Bandung between Civilizational Equality and National Liberation

We remember history through our own national identities, and recollections of Bandung are no exception in that respect. 1 Colonialism’s “illegitimacy” had many meanings for the twenty-nine countries that joined the 1955 conference. Countries like China and Japan in Northeast Asia and ancient kingdoms in Southeast Asia like Thailand sought civilizational equality during the colonial era. China has since recovered territory such as Hong Kong which it sees as having been acquired through unequal colonial era treaties, 2 but elsewhere in Asia and Africa Bandung became a declaration of liberation instead. Today, however, there is a tendency to circumvent the complications of these historical differences when advancing a unitary understanding of Bandung’s Final Communiqué. 3 This essay uses the example of North Borneo and juxtaposes that against well-known Chinese views in returning to a theme I have explored elsewhere. 4 It argues that while some Bandung nations might find it undesirable to reject every incident of their European creation, others might simply treat all of colonialism’s acts as illegitimate.