In the highlands of Central Java, around 90 miles from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, lies the sprawling city of Bandung. Surrounded by the lush Parahyangan Mountains, the city has long been popular as a hilltop resort. In the colonial period, its cool temperatures and picturesque views made it a favourite of Dutch officials hoping to escape the island’s relentless heat. In April 1955, however, the city transformed into a different kind of retreat. At the initiative of Indonesia’s nationalist government, the city played host to a summit of 29 Asian and African states. The summit, explained organisers, was intended to promote cooperation and understanding among formerly colonised peoples. ‘Humanity is standing at the crossroads of history’, claimed Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjojo in 1954: ‘and much of the responsibility for the future of humanity rests upon us, the peoples of Asia and Africa. We must not shirk that responsibility; we must not mortgage the future and we must not endanger that independence.’

To this day, the Asian-African Conference at Bandung remains a potent symbol of postcolonial solidarity. The success of the summit helped to inspire a new generation of international organisations – including the Group of 77 at the UN, which praises the summit as the birthplace of non-alignment and postcolonial solidarity. On the conference’s 50th anniversary in 2005, the Indonesian government welcomed 87 delegations from across the world to celebrate its legacy of tolerance and cooperation. ‘We come here today to remember and honour but also to reaffirm, to rejuvenate’, explained Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. ‘We will pull together the tremendous creative energies of Asia and Africa to solve some of the most persistent problems [we] are facing.’ This emphasis on the unity of the Bandung delegates, however, obscures its most important legacy. In reality, the summit was significant precisely because of its political diversity. Its complexity and ambiguity helped to open a new front in the Cold War: a contest in which Asian and African politicians could play leading roles.

The Bandung Conference originated in the volatile politics of a decolonising world. In Malaya and Kenya, British authority was being shaken by violent anti-government campaigns. In Algeria and Vietnam, meanwhile, the collapse of the French Empire had erupted into bloody civil wars. In April 1954, as Vietnamese soldiers prepared for the final advance at Điện Biên Phủ, five Asian prime ministers met in the coastal city of Colombo. The leaders – representing India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) – had gathered to discuss how to promote peace in Southeast Asia and protect the interests of former colonies. At the suggestion of Ali Sastroamidjojo, they settled on sponsoring a conference to unite the independent governments of Asia and Africa. This kind of postcolonial summit, argued a joint communique of December 1954, had the potential ‘to promote goodwill and cooperation among the nations of Asia and Africa’ – but also to consider ‘problems of special interest’ to the two continents, from national sovereignty to racism and colonial rule.

Over the subsequent months, the Indonesian government worked to transform Bandung into a vibrant diplomatic hub. In the city centre, a colonial officers’ club was transformed into a stylish ‘Freedom Building’. Its white marble walls, topped with a large red curtain, gave the meeting hall the unsubtle appearance of a gigantic Indonesian flag. The conference committee began importing luxury goods for their guests, including 15,000 dinner sets and 100,000 cigarettes, and the city government commandeered some 200 cars from its wealthiest residents. The Indonesian government also took the opportunity to increase its military presence in the mountains around Bandung, which had long been a base for the nation’s Islamist Darul Islam rebels. As the historian Naoko Shimazu notes, the conference hosts also made accommodations for delegates’ diverse customs. Hotels were instructed to serve a selection of Arabian, European and Indian cuisine, and Bandung residents were encouraged to learn English so that they could guide foreign visitors to local sights. Even the dates of the conference were chosen according to the religious requirements of its participants, filling the short gap between the end of the Burmese Buddhist festival of Thingyan and the start of Ramadan.

The 29 delegations also encompassed a wide range of political positions. Some, like India and Ceylon, had adopted a neutral stance in the Cold War. Pakistan and the Philippines, by contrast, were military allies of the West through the Baghdad and Manila Pacts. On the other end of the scale, the People’s Republic of China and North Vietnam, both maintained close ties to the Soviet Union. Alongside these political rivalries, the Indonesian government also welcomed delegates from two colonial territories – the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Sudan – on the grounds that they had devolved governments and were soon to achieve political independence. Together, as one press release announced with pride, the assembled delegates represented a total of 1.4 billion people – some 51 per cent of the global population. At the same time, the political diversity of the participants also divided the conference into three unofficial factions – a left, a right and a centre – with distinctly different ideas about the future of the postcolonial world.

