FROM BANDUNG TO BRICS: Afro-Asian relations in the twenty-first century

This chapter examines four generations of developing solidarity among Third World states comprising the global South, with a greater emphasis on the coalition between global Africa and global Asia, in the twenty-first century. It juxtaposes the Bandung Conference of 1955 against the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. The chapter also recounts the recurrent and changing themes of the Bandung Spirit which, going back to the Korean War in 1953, might even pre-date the Bandung Conference itself. It examines the relationship between Japan, China, and Africa in the wider context of global power transitions before it zooms in on one aspect of China’s policy in Africa: the principle of non-intervention. The chapter analyzes not only what the Bandung Spirit means today but also whether we are entering the era of what may be called the BRICS (the association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Spirit.