ABSTRACT
The historic Asia–Africa Conference was held in Bandung, Indonesia, from 18 to 24 April 1955. The conference was an opportunity for the heads of the newly independent Asian and African states to come together as collective representatives of equal sovereign nations and discuss their common future. The great Indian thinker, Rabindranath Tagore, visited China in 1924 to give a series of lectures on his vision for the future of Asia. It appears that his Chinese counterparts were politically cautious and did not necessarily welcome his visit. The spirituality of Asian civilisations was asserted by the Japanese pan-Asianist, Okakura Tenshin, a sworn friend of Tagore. Born in Yokohama, Okakura was a nationalist-cum-cosmopolitan art critic who worked for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the United States. The history of ideas about regional unity is older in Africa than in Asia; setting aside a few isolated encounters, Western attempts at dominating Africa began in the 15th century.
