Across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, there is a tendency for states to increasingly reject the muscular transactionalism of great powers. Many in the Global South tend to hedge rather than align, resist rather than submit, diversify markets, reroute finance, and preserve their strategic options. Power today is seen not simply as the capacity to dominate, but as the capacity to try to choose—and to revise those choices without forfeiting autonomy. The task is complex and challenging yet widely viewed as worthwhile. The modern political relationship between Africa and Asia — or Afrasia (Mazrui and Adem 2013) — is conventionally traced to the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Co-sponsored by Burma, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, Bandung brought together nearly two dozen Asian and African countries at a moment when much of Africa remained under colonial rule. Six African states — Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, and Liberia — were represented, symbolizing Africa’s emerging political agency and its determination to engage Asia as an equal partner in shaping a postcolonial international order. Never before had Asia and Africa met in this way on the same stage.
Bandung was not merely a diplomatic gathering but a foundational moment in the articulation of a shared political imagination. Emerging from common experiences of colonial domination and marginalization in the Eurocentric hierarchies of power, it marked the first collective political assertion by non-white peoples on the world stage. Bandung articulated what later came to be known as the Bandung Spirit, which was grounded in anti-imperialism, sovereign equality, and the principle of nonalignment (Weber and Winanti 2018).
The continuing relevance and enduring legacies of Bandung and nonalignment in contemporary times become clearer when viewed through four paradoxes that emerged from the Afrasian experience (Adem 2023: 5-6). The space–time paradox—shorter but more comprehensive colonial rule in Africa versus longer but more selective colonization in Asia—helps explain divergent postcolonial trajectories. The time–change paradox—Asia’s relative cultural resilience despite prolonged colonial domination—challenges linear assumptions about Westernization and modernity. The culture–economy paradox—Africa’s cultural Westernization without commensurate economic transformation, contrasted with Asia’s economic modernization without deep cultural Westernization—raises fundamental questions about autonomy and development. Finally, the paradox of divisive peace and prosperity reveals that Afrasian solidarity was strongest under conditions of shared struggle and weakest during periods of relative success, suggesting that nonalignment functioned more effectively as a strategy of resistance.
At its core, the Bandung Spirit rested on a set of overlapping solidarities that shaped relations within the Global South in the decades that followed. These included pigmentational solidarity, arising from shared experiences of European racial prejudice; cultural solidarity, a reaction to common exposure to Eurocentric civilizational prejudice; anti-imperial solidarity, based on direct or indirect experiences of colonial domination; and the solidarity of nonalignment, expressed through collective efforts to avoid subordination within Cold War bipolarity by rejecting the notion of automatic alignment with either camp.
However, nonalignment was also an attempt by countries in the Global South to reclaim autonomy in a world structured by imperial legacies and superpower rivalry (see Abraham 2008: 195-219). Participation in Bandung was defined less by a uniform colonial experience than by a shared condition of being non-white within a racially stratified international order. While many participants were from former colonies, others were not. Over time, the basis of solidarity expanded from affinity by color to affinity based on economic underprivilege. With the extension of Bandung’s ethos beyond Asia and Africa, the broader concept of the Third World emerged. In this sense, Bandung anticipated later South–South cooperation frameworks and remains a reference point for contemporary efforts to diversify global partnerships without reproducing new forms of dependency.
But Asia’s postcolonial industrialization further complicates Bandung’s legacy. Japan’s early transformation, followed by the second wave led by the East Asian tigers in the 1970s and 1980s, initially appeared to vindicate Bandung’s vision of autonomous development. Africa’s weaker performance, however, exposed the uneven capacity of postcolonial states to translate political independence into economic sovereignty. Asia’s third wave of industrialization, led by China, presents an even more ambiguous moment. Afrasian solidarity today appears weaker than during earlier phases —not because Bandung’s principles have been exhausted, but because the historical conditions that once gave them urgency — colonial domination and Cold War bipolarity — have receded. This is a part of what is called above, the paradox of divisive peace and prosperity.
Contemporary debates (for example, see Adem and Thomas 2018: 153-166; Dale and Bhattacharya 2023; Shanmugaratnam 2025; Duncan McFarland 2025) ask whether BRICS+ is a potential successor of Bandung. The suggestion is tempting — and partially justified — but it is also misleading. Like the Bandung Conference of 1955, BRICS+ emerges from dissatisfaction with a global order, or aspects of it (Wong 2026). Both Bandung and BRICS+ speak the language of protest, although the orientation of the protest ranges widely, from restoration and transformation to corrective measures. Both Bandung and BRICS reflect the aspirations of societies that entered the international system not as its architects.
In another sense, Bandung was also more than a protest. It was a moral project. It articulated a shared civilizational critique of empire and hierarchy, grounded in anti-imperialism, nonalignment, and the ethical rejection of domination in all its forms. Bandung possessed a normative coherence that allowed diversity to coexist with purpose since what brought them together was deemed more important. BRICS+, by contrast, is a coalition without a creed. It aggregates power, but it does not yet organize meaning. Its members differ sharply — sometimes antagonistically — over governance, security alignments, and development pathways. These divergences limit its capacity to function as the moral or institutional nucleus of a new world order.
