summit in Jakarta and already signed by other leaders.

Widodo, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Myanmar President U Thein Sein, Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab and Venezuelan Vice President Jorge Arreaza addressed the commemoration, respectively.

Noting that the international order is still fraught with injustice and imbalance, they agreed that it is of realistic significance for the Asian and African leaders to gather in Bandung to reemphasize the Bandung Spirit and their commitment to common development and prosperity.

Besides the Bandung Message, two other documents were also adopted at the just-concluded Jakarta conference, namely the Declaration on Reinvigorating the New Asian African Strategic Partnership and the Declaration on Palestine.

The summit, themed "Strengthening South-South Cooperation to Promote World Peace and Prosperity," drew together leaders and representatives from some 100 Asian and African nations and international organizations.

Spin?

Belt and Road
A 21st century "silk road", made up of a “belt” of overland corridors and a maritime “road” of shipping lanes.

Beijing’s multibillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been called a Chinese Marshall Plan, a state-backed campaign for global dominance, a stimulus package for a slowing economy, and a massive marketing campaign for something that has already been happening – Chinese investment around the world.

Since President Xi Jinping announced his grand plan to connect Asia, Africa and Europe, the initiative has morphed into a broad catchphrase to describe almost all aspects of Chinese engagement abroad.

From South-east Asia to Eastern Europe and Africa, Belt and Road includes 71 countries that account for half the world’s population and a quarter of global GDP.

Everything from a Trump-affiliated theme park in Indonesia to a jazz camp in Chongqing have been branded Belt and Road. Countries from Panama to Madagascar, South Africa to New Zealand, have officially pledged support.

What is the China Daily?

The China Daily (Chinese: 中国日报) is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China and published in the People's Republic of China. It is an important organ in China's propaganda system, and its inner operations are highly secretive.

In 2015 it was China and the so-called "Belt and Road" plan that contextualises the Bandung legacy.

This was the view of the "Voice of America" . . .

"In Bandung, Leaders Slam Imperialist West" 

By Brian Padden
April 24, 2015

JAKARTA - At the 60th anniversary of the Asian African Conference in Indonesia, leaders strongly defended principles of self-determination against modern day imperialism but barely mentioned democracy and human rights. The conference marks the anniversary of the gathering in Bandung, Indonesia, that first brought together leaders from many newly independent nations to discuss collective peace, security and economic issues.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo walked side by side with Chinese President Xi Jinping down Bandung’s main street Friday. The leaders of Swaziland, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Zimbabwe also joined in the ceremonial procession to commemorate the 1955 Asian African Conference that gave a united voice to many countries that had recently gained independence from Western colonial powers.

Also in the front of the procession was former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, head of President Widodo’s political party and daughter of the late President Sukarno, who organized the 1955 conference.

Bandung principles

At a ceremony at the Merdeka Building museum, where the first conference took place, President Widodo called on leaders from developing nations to renew their commitment to the Bandung principles established 60 years ago.

“Let us reinvigorate our Bandung struggle," he said. "Let’s continue the struggle of our predecessors 60 years ago. We have to increase our tolerance and work towards world peace.”

The 10 Bandung Principles that emerged from that first conference defended a nation’s right of self determination, opposed outside inference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, and promoted human rights and the peaceful reconciliation of disputes.

Leaders from Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Egypt, and Venezuela also spoke. They were selected to represent different regions of the world but they have also all faced international sanctions for repressing democratic opposition and other dissenting voices in their own countries.

Mugabe lashes out at US, Western countries

Robert Mugabe, the 91-year-old President of Zimbabwe lashed out at the U.S. and Western countries that he says still violate the sovereignty of many nations, through force and financial sanctions.

“Many among us here present can attest to the incessant assaults on our countries sovereignty and on our national economies by the godfathers of the regime change agenda,” he said.

Both the United States and the European Union this year renewed sanctions against top leaders of Zimbabwe’s government. Sanctions were imposed in 2002 over electoral fraud and human rights abuses.

