|
JAKARTA POST, 29 April 2013
“Despite revision of developing
nations’ behavior and strategy, Bandung world’s core concern remain the same,
which is to endorse the world’s justice and peace.”
Fifty-eight years ago, Bandung hosted probably the most
important conference in the developing world. As a summit of leaders who had
suffered the humiliating affects of imperialist repression for centuries, the
Asian-African Conference was full of confrontational rhetoric for equality and
self-determination against colonialism. While the demand for a more egalitarian
world remains relevant today, the developing world’s foreign policies have
shifted from confrontational to more complex strategies.
During the course of the 1955 conference, leaders advocated alternatives to the hegemony of the superpowers. In his opening speech, president Sukarno encouraged Asian-African nations to mobilize political strength on the side of peace, in contrast to the use of force projected by colonial powers toward their colonies.
At the same time, the People’s Republic of China’s premier Zhou Enlai urged Asian-African leaders to promote friendly cooperation among them. Participants of the conference agreed to the final communiqué, namely Dasa Sila Bandung (the Ten Principles of Bandung), that was mainly concerned with advancing closer cooperation among developing nations in an effort to untie their relations with the Western colonial powers.
In the decades that followed, the spirit of “Bandung” inspired third world countries to establish the “alliance of revisionist”. They formed the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) that aimed to reject division of the world according to ideological lines. The developing world also set up the G-77 to promote its members’ collective interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity at the UN.
More significantly, they established the G33, a group to advocate special rules for developing countries at World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, which had been quite critical to developed countries.
The end of the Cold War — which made NAM less relevant — and a series of economic crises in developing nations in the 1990s led the developing world to embrace a more pragmatic stance on global political economy, rather than to stay in the old “North-South confrontation” framework.
Leaders from developing nations do not demand for radical change of the existing “Western-initiated” global governance. In his straightforward comment, Ravi Palat argued it should not come as a surprise because those leaders were the elites who benefited the most from economic globalization.
Most developing nations still believe in the importance of multilateralism, but they are less enthusiastic to establish coalitions. Although in some negotiations — especially those covering climate change and trade — there is intense consultation and communication, their voices are often diverse, thus, resulting in less productive outcomes. This trend of divergence foreign policy apparently can be seen from the behavior of developing countries that had recently gained the self-perceived status as “emerging powers”.
At the G20, which some emerging powers became members, they do not always pursue competition and rivalry toward the US, Europe and Japan. Instead, emerging powers, for the most part, act responsibly as part of international system. There was a brief “currency war” between the US and China during the 5th G20 Summit in Seoul in 2010. However, shortly after the discussion about accusations of currency manipulation to drive growth, the group’s leaders agreed to a “cease-fire” by promising a general “indicative guideline” to prevent trade imbalance.
The prominent emergent powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China founded the BRIC Summit in 2009 (South Africa joined in 2010, and the group was renamed the BRICS) that successfully established some of the technical mechanisms for cooperation.
Nevertheless, to date, it is still hard to imagine that the BRICS could provide a solid alternative for the global system because to BRICS nations narrow national objectives, rather than legally binding commitment, remain the core of cooperation. It can be seen from the last BRICS Summit in Durban where BRICS leaders failed to launch a new development bank, to challenge Western-dominated international development cooperation, because they could not agree on key issues, such as how projects would be distributed.
Referring to the absence of developing nations’ political bloc, should we conclude that the legacy “Bandung Spirit” has gone? No. It is true that developing nations lack coherent foreign policy, but it does not necessarily mean that their role in shaping global order is diminishing.
We must remember that from the beginning of the 1955 Conference, the leaders acknowledged the fact that Third World countries were so diverse that any effort to unify them would have been less possible. Indian prime minister Jawarhalal Nehru, for instance, warned other leaders that cooperation among newly-independent countries would have been threatened by ideology differences.
At the same time, amid the relative decline of US and European economies, the developing world gradually gained a more prominent role on the world stage. Without any structuralized design, “South-South trade” has increased significantly from 41 percent in 1995 to 55 percent in 2010. Rising the economic profile of developing nations to provide them with strategic importance in international relations.
Developing nations are now pursuing more simultaneous elements of foreign policy maneuver, ranging from balancing to bandwagoning, that are intended to leverage their position in interaction with more developed countries. Different from their behavior in previous decades, developing nations are more confident and independent. With economic and political potentials, they do not want to just become proxies of world’s major powers.
These nations expressed their dissatisfaction with their global order —not through hostilely dissociating themselves from the system as idealized by the 1955 leaders — rather; they pursued intense engagement with developed nations and among themselves, with a view to revise the current structure. In this regard, Bandung has a pivotal legacy, which is to prioritize negotiation and peaceful means and to respect justice and international obligation, or more shortly to consistently advocate for a plural world.
Finally, Bandung’s most important legacy is not in the form of integration of developing nations’ foreign policy as many people perceive. It is all about building norms and moral guidance in global governance, which are relevant to all countries in the world, no matter their power and economic status.
