An alternative decolonisation: the Republic of China in the 1947 Asian Relations Conference

This article analyses the Republic of China’s (ROC) perception, participation and influences in the 1947 Asian Relations Conference that foregrounded the movement of Asian-African Internationalism, which aspired to cut a path of postcolonial solidarity between the superpower conflicts of the United States and Soviet Union. The author argues that the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang, GMD) had developed its own vision of decolonisation that emphasised ‘development’ based on collaboration with Western powers instead of ‘revolution’ to accomplish the goals of Afro-Asian national liberation and postcolonial state building. Despite the later collapse of their rule on mainland China, the ROC’s participation in the Asian Relations Conference helped shape China’s international prestige as a leading Asian anti-imperial power . It had also ideologically prepared them, after their retreat to Taiwan, for pursuing an Afro-Asian alliance of anticommunism during the early Cold War.