Combating neo-colonialism

Jorge Arreaza, the Vice President of Venezuela, which this year faced new U.S. sanctions over human rights violations and its treatment of the political opposition, said U.S. imperialism must be opposed.

He says today the challenge is aligning the disenfranchised in facing injustice, in fighting the disrespect of sovereignty and in combating neo-colonialism.

Other leaders addressed the major themes of the conference. Egypt's Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab spoke out in favor of Palestinian independence.

Myanmar’s President Thein Sein focused on economic development through increased cooperation.

More "spin"?

This report echoes, and emphasizes, the U.S. attitude in 1955 towards the challenge of a potential neutral bloc of non-aligned nations across Asia and Africa, whilst the Cold War raged between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. If the 1955 Conference could, at the time, be represented as being "mischievous", Venezuela and Zimbabwe, in the "here and now", are effectively used to represent the political, democratic and economic "failure" of such alternatives to the actually existing globalised system of capitalism, and coupled with the self interest of the United States. 

Useful facts, instead of "alternative facts"!

What is the Voice of America?

Voice of America (VOA) is a U.S. government-funded state owned multimedia agency which serves as the United States federal government's official institution for non-military, external broadcasting. It is the largest U.S. international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content in more than 40 languages which it distributes to affiliate stations around the globe. It is primarily viewed by foreign audiences, so VOA programming has an influence on public opinion abroad regarding the United States and its leaders.

VOA was established in 1942. Direct programming began a week after the United States’ entry into World War II in December 1941, with the first broadcast from the San Francisco office of the FIS via a leased General Electric’s transmitter to the Philippines in English (other languages followed).

The next step was to broadcast to Germany, which was called Stimmen aus Amerika ("Voices from America") and was transmitted on February 1, 1942.

It was introduced by "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"  and included the pledge: 

"Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth."

The VOA charter was signed into law in 1976 by President Gerald Ford. The charter contains its mission; "to broadcast accurate, balanced, and comprehensive news and information to an international audience", and it defines the legally mandated standards in the VOA journalistic code.

Some commentators consider Voice of America to be a form of propaganda. However, VOA's Best Practices Guide states that:

"The accuracy, quality and credibility of the Voice of America are its most important assets, and they rest on the audiences’ perception of VOA as an objective and reliable source of U.S., regional and world news and information."

Surveys show that 84% of VOA's audiences say they trust VOA to provide accurate and reliable information, and a similar percentage (84%) say that VOA helps them understand current events relevant to their lives.

Divide and Rule!

Samir Amin, someone of significance in shaping the methods and approach of this artwork (See > Eurocentrism), mentions the Bandung Conference in an article Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism (Dec 01, 2007), and draws our attention to United States Foreign Policy "interference" with emerging modern sovereign states in Asia and Africa, and against the 10 Bandung Principles that emerged from the 1955 conference that were focused on defending a nation’s right of self determination, and opposing outside inference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, and promoting human rights and the peaceful reconciliation of disputes. In discussing Political Islam in the context of maintaining neo-imperialist and neo-colonialist "world order", he identifies a process that was to some extent necessarily instigated as a response to the Bandung Conference. He says of United States policy actions:

Samir Amin, someone of significance in shaping the methods and approach of this artwork (See > Eurocentrism), mentions the Bandung Conference in an article Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism (Dec 01, 2007), and draws our attention to United States Foreign Policy "interference" with emerging modern sovereign states in Asia and Africa, and against the 10 Bandung Principles that emerged from the 1955 conference that were focused on defending a nation’s right of self determination, and opposing outside inference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, and promoting human rights and the peaceful reconciliation of disputes. In discussing Political Islam in the context of maintaining neo-imperialist and neo-colonialist "world order", he identifies a process that was to some extent necessarily instigated as a response to the Bandung Conference. He says of United States policy actions:

It is, thus, easy to understand the initiative taken by the United States to break the united front of Asian and African states set up at Bandung (1955) by creating an “Islamic Conference,” immediately promoted (from 1957) by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Political Islam penetrated into the region by this means.