More and more contemporary global problems now clearly need to be solved through more constructive, equal and trustful dialogue and cooperation between both developed and developing nations, something that leaders at 1995 Bandung actually dreamed of. Despite the obvious revision of developing nations’ behavior and strategy, Bandung world’s core concern remain the same, which is to endorse the world’s justice and peace. ●
During the course of the 1955 conference, leaders advocated alternatives to the hegemony of the superpowers. In his opening speech, president Sukarno encouraged Asian-African nations to mobilize political strength on the side of peace, in contrast to the use of force projected by colonial powers toward their colonies.
At the same time, the People’s Republic of China’s premier Zhou Enlai urged Asian-African leaders to promote friendly cooperation among them. Participants of the conference agreed to the final communiqué, namely Dasa Sila Bandung (the Ten Principles of Bandung), that was mainly concerned with advancing closer cooperation among developing nations in an effort to untie their relations with the Western colonial powers.
In the decades that followed, the spirit of “Bandung” inspired third world countries to establish the “alliance of revisionist”. They formed the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) that aimed to reject division of the world according to ideological lines. The developing world also set up the G-77 to promote its members’ collective interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity at the UN.
More significantly, they established the G33, a group to advocate special rules for developing countries at World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, which had been quite critical to developed countries.
The end of the Cold War — which made NAM less relevant — and a series of economic crises in developing nations in the 1990s led the developing world to embrace a more pragmatic stance on global political economy, rather than to stay in the old “North-South confrontation” framework.
Leaders from developing nations do not demand for radical change of the existing “Western-initiated” global governance. In his straightforward comment, Ravi Palat argued it should not come as a surprise because those leaders were the elites who benefited the most from economic globalization.
Most developing nations still believe in the importance of multilateralism, but they are less enthusiastic to establish coalitions. Although in some negotiations — especially those covering climate change and trade — there is intense consultation and communication, their voices are often diverse, thus, resulting in less productive outcomes. This trend of divergence foreign policy apparently can be seen from the behavior of developing countries that had recently gained the self-perceived status as “emerging powers”.
At the G20, which some emerging powers became members, they do not always pursue competition and rivalry toward the US, Europe and Japan. Instead, emerging powers, for the most part, act responsibly as part of international system. There was a brief “currency war” between the US and China during the 5th G20 Summit in Seoul in 2010. However, shortly after the discussion about accusations of currency manipulation to drive growth, the group’s leaders agreed to a “cease-fire” by promising a general “indicative guideline” to prevent trade imbalance.
The prominent emergent powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China founded the BRIC Summit in 2009 (South Africa joined in 2010, and the group was renamed the BRICS) that successfully established some of the technical mechanisms for cooperation.
Nevertheless, to date, it is still hard to imagine that the BRICS could provide a solid alternative for the global system because to BRICS nations narrow national objectives, rather than legally binding commitment, remain the core of cooperation. It can be seen from the last BRICS Summit in Durban where BRICS leaders failed to launch a new development bank, to challenge Western-dominated international development cooperation, because they could not agree on key issues, such as how projects would be distributed.
Referring to the absence of developing nations’ political bloc, should we conclude that the legacy “Bandung Spirit” has gone? No. It is true that developing nations lack coherent foreign policy, but it does not necessarily mean that their role in shaping global order is diminishing.
We must remember that from the beginning of the 1955 Conference, the leaders acknowledged the fact that Third World countries were so diverse that any effort to unify them would have been less possible. Indian prime minister Jawarhalal Nehru, for instance, warned other leaders that cooperation among newly-independent countries would have been threatened by ideology differences.
At the same time, amid the relative decline of US and European economies, the developing world gradually gained a more prominent role on the world stage. Without any structuralized design, “South-South trade” has increased significantly from 41 percent in 1995 to 55 percent in 2010. Rising the economic profile of developing nations to provide them with strategic importance in international relations.
Developing nations are now pursuing more simultaneous elements of foreign policy maneuver, ranging from balancing to bandwagoning, that are intended to leverage their position in interaction with more developed countries. Different from their behavior in previous decades, developing nations are more confident and independent. With economic and political potentials, they do not want to just become proxies of world’s major powers.
These nations expressed their dissatisfaction with their global order —not through hostilely dissociating themselves from the system as idealized by the 1955 leaders — rather; they pursued intense engagement with developed nations and among themselves, with a view to revise the current structure. In this regard, Bandung has a pivotal legacy, which is to prioritize negotiation and peaceful means and to respect justice and international obligation, or more shortly to consistently advocate for a plural world.
Finally, Bandung’s most important legacy is not in the form of integration of developing nations’ foreign policy as many people perceive. It is all about building norms and moral guidance in global governance, which are relevant to all countries in the world, no matter their power and economic status.
More and more contemporary global problems now clearly need to be solved through more constructive, equal and trustful dialogue and cooperation between both developed and developing nations, something that leaders at 1995 Bandung actually dreamed of. Despite the obvious revision of developing nations’ behavior and strategy, Bandung world’s core concern remain the same, which is to endorse the world’s justice and peace. ●
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar