The Bandung Conference admitted states, not peoples, and excluded whole continents

Evidence

Like most mystificatory ideologies, Three Worlds Theory has often mythified its origins. The implication in Said’s statement cited above is that the Bandung Conference was in some way the moment of its immaculate birth, and that, indeed, is the common wisdom. Some clarification about that moment of origin is therefore in order. Held in April 1955 in the Indonesian city of Bandung, it was a Conference strictly of the independent countries of Asia and Africa. South Africa and Israel were excluded for obvious reasons, the two Koreas were also excluded for reasons of controversy, but the Indochinese countries and three African colonies which had not yet become entirely sovereign were included because they were soon expected to gain their independence. No country was invited from Latin America. China was invited, and Zhou En Lai in fact played a very considerable role, despite the fact that China was the world’s largest communist country; Pakistan (one of the hosts) and several such countries were also there, despite their military alliance with the United States. Marshal Tito, who was soon to emerge as a major architect of the Non-Aligned Movement, was not there, because Yugoslavia is neither Asian nor African. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 559

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why were the two Koreas excluded ‘for reasons of controversy’ while Indochinese countries and three partially-sovereign African colonies were included? Follow up on the specific politics of attendance.
• XREF: connects to: Bandung united half the world’s population against colonialism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 275; Bandung resolved the human-rights dispute with a deliberate ambiguity — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 277; Bandung was not an expression of abstract Third-World nationalism — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1296

Related

• Bandung was not an expression of abstract Third-World nationalism (similarity 0.85)
• Bandung united half the world’s population against colonialism (similarity 0.83)
• No current meaning of Third World applies to Bandung Conference (similarity 0.82)