John Gong

Opinion | An ‘Asia for Asians’ vision is nothing like America’s Monroe Doctrine

‘Asia for Asians’ is a collective vision, a statement by a rising region that wants to determine its own fate, in pursuit of peace, security and economic prosperity – with no hegemonic ambitions

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Sukarno addresses a rally of 200,000 people in Macassar, demanding independence from the Netherlands in an undated photo. To equate the “Asia by Asians” vision to the Monroe Doctrine is the ultimate insult to Asia’s desire to determine its own fate. Photo: AFP

John Gong

Published: 3:30am, 11 Nov 2022Updated: 4:05am, 11 Nov 2022

This is the time for a simple and just vision, long overdue but which has still taken decades. In his famous speech at the 1955 Bandung conference attended by representatives from 29 newly independent Asian and African countries, then Indonesian president Sukarno said: “It is a new departure in the history of the world that leaders of Asian and African peoples can meet together in their own countries to discuss and deliberate upon matters of common concern. Only a few decades ago it was frequently necessary to travel to other countries and even other continents before the spokesmen of our peoples could confer.”

That statement marked the beginning of a long journey that led to today’s vision of an Asia of Asians, by Asians and for Asians. With 60 per cent of the world’s population, Asia is the world’s largest continental economy by nominal gross domestic product and purchasing power parity – there is no reason to think of Asia other than by the “Asia by Asians” vision, or the visions put forth at the Think Asia Forum held last week in Singapore.

At the fourth Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in 2014, China’s President Xi Jinping said that “it is for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia”. At the time, a wave of propaganda attack from the West labelled it China’s version of the Monroe Doctrine.

Next year will be the 100th anniversary of US president James Monroe’s 1823 speech to Congress in which he warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western hemisphere. It is clear the Monroe Doctrine was rooted in a fight among world powers at the time over colonial territories in the Western hemisphere.

Colonialism, as represented by its history of sugar plantations, coffee plantations, slave trade and the genocide of the indigenous peoples of North America, is the very reason Sukarno organised the Bandung conference.