The old and the new Bandung in the context of the whole world system

Abstract

We present the recent Santa Cruz Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Developing Countries (G77) and China, which took place in Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia), highlighting memories, priorities, records of progress and future commitments, but also serious deficiencies in meeting the objectives of the Group as well as its current challenges and concerns. We know that many of these challenges and concerns are not new, since they were already there at the Bandung Conference and before. Our proposal here is to highlight the reasons for the emergence and the weakening of the old Bandung and discuss the potential that the new Bandung presents to the people of the South. In order to do that, we will analyze the old and the new Bandung in the context of the whole world system, especially based on the study of Giovanni Arrighi about the rise and transition of the American hegemony and about China's rise, given the failure of the "new imperial program" of the United States.