He says this having identified how:

Political Islam would have had much more difficulty in moving out from the borders of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan without the continual, powerful, and resolute support of the United States. Saudi Arabian society had not even begun its move out of tradition when petroleum was discovered under its soil. The alliance between imperialism and the traditional ruling class, sealed immediately, was concluded between the two partners and gave a new lease on life to Wahabi political Islam. On their side, the British succeeded in breaking Indian unity by persuading the Muslim leaders to create their own state, trapped in political Islam at its very birth. It should be noted that the theory by which this curiosity was legitimated—attributed to Mawdudi—had been completely drawn up beforehand by the English Orientalists in His Majesty’s service.

When, following the defeat in 1945 of Germany in World War II, the economic re-construction of Europe required the United States to reconsider its policy of reducing the industrial capacity of the German economy by turning it into a non-industrial pastoral state, because this policy was unsustainable on many counts.

In March 1947, former US President Herbert Hoover, in one of his reports from Germany, argued for a change in US occupation policy, among other things stating:

There is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a 'pastoral state' (Morgenthau's vision). It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it. 

The Marshall Plan replaced the previous Morgenthau Plan, operating for four years from April 3, 1948. The new goals of the United States policy were to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity, and prevent the spread of Communism. The Marshall Plan required a reduction of interstate barriers, a dropping of many regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures. This policy also provided a set of multi-lateral connections within the western European alliance with the United States, thereby creating a potential for a partnership with a group of European states.

United States policy towards establishing future economic and political relationships in Asia was significantly different. Immediately after World War II the United States was not particularly interested in being involved in East Asia and was concentrating in its role in Europe. The outbreak of the war in Korea changed all that. Japan's economy was to benefit from its role as a highly functional geographic location for the United States as it was to conduct its military operations during and after this conflict. Japan was under Allied Occupation, codenamed Operation Blacklist, when the Korean War began. Occupation lasted until the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed on September 8, 1951, and made effective from April 28, 1952, after which Japan's sovereignty – with the exception, until 1972, of the Ryukyu Islands – was fully restored.

So it was that the U.S. started building its bilateral relations in East Asia with Japan. At the San Francisco Conference in September 1951 the US signed the US-Japan treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. Later on it moved to sign a Mutual Defenses Treaty with the Philippines in August 1951, the US-Republic of Korea Defense treaty with Republic of Korea in October 1953, and the US-Republic of China security treaty with China in December 1954. With these treaties the US was able to construct what is known as the Hub and Spokes System, also known as the San Francisco System, a network of bilateral alliances pursued by the United States in East Asia. 

The United States became the 'hub', and Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Australia became the 'spokes', a system made of political-military and economic commitments between the United States and its Pacific allies. It allowed the United States to develop exclusive postwar relationships with the Republic of Korea (ROK), the Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan), and Japan, and it remains the most dominant security architecture in East Asia up to now.

This hub-and-spokes system, with the United States as the "hub" and no apparent connections between the "spokes" allowed the U.S to exercise effective control over the smaller allies of the East Asia. The legacy of the system is continuing until today. In contrast with the multilateral security architecture of the NATO alliance, it is represented by the absence of multilateral relationships. 

Over the years, East Asian nations began to recognize the value of multilateralism and began forming indigenous multilateral security mechanisms, which the U.S. is not a member of, such as the ASEAN and APEC associations. But, these are merely considered as venues for ‘talks’ about various security issues but having no concrete plans for execution. One of the causes of this phenomena is due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, where some regional states realized the importance of an ‘exit/entry option’ for regional economic stability aside from the U.S. This has been characterized as a challenge to the U.S.-led hub-and-spokes system, as the nations in the region increased their interactions with China, making the bilateral alliances as a hedging option.

China, with its Belt and Road Initiative, seems to be, as a potential rival global power to the United States hegemony, adopting a similar system of China as the hub and the spokes formed with nations across Africa, Asia and west of the Urals into Eastern and Central Europe.

CNBC World

Watch this space!