BRICS+ thus resembles not the Bandung moment itself, but the historical condition that followed it: a world in transition, unsettled but not yet reconstituted. It is a sign of erosion of a system rather than a blueprint for its replacement. The global order is loosening. But it has not yet been fully reimagined. Under the circumstances, Western anxiety about the fate of the so-called “rules-based international order”, as concisely summed up last month by Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada in Davos, Switzerland, is understandable, as the system is indeed under strain. Ironically, however, its most significant undermining has come from its principal architect, the United States. From its 2003 invasion of Iraq to its intervention in Venezuela this year, repeated unilateral departures from multilateral commitments by the U.S. have weakened the very norms it had claimed to defend.
At a deeper level, however, this pattern reflects not individual leadership failures but the structural dynamics of unipolarity. This fact was noted by, among others, Ali Mazrui (1991), who had put forward a structuralist explanation for it: “The United States and the Soviet Union check-mated each other on some issues on the world scene and in the United Nations. Now, a world with only one superpower may be a global system without adequate checks and balances.” Almost two decades after Mazrui, the prominent structural realist Kenneth Waltz (2009: 31) also echoed the same notion in a strikingly similar language: “…An international system in which another state or combination of states is unable to balance the might of the most powerful is like a political system without checks and balances.” In short, the concentration of economic and military power in a single pole encourages hegemonic irresponsibility. In this sense, the maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely retains relevance in international relations, too.
The unease of the United States about BRICS+ and multipolarity stems from a recognition that a historic transition is underway in which Europe and the United States are likely to constitute merely two poles among several in a multipolar international system. For the Global South, this transition revives core Bandung dilemmas. Engagement with China and other Asian powers echoes earlier aspirations of the non-aligned for diversification and autonomy, even as it introduces new risks of dependency. The challenge, therefore, is not about aligning with rising powers but about the necessity of what may be called strategic nonalignment—conscripting multiple partners and preserving policy space in an increasingly polarized international system.
In addition, as Ali Mazrui (2000: 279) argued:
Two forms of solidarity are critical for [developing countries] if the global system is to change in favor of the disadvantaged. Organic solidarity concerns South-South linkage designed to increase mutual dependence among [developing countries]. Strategic solidarity concerns cooperation among [developing countries] in their struggle to extract concessions from the industrialized Northern world. Organic solidarity concerns the aspiration to promote greater integration among developing economies. Strategic solidarity aspires to decrease the South’s dependent integration into Northern economies. The focus of organic solidarity is either a North-South divorce, a new marriage settlement, or a new social contract between North and South. The terms of the North-South bond have to be renegotiated.
More specifically, Mazrui (2000: 279) asked, “How can organic and strategic solidarity help ameliorate the [Global South’s] predicament of dependency and its persistent economic vulnerability?” His answer was simple: “[The Global South] has many sources of power, among them producer power, consumer power, and debtor power.” The Bandung Spirit remains relevant not as nostalgia but as a flexible framework for navigating hierarchy, preserving autonomy, and asserting agency in a rapidly changing world.
References
Abraham, Itty. 2018. “From Bandung to NAM: Non-alignment and Indian Foreign Policy.” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 195-219.
Adem, Seifudein. 2023. Africa’s Quest for Modernity: Lessons from Japan and China. Springer.
Adem, Seifudein and Darryl Thomas. 2018. From Bandung to BRICS: Afro-Asian Relations in the 21st Century. In Routledge Handbook of Africa-Asia Relations, edited by Pedro Carvalho, David Arase and Scarlett Cornellisen. London and New York: Routledge.
Bello, Walden. 2025. “The Long March from Bandung to the BRICS.” Focus on the Global South. https://focusweb.org/the-long-march-from-bandung-to-the-brics
Dale, Gareth and Tithi Bhattacharya. 2023. “Are the BRICS the new ‘Bandung’?” Brunel University of London. https://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/articles/Are-the-BRICS-the-new
Dinkel, Jürgen. 2018. The Non-Aligned Movement: Genesis, Organization and Politics (1927-1992). Trans. by Alex Skinner. Brill.
Mazrui, Ali A. 1991. The World with One Superpower: Is It a More Dangerous Place? Paper Prepared for the 16th Sir Winston Scott Memorial Lecture. Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, New York.
Mazrui, Ali A. 2000. Technological Underdevelopment in the South: The Continuing Cold War. In Principled World Politics: The Challenges of Normative International Relations, edited by Paul Wapner and Lester Edwin J. Ruiz. Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 275-283.
Mazrui, Ali A. and Seifudein Adem. 2013. Afrasia: A Tale of Two Continents. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. McFarland, Duncan. 2025.
“’Heir to the Non-Aligned Movement’: BRICS Presents Alternative to U.S. Hegemony.” 11 July 2025. https://peoplesworld.org/article/heir-to-the-non-aligned-movement-brics-presents-alternative-to-u-s-hegemony/
Shanmugaratnam, Yohan. 2025. “Vent litt – systemet oppdateres.” Klassekampen, January 23, 2025. https://klassekampen.no/artikkel/2025-01-24/vent-litt-systemet-oppdateres
Waltz, Kenneth. 2009. The United States: Alone in the World. In Imbalance of Power: US Hegemony and International Order, edited by I. William Zartman. Lynne Rienner.
Weber, Heloise and Poppy Winanti. 2016. “The ‘Bandung Spirit’ and Solidarist Internationalism.” Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 70, issue 4, pp. 391-406.
Wong, Brian. 2026. “BRICS Could Become a New Pillar of Global Governance—If Its Rapid Growth Doesn’t Erode Its Newfound Clout.” 31 January 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/01/31/brics-expansion-china-india-tariffs-trump/
Further Reading on E-International Relations
