‘World of tomorrow’ Afro–Asian solidarity and the Great Leap Forward of Culture in the People’s Republic of China

Abstract

This paper revises the bellicist theory of state-making by examining the interconnection between state-making and nation-building in the Third World. It argues that nation-building mobilisations for the purposes of self-preservation and aversion of unbalanced wars are equally crucial. By focusing on the People’s Republic of China’s involvement in the Afro–Asian cultural cooperation in the 1950s, this paper elaborates on how internationalism plays a role in the state-driven mobilisation of the general public for the purpose of nation-building in China. It looks at the role of transnational exchanges of cultural productions and cooperation in spurring social empowerment and nation-building in the post-World War II Afro–Asian world under the framework of the Afro–Asian solidarity movement. The Afro–Asian cultural cooperation was intended to create alternative visions to the West-centric narratives of modernisation among the general public. These visions in turn inspired the general public to be involved in nation-building movements in respective Global South nations. This synchronic relationship between national independence and internationalism in China is crucial in understanding the state-making in the Global South as a process of political, economic and, more importantly, cultural decolonisation.