The delegation from China was particularly sensitive to these political divides. In the wake of the Chinese Civil War, the People’s Republic had no representation at the United Nations and few diplomatic relations. Led by Premier Zhou Enlai – a veteran of the Long March and confidant of Chairman Mao – the assembled delegates approached the Bandung Conference as a means of ending their own political isolation. To do so, however, they knew they would have to dispel the anxieties of anti-communist leaders and present China as a ‘good neighbour’ to the postcolonial world. China’s resistance to imperialism in the Second World War was an important talking point, and its cultural diversity was another. Aware that Muslim states were well-represented at Bandung, Zhou’s delegation even included two Muslim politicians: the Tatar socialist Burhan Shahidi and a prominent imam. Ultimately, however, these initiatives were not enough to remove the stigma of China’s participation in the Cold War. On 11 April 1955, agents of the Republic of China successfully planted a bomb on one of the two flights transporting the delegation to Indonesia. Zhou arrived in Bandung unharmed – but the other aeroplane exploded over the South China Sea, killing 16 of its 19 passengers.

As the Asian-African Conference opened its doors on 18 April, the tensions between its delegations became yet more apparent. Some delegates used their opening addresses to praise the centrist principles of pacifism and non-alignment. ‘We can earn no greater distinction than to seek and work for a true world peace’, proclaimed Egyptian prime minister Gamal Abdel Nasser. ‘The game of power politics, in which the small nations can be used as tools, must be stopped if the existing international tension is to come to an end.’ Others, on the right, took the opportunity to defend very different ideals. The Turkish delegation’s opening address justified their alliances with Britain and the United States as a means of collective defence. In recent years, the delegate pointed out, Turkey had faced ‘ambitions directed against its independence and sovereignty’ led by ‘a neighbouring country’ – a thinly-veiled reference to the Soviet Union’s attempts to control the Turkish straits. The Libyan delegation struck a similar tone, denouncing ‘external ideological interference’ without mentioning communism directly. By the time the conference split into committees on 20 April, the battle lines between communists, anti-communists and the non-aligned were clearly drawn. When sorting the delegates into working groups, each was balanced carefully to ensure that members of each faction were fairly represented.

At the Political Committee on 21 April, these tensions reached breaking point. After a discussion on French imperialism in North Africa, the Ceylonese Prime Minister John Kotelawala delivered a provocative speech on the dangers of foreign rule. ‘All of here, I take it, are against colonialism’, he began, ‘but let us be equally unanimous and positive in declaring to the world that we are unanimous in our opposition to all forms of colonialism. Colonialism takes many forms. Think, for example, of those satellite states under Communist domination in Central and Eastern Europe […] If we are united in our opposition to colonialism, should it not be our duty to declare our opposition to Soviet colonialism as much as to Western imperialism?’ Addressing Zhou Enlai, he went on to argue that the communist doctrine of peaceful coexistence failed to acknowledge Soviet support for activists across the world. ‘Coexistence’, he suggested, ‘means to live and let live. I cannot for the life of me understand why we should be expected only to let live, while we ignore the threats to our own life and institutions.’

As Kotelawala finished his speech, the other delegates sat in stunned silence. Kotelawala was hardly a member of the Bandung right – he was best known as a pacifist and the head of a non-aligned country. The Colombo Conference of 1954 had been his idea, and he had used his opening address at Bandung to support nuclear disarmament. In private, Kotelawala’s diplomatic position was more complicated. Concerned about foreign influence in Ceylon, he was a staunch anti-socialist and maintained a close relationship with the United Kingdom. By framing his argument around the ‘Bandung principles’ of anti-colonialism and national sovereignty, however, he had successfully presented anti-communism in a manner that was acceptable to most conference attendees.

Seizing his opportunity, the Philippine diplomat Carlos Romulo rose to defend the idea of collective security. Non-alignment was a reasonable policy for large states like India, he argued, but smaller nations relied on international alliances for their own protection. The Turkish and Libyan delegations, among others, began drafting a resolution to condemn communism as ‘the new colonialism’. Zhou rose from his seat, announced that he was preparing his own response, and rapidly left the building.

