Maturation of the Bandung Project with Lessons from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

Abstract

Abstract January 2022 marked the rollout of the largest trading block in the world, the RCEP. It is the argument of the paper that this trading block emerged out of four periods of the Bandung Process that was launched in 1955 for the process of decolonization. In 1954, the Vietnamese army defeated the army of France and Dien Bien Phu. A year later, Vietnam was one of the founding members of the Bandung process. This was the project initiated by the formerly colonized states to form a global coalition to resist imperialism. Organizing to consolidate independence under the banner of the struggles for bread, freedom and justice, the Bandung movement anchored the nonaligned movement, the struggles in Palestine, the struggles against apartheid and the struggles for a New International Economic Order (NIEO). As a member of the 10 member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Vietnam has been at the forefront of opposing western economic and military domination of Asia. This resistance had matured in the formation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement which was signed in November 2020. RCEP brings together China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The paper traces four moments of the Bandung Process and brought to the fore the importance of the current historical conjuncture when Vietnamese diplomatic leadership within ASEAN facilitated this new trade deal. The combination of the intensified warfare, global health pandemics, crisis of global warming, the fragility of capital, the weaponization of trade and finance and instability generated by the US political system, along with systemic racism continues to point to the necessity for a new international monetary and financial system (IMFS). From the Bandung era, through the financial crises of capitalism, the societies of the South have been seeking new institutions and formations to break the stranglehold of western imperialism and white supremacy. The paper will highlight the possibilities offered by RECP in the context of the continued struggles for a New International Economic Order in opposition to the US project of the weaponization of trade and finance.