Bandung’s legacy for the G20 summit in Bialik

The famous diplomatic summit began in 19th century Europe. Vienna, Berlin, Paris were the sites of summits that shaped imperial Europe. All that changed with the 1940s. Starting with the Asian Relations Summit in 1947, a large number of summits have taken place in the West and in the East. And there were some summits – Bandung, Indonesia, for example, in 1955 – that became notable as they prepared the ground for making history. The G20 (Group of Twenty) summit in Bali, 67 years after the Bandung summit, is expected to be one such defining meeting as it comes against the backdrop of nearly three years of the global pandemic and the return of war in Europe, which That is a shocking post. -World War II International politics and economy.

The excitement over the Bali summit on November 15-16 has been mainly due to the fact that it is the first time the Russian leadership will participate in an international summit with Western leaders since the start of the Ukraine crisis. The summit in Bali has brought back memories of the Bandung summit as the political conspiracies involved in both cases threatened to jeopardize the summit itself. The Bandung Conference is remembered as it gave a clarion call to separate countries to form a separate bloc but in reality it was driven by a larger conspiracy and mystery.

building of bandung

Both India and Indonesia gained independence in the decade before the Bandung Conference. India’s national struggle was primarily non-violent while the Indonesian struggle for independence was an armed rebellion. The Bandung Conference was preceded by months of worrying diplomacy in the West as it was the first time that the National Liberation Front (FLN), the Algerian nationalist militias, was to participate in such an international conference. The presence of FLN representatives in Bandung provided much needed thrill and excitement to the summit, which remains a milestone in diplomacy. For France and its supporters, the presence of guerrilla leaders was tantamount to giving them international legitimacy. There was intense lobbying in several Asian and Western capitals to prevent this from happening, but eventually the Algerians fled to Bandung.

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The Bali G20 summit had generated excitement for the above reasons. When foreign ministers-level meetings were held in Bali in July, the resulting squabble provided a glimpse into what might happen if Russian and Western leaders came face-to-face. During the meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Western counterparts literally addressed separate gatherings, attacking each other. It was clear that the actual summit could be stormy if Russian President Vladimir Putin There was a face-off with US President Joe Biden or UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and EU representatives, who have taken a strong anti-Russian position on Ukraine. However, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has indicated that President Putin may only attend virtually.

With that announcement, which came after Mr Widodo spoke to Mr Putin on the phone, it appears that the actual summit may have been avoided by a real diplomatic storm. While this may bring some relief to the hosts, Mr. Putin’s absence could also take away the world’s opportunity to have a real discussion on finding a solution to the Ukraine crisis.

Tension was not only over the presence of anti-French Algerian guerrilla leaders at the Bandung Conference. There was also the issue of Israel and Palestine which cast a long shadow. And at the end of the summit a Chinese fraudulent plane was blown up that almost caused an international crisis, sucking India, China, Egypt and Britain into a vortex. The plane was expected to carry Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai back home, and it was suspected that Western intelligence agencies were involved in the sabotage.

importance of risk taking

But the prospect of stormy confrontations and exchanges of anger did not prevent the participation in Bandung of a large number of delegates who were not yet fluent in diplomatic language. Every prominent leader of the time – Jawaharlal Nehru, Jamal Abdel Nasser, Sukarno – took great risks in attending the conference, but it eventually gave third world countries a breather and provided stability to the Cold War-stricken world . , Algeria would eventually achieve independence in 1962. Such a convention did not ease Algeria’s suffering, but it did maintain the dynamics of dissolution, of which Algeria was just another chapter.

Bandung’s message is that this kind of tension and anxiety before a big summit can seem overwhelming, but these factors often provide an opportunity for dialogue that is in the interest of the rest of the world. The prospect of Mr Putin skipping the summit and backing virtual participation could take away a historic opportunity from Bali.

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The occasion appeared particularly bright because the G20 summit, a forum primarily for economic considerations, once faced an inevitable substitute for becoming a forum for political dialogue between great powers over a stalemate war, Which is rapidly increasing the instability in world affairs.

The G20 summit in Bali differs significantly from the Bandung summit in terms of its global financial goals. Bandung was intended to provide space for emerging post-colonial economies, while the G20 aims to strengthen the digitally connected global capitalist system. Despite the differences, the real lesson for Bandung 1955 Bali 2022 is that a summit can only become historic if it triumphs over critics and provides a clear – even stormy – space for an exchange of ideas. Do.