Faced with deadlock in the committees, some delegates found other opportunities to do meaningful political work. To Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Bandung Conference was a valuable opportunity for publicity. In preparation for the conference, the Indonesian government had furnished Bandung with 21 morse frequencies and five new telephone lines to facilitate global news coverage. Conference organisers also encouraged delegates to take ‘freedom walks’ around the city so that they could pose for photographs with local residents and some 655 visiting journalists. Nasser made the most of each of these opportunities. With his winning smile and smart military dress, his walks around Bandung quickly turned into media events. Radio Cairo, meanwhile, provided its audiences with targeted coverage of the conference proceedings. As the Arabic service suggested that delegates could learn from the successes of Arab nationalism, its Swahili counterpart focused on Nasser’s resolution denouncing Britain’s ‘cruel methods’ across East Africa.

Outside the meeting rooms, attendees also found opportunities for informal diplomacy. Bandung quickly became a hub of drinks, dinners and discussions that put delegates into contact with activists from around the world. This provided a valuable platform for a number of unofficial delegations. From the outset, for example, the Bandung sponsors had agreed to exclude the South African government as a protest against apartheid. ‘We are not allowed there’, quipped John Kotelawala. ‘so why should we ask them here?’ In late 1954, however, Moses Kotane of the African National Congress and Yusuf Chachalia of the South African Indian Congress fled Johannesburg in secret to attend the conference in person. In a press conference from Bandung, they denounced South Africa as a ‘police slave state’ and warned that the policy of apartheid should concern the whole world.

Several accounts of the conference also mention Rusi Nasar, an Uzbek American who attended the summit to protest the Soviet occupation of Central Asia. Kotane was highly suspicious of Nasar, speculating that he had been sent by the United States to disrupt the conference. Research by the journalist Ian Johnson suggests that Kotane was probably correct. After the Second World War, Nasar began working for the American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, a CIA front organisation that supported anti-communist groups across Soviet Asia. In theory, the Bandung Conference offered a rich opportunity to attract international support for these communities. In practice, however, the influence of Nasar’s sponsors seems to have been all too clear.

Official delegations also benefitted from this more personal style of diplomacy. At luxurious dinners, points out the historian Gerard McCann, attendees from the Gold Coast were able to talk to postcolonial leaders about the ‘gritty practicality’ of their independence negotiations, gathering advice for their own constitutional debates. Gamal Abdel Nasser talked trade, looking for better value on foreign imports and new markets for Egyptian goods. The unexpected master of this personal diplomacy, however, was Zhou Enlai. By the second day of the conference, Zhou had arranged private meetings with all but three of the 28 other delegations. According to Carlos Romulo, the delegation went as far as to bring a selection of ingredients from China so that they could charm guests with authentic cuisine. Over the course of the conference, he would speak with the Pakistani delegation to understand their membership of military pacts, sign a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia, and even dine with Kotelawala to discuss the prospects for peace in Taiwan. As official talks stalled, Zhou and his entourage gradually built close working relationships across the city.

These efforts would culminate in a remarkable diplomatic coup. On 23 April, two days after Kotelawala’s speech to the Political Committee, Zhou delivered his response. Where the Ceylonese prime minister had spoken passionately, his Chinese counterpart was conciliatory. The Chinese government’s priority, Zhou explained, was to promote ‘mutual respect for sovereignty’ across the postcolonial world. It noted that China knew the dangers of interference by foreign powers all too well, and agreed that all countries should have ‘freedom to decide their [own] political and economic systems’. He accepted that he had been wrong to assume that defensive pacts would be a threat to China. Speaking with the Pakistani delegation, he claimed, ‘led to mutual understanding and allowed us to know that this treaty does not obstruct us [from] reaching agreements for collective peace’. In other words, Zhou had adopted the Bandung vocabulary of pacifism and sovereignty – and he had used it to outmanoeuvre his critics. For six days, anti-communists had been trying to paint the Chinese delegation as uncompromising ideologues. Now, as one attendee explained to Time, they had begun to look like ‘fanatics’ unwilling to cooperate with the wider postcolonial world. Even Kotelawala was forced to concede that Zhou had revealed himself to be a ‘suave diplomat and experienced negotiator’, undeserving of his harsh reputation.

The Final Communiqué of the Asian-African Conference, published the next day, reflected a broad consensus on the issues of cooperation and self-determination. Participants resolved to promote economic development, and enshrined non-interference and ‘respect for sovereignty’ as the basis of their diplomatic relations. They also made a specific reference to the ‘courageous stand’ against racism in South Africa – a testament to Kotane and Chachalia’s informal campaign. At the same time, however, the document also represented a new spirit of compromise. The text supported a peaceful resolution of the Cold War, but defended the right of nations to defend themselves through collective treaties. At Zhou’s suggestion, the term ‘peaceful coexistence’ was changed to ‘live together in peace’, a phrase borrowed from the United Nations Charter. With Nasser’s encouragement, meanwhile, the motion to describe colonialism as ‘new colonialism’, was replaced with condemnation of ‘colonialism in all its manifestations’ – an ambiguous sentiment that allowed each faction to define the key term according to their own interests.

The ambiguity of the Bandung Conference left a powerful impression. At different times, communism and anti-communism had threatened to overwhelm the conference – but neither had succeeded. To international observers, the summit proved that Asia and Africa were not a united front, but a valuable space in which to compete for political influence.

British officials were among the first to recognise this potential. In the days before the conference, as Frank Gerits has demonstrated, the UK’s Ambassador to Indonesia had spoken with John Kotelawala and suggested that he use anti-colonial ideas to undermine the communist position. Reflecting on the conference, observers in the Foreign Office suggested that adopting a similar vocabulary of ‘vital, hopeful, constructive words’ could transform Britain’s global image. They would eventually decide to incorporate ‘Bandung principles’ into their own propaganda, painting the United Kingdom as an ally to new states and a passionate defender of postcolonial sovereignty.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, capitalised on the Bandung moment by establishing an Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee in May 1955, which officials described as a means to soften their international propaganda. Eight months later, notes Vijay Prashad, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union rejected its previous division of the world into two political camps and acknowledged the importance of a ‘zone of peace’ between the two.

Bandung attendees also recognised the summit’s potential to advance their political interests. In June 1955, for example, the Philippine delegate Carlos Romulo gave a series of lectures on the conference’s implications for the United States. The delegates, he explained to the New York Times magazine, had shown ‘a considerable reservoir of goodwill’ towards Washington – but the success of communist diplomacy had also proven there was much more to be done. Drawing on Kotelawala’s rhetoric, Romulo argued that the United States could only improve its standing by opposing colonialism, investing in friendly regimes, and not interfering with sovereign states. ‘The Americans talk big’, he argued, ‘[but] their aid to Asia and Africa comes intermittently and in an amount that is chicken feed. What is worse, it comes with the accompaniment of senatorial lectures on how we must be grateful, and how imperative it is for us to recognise the American way of life. Must Asia and Africa be content with crumbs, and must we be told what a great favour is being conferred on us?’

Others benefitted from the conference’s informal diplomacy. Nasser, for his part, returned to Cairo to glowing reports from the local press. Afro-Asian solidarity became a dominant theme in government publicity, and the government quickly set about planning a second conference that could capitalise on the success of the first. At the same time, Nasser’s conversations with Chinese delegates allowed him to walk away from the conference with a valuable new trade deal and a diplomatic backdoor to the communist world. This would culminate in a $83 million arms deal between Egypt and Czechoslovakia in September 1955 – an important bargaining chip in Nasser’s ongoing campaign for control of the Suez Canal. Zhou, for his part, left the conference pleased with his own initiative. Over the subsequent decade, China drastically expanded its diplomatic activity across Asia and Africa. While these efforts were undermined by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, they quickly became the bedrock of China’s foreign relations. In October 1971, the People’s Republic was finally admitted to the United Nations on the strength of the Asian and African vote.

The Bandung Conference remains a pivotal moment in diplomatic history. Its rhetoric of decolonisation and sovereignty reshaped the language of international relations, encouraging global powers to prove their own support for self-determination. It raised the profile of charismatic nationalist leaders while facilitating informal connections between Asian and African leaders. Ultimately, however, the summit was most significant for its political diversity. The fierce debates between delegates proved that the future of the postcolonial world was not set in stone. This was reinforced by the summit’s ambiguous conclusion, which delegates on all sides could use to advance their own interests. Bandung’s unfinished revolution, in short, attracted global attention to a global competition for political influence – a contest in which statesmen like Zhou, Kotelawala, Nasser and Romulo could each play leading roles.