Seifudein Adem
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Feb 24 2026
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Across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, there’s a tendency for states to more and more reject the muscular transactionalism of nice powers. Many within the Global South are inclined to hedge slightly than align, resist slightly than submit, diversify markets, reroute finance, and protect their strategic choices. Power at this time is seen not merely because the capability to dominate, however because the capability to attempt to chooseand to revise these decisions with out forfeiting autonomy. The activity is complicated and difficult but broadly considered as worthwhile. The trendy 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 introduced collectively practically two dozen Asian and African international locations at a second when a lot of Africa remained beneath colonial rule. Six African states Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, and Liberia have been represented, symbolizing Africas rising political company and its dedication to have interaction Asia as an equal companion in shaping a postcolonial worldwide order. Never earlier than had Asia and Africa met on this means on the identical stage.
Bandung was not merely a diplomatic gathering however a foundational second within the articulation of a shared political creativeness. Emerging from frequent experiences of colonial domination and marginalization within the Eurocentric hierarchies of energy, it marked the primary collective political assertion by non-white peoples on the world stage. Bandung articulated what later got here to be generally known as the Bandung Spirit, which was grounded in anti-imperialism, sovereign equality, and the precept of nonalignment (Weber and Winanti 2018).
The persevering with relevance and enduring legacies of Bandung and nonalignment in up to date occasions change into clearer when considered via 4 paradoxes that emerged from the Afrasian expertise (Adem 2023: 5-6). The spacetime paradoxshorter however extra complete colonial rule in Africa versus longer however extra selective colonization in Asiahelps clarify divergent postcolonial trajectories. The timechange paradoxAsias relative cultural resilience regardless of extended colonial dominationchallenges linear assumptions about Westernization and modernity. The cultureeconomy paradoxAfricas cultural Westernization with out commensurate financial transformation, contrasted with Asias financial modernization with out deep cultural Westernizationraises basic questions on autonomy and improvement. Finally, the paradox of divisive peace and prosperity reveals that Afrasian solidarity was strongest beneath situations of shared battle and weakest in periods of relative success, suggesting that nonalignment functioned extra successfully as a technique of resistance.
At its core, the Bandung Spirit rested on a set of overlapping solidarities that formed relations inside the Global South within the a long time that adopted. These included pigmentational solidarity, arising from shared experiences of European racial prejudice; cultural solidarity, a response to frequent publicity to Eurocentric civilizational prejudice; anti-imperial solidarity, based mostly on direct or oblique experiences of colonial domination; and the solidarity of nonalignment, expressed via collective efforts to keep away from subordination inside Cold War bipolarity by rejecting the notion of computerized alignment with both camp.
However, nonalignment was additionally an try by international locations within 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 outlined much less by a uniform colonial expertise than by a shared situation of being non-white inside a racially stratified worldwide order. While many individuals have been from former colonies, others weren’t. Over time, the premise of solidarity expanded from affinity by shade to affinity based mostly on financial underprivilege. With the extension of Bandungs ethos past Asia and Africa, the broader idea of the Third World emerged.In this sense, Bandung anticipated later SouthSouth cooperation frameworks and stays a reference level for up to date efforts to diversify international partnerships with out reproducing new types of dependency.
But Asias postcolonial industrialization additional complicates Bandungs legacy. Japans early transformation, adopted by the second wave led by the East Asian tigers within the Seventies and Eighties, initially appeared to vindicate Bandungs imaginative and prescient of autonomous improvement. Africas weaker efficiency, nonetheless, uncovered the uneven capability of postcolonial states to translate political independence into financial sovereignty. Asias third wave of industrialization, led by China, presents an much more ambiguous second. Afrasian solidarity at this time seems weaker than throughout earlier phases not as a result of Bandungs ideas have been exhausted, however as a result of the historic situations that after gave them urgency colonial domination and Cold War bipolarity have receded. This is part of what is named above, the paradox of divisive peace and prosperity.
Contemporary debates (for instance, see Adem and Thomas 2018: 153-166; Dale and Bhattacharya 2023; Shanmugaratnam 2025; Duncan McFarland 2025) ask whether or not BRICS+ is a possible successor of Bandung. The suggestion is tempting and partially justified however it’s also deceptive. Like the Bandung Conference of 1955, BRICS+ emerges from dissatisfaction with a world order, or elements of it (Wong 2026). Both Bandung and BRICS+ communicate the language of protest, though the orientation of the protest ranges broadly, from restoration and transformation to corrective measures. Both Bandung and BRICS replicate the aspirations of societies that entered the worldwide system not as its architects.
In one other sense, Bandung was additionally greater than a protest. It was an ethical mission. It articulated a shared civilizational critique of empire and hierarchy, grounded in anti-imperialism, nonalignment, and the moral rejection of domination in all its types. Bandung possessed a normative coherence that allowed range to coexist with objective since what introduced them collectively was deemed extra essential. BRICS+, against this, is a coalition and not using a creed. It aggregates energy, but it surely doesn’t but manage which means. Its members differ sharply generally antagonistically over governance, safety alignments, and improvement pathways. These divergences restrict its capability to perform because the ethical or institutional nucleus of a brand new world order.
BRICS+ thus resembles not the Bandung second itself, however the historic situation that adopted it: a world in transition, unsettled however not but reconstituted. It is an indication of abrasion of a system slightly than a blueprint for its alternative. The international order is loosening. But it has not but been totally reimagined. Under the circumstances, Western anxiousness in regards to the destiny of the so-called rules-based worldwide order, as conciselysummed uplast month by Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada in Davos, Switzerland, is comprehensible, because the system is certainly beneath pressure. Ironically, nonetheless, its most important undermining has come from its principal architect, the United States. From its 2003 invasion of Iraq to its intervention in Venezuela this 12 months, repeated unilateral departures from multilateral commitments by the U.S. have weakened the very norms it had claimed to defend.
At a deeper degree, nonetheless, this sample displays not particular person management failures however the structural dynamics of unipolarity. This truth was famous by, amongst others, Ali Mazrui (1991), who had put ahead a structuralist clarification for it: The United States and the Soviet Union check-mated one another on some points on the world scene and within the United Nations. Now, a world with just one superpower could also be a world system with out ample checks and balances. Almost 20 years after Mazrui, the distinguished structural realist Kenneth Waltz (2009: 31) additionally echoed the identical notion in a strikingly related language: An worldwide system during which one other state or mixture of states is unable to stability the would possibly of essentially the most highly effective is sort of a political system with out checks and balances. In quick, the focus of financial and navy energy in a single pole encourages hegemonic irresponsibility. In this sense, the maxim that absolute energy corrupts completely retains relevance in worldwide relations, too.
The unease of the United States about BRICS+ and multipolarity stems from a recognition that ahistoric transitionis underway during which Europe and the United States are more likely to represent merely two poles amongst a number of in a multipolar worldwide system.For the Global South, this transition revives core Bandung dilemmas. Engagement with China and different Asian powers echoes earlier aspirations of the non-aligned for diversification and autonomy, even because it introduces new dangers of dependency. The problem, subsequently, shouldn’t be about aligning with rising powers however in regards to the necessity of what could also be referred to as strategic nonalignmentconscripting a number of companions and preserving coverage area in an more and more polarized worldwide system.
In addition, as Ali Mazrui (2000: 279) argued:
More particularly, Mazrui (2000: 279) requested, How can natural and strategic solidarity assist ameliorate the [Global Souths] predicament of dependency and its persistent financial vulnerability? His reply was easy: [The Global South] has many sources of energy, amongst them producer energy, shopper energy, and debtor energy.The Bandung Spirit stays related not as nostalgia however as a versatile framework for navigating hierarchy, preserving autonomy, and asserting company in a quickly altering 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. Africas Quest for Modernity: Lessons from Japan and China. Springer.
Adem, Seifudein and Darryl Thomas. 2018. From Bandung to BRICS: Afro-Asian Relations within the 21stCentury. In Routledge Handbook of Africa-Asia Relations, edited by Pedro Carvalho, David Araseand 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 brand new Bandung? Brunel University ofLondon.https://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/articles/Are-the-BRICS-the-new
Dinkel, Jrgen. 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 sixteenth Sir Winston Scott Memorial Lecture. Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, New York.
Mazrui, Ali A. 2000. Technological Underdevelopment within the South: The Continuing Cold War. InPrincipled 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: UniversityPress 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 within the World. In Imbalance of Power: US Hegemony andInternational 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, situation 4, pp. 391-406.
Wong, Brian. 2026. BRICS Could Become a New Pillar of Global GovernanceIf Its Rapid GrowthDoesnt 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
- Opinion Challenges for the Expansion of the BRICS
- Opinion Trumps Tariffs are the Incentive the BRICS Needed
- Opinion The Status of the BRICS, 20 Years Later
- Adding T to BRICS: A NATO Ally in Transition
- Political Conclusions of the 2025 BRICS Summit
- Coming Home to Roost: The Growth of BRICS and the Quest For De-Dollarization
About The Author(s)
Seifudein Ademis a visiting professor on the Institute for Advanced Research and Education at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. He has taught at universities in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa University, 198892), Japan (University of Tsukuba, 200005; Doshisha University, 201823), USA (Binghamton University, 200616), and China (Hong Kong Baptist University, 2017). Adem is Ali Mazruis mental biographer and has printed ten books with, for, or about Mazrui, together with Postcolonial Constructivism: Mazruis Theory of Intercultural Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). From 2006 to 2016, he served as affiliate director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University. More of his work could be foundhere.
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BandungBRICsDiplomacyRegional Cooperation