Bandung Conference 1955: Asia and Africa Meet after Empire

The Bandung Conference, officially the Asian-African Conference, was held in Bandung, Indonesia, from 18 to 24 April 1955. Leaders and delegates from 29 Asian and African countries, most of them recently freed from colonial rule, met for the first time without the Western powers to discuss colonialism, peace and cooperation. The conference became a symbol of the rise of the post-colonial world and an early milestone on the road to the Non-Aligned Movement.

Background

In the decade after the Second World War, many Asian countries won independence, including India and Pakistan in 1947, Burma and Ceylon in 1948, and Indonesia, recognised by the Netherlands in 1949 after a long struggle (see Indonesian National Revolution and Indian Independence). Most of Africa was still under colonial rule, and wars of independence were under way in Indochina, Kenya and Algeria.

At the same time, the Cold War was dividing the world into blocs. Many new states feared being drawn into conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union, particularly after the Korean War and the creation of Western-led alliances such as SEATO in 1954.

In April 1954 the prime ministers of Burma, Ceylon, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, known as the Colombo Powers, met in Colombo. At a second meeting in Bogor, Indonesia, in December 1954, they agreed on Indonesia’s proposal to hold a wider Asian-African conference.

The participants

Twenty-nine countries attended, representing about 1.5 billion people, more than half of humanity at the time. They were Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and Yemen.

The group was politically diverse. It included communist China and North Vietnam, neutral states such as India, Burma and Indonesia, and governments allied to the West such as Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey and Japan. Israel, South Africa, the two Koreas and Taiwan were not invited.

Before the conference, an Air India airliner chartered for the Chinese delegation, the Kashmir Princess, exploded over the sea on 11 April 1955, killing most of those on board. Zhou Enlai had changed his travel plans and was not on the flight.

The conference

The meetings took place in the Gedung Merdeka (Freedom Building), a former Dutch colonial club renamed for the occasion. President Sukarno opened the conference on 18 April with a speech describing it as the first intercontinental conference of coloured peoples, and calling for unity against colonialism in all its forms.

Leading figures included Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Zhou Enlai of China, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, U Nu of Burma, Mohammad Ali Bogra of Pakistan, Sir John Kotelawala of Ceylon, Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia and Carlos P. Romulo of the Philippines. Indonesia’s prime minister, Ali Sastroamidjojo, presided over the sessions.

Debates were sometimes sharp. Kotelawala argued that Soviet control of Eastern Europe was also a form of colonialism, which led to heated exchanges with supporters of neutrality. Zhou Enlai took a conciliatory line, promoting the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence agreed by China and India in 1954, and offered to negotiate with the United States over tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

The final communiqué

On 24 April the conference adopted a final communiqué covering economic cooperation, cultural exchange, human rights and self-determination, the problems of dependent peoples and the promotion of world peace. It declared that colonialism in all its manifestations was an evil that should speedily be brought to an end, and supported independence for Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

The communiqué closed with ten principles, often called the Dasasila Bandung. They included respect for fundamental human rights and the UN Charter, respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations, recognition of the equality of all races and nations, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, refraining from aggression and settling disputes by peaceful means.

Observers and reactions

The conference attracted wide international attention, and several hundred journalists from around the world travelled to Bandung to cover it. The African American novelist Richard Wright reported on it in The Color Curtain (1956), and Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. attended as an observer. The United States, wary that the event would favour China, did not send a delegation but encouraged friendly governments to defend Western positions.

Limits and disagreements

Bandung’s image as a show of Third World unity hides real divisions. Delegates disagreed over whether military pacts with the great powers were legitimate: Pakistan, Turkey and others defended their membership of Western alliances, while Nehru argued that such pacts reduced new nations to camp followers. Arab delegations secured a resolution supporting the rights of Palestinian Arabs, and the conference also endorsed Indonesia’s claim to West New Guinea, issues on which there was no unanimity beyond the hall.

Decisions were taken by consensus rather than voting, which made agreement possible but kept the texts general. The conference set up no secretariat and no follow-up mechanism. A planned second Asian-African conference, scheduled for Algiers in 1965, was cancelled after a coup in Algeria and disputes between China, India and the Soviet Union over who should attend.

Women were almost absent from the official delegations, and most African peoples were still unrepresented because their countries remained colonies. Only six African states took part, a reminder of how much of the continent was still under European rule in 1955.

Key people

• Sukarno (1901–1970), Indonesia’s first president and host, who opened the conference.
• Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), Indian prime minister and leading voice for non-alignment.
• Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), Chinese premier and foreign minister, whose moderation won China new contacts.
• Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970), Egyptian leader whose prestige in the Arab and African world grew at Bandung.
• Ali Sastroamidjojo (1903–1976), Indonesian prime minister who chaired the sessions.

Legacy

Bandung did not create a formal organisation, and the unity it showed soon frayed, notably in the Sino-Indian War of 1962. Yet its “Bandung spirit” strongly influenced the Non-Aligned Movement, founded in Belgrade in September 1961 by Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno and Kwame Nkrumah, and later the Group of 77 at the United Nations.

The conference encouraged anti-colonial movements in Africa, where Ghana’s independence in 1957 opened a wave of decolonisation. Indonesia hosted anniversary summits in 2005 and 2015, and the Gedung Merdeka now houses a museum of the conference. In the city itself, the main street outside the building was renamed Jalan Asia Afrika, and the flags of the participating nations still line it during anniversaries. Historians continue to debate whether Bandung marked a genuine turning point or mainly a powerful symbol, but few doubt its importance in giving the newly independent states a collective voice.

Timeline

• 1954, 28 April – 2 May: The Colombo Powers meet in Ceylon.
• 1954, 28–29 December: The Bogor meeting agrees to hold an Asian-African conference.
• 1955, 11 April: The Kashmir Princess airliner is destroyed by a bomb.
• 1955, 18 April: Sukarno opens the conference in Bandung.
• 1955, 24 April: The final communiqué and the ten principles are adopted.
• 1961, 1–6 September: The Non-Aligned Movement is founded in Belgrade.
• 2015, April: Leaders mark the 60th anniversary in Jakarta and Bandung.

Why it matters

Bandung was the first major gathering of Asian and African states acting on their own terms. It announced the arrival of the post-colonial world as a force in international politics and helped shape the ideas of non-alignment and South–South cooperation that remain influential today.