Resisting Bandung? Taiwan’s Struggle for ‘Representational Legitimacy’ in the Rise of the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League, 1954-57

Abstract

In April 1955, representatives of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) attended the Bandung Conference in Indonesia. The conference epitomized the peak of Asian-African Internationalism, which sought to pursue independent and neutralist foreign policies that forged a path in-between the United States and the Soviet Union. This Conference helped the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gain new ground in the ongoing struggle for ‘representational legitimacy’ against its rival the Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) in the Third World. How did the Nationalist government, exiled on Taiwan since 1949, view this Bandung moment? This paper investigates the connections between Taiwan’s perception of Asian-African Internationalism and its efforts to initiate the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League (APACL). It argues that, as a piece of its own representational struggle with the PRC, the Republic of China (ROC) co-developed the APACL with South Korea and the Philippines in order to open up an anti-Bandung platform for Asian solidarity and postcolonial national emancipation. Critically, however, it emphasized ‘anti-Communism’ as the essential key to succeed in the anti-imperialist struggle against both Communist China, the Soviet Union, and the Bandung Conference. Therefore, Taiwan worked to integrate its struggle for ‘representational legitimacy’ into its response to the ideological concerns of Afro-Asia.