Hands Off Asia conference aims to build common resistance against hyper-imperialist interventions in the region 

Scores of political activists, scholars, and diplomats from across Asia and beyond are gathering in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for a three-day conference to demand the imperialist powers stay away from the region and to build a “common agenda for sovereignty and solidarity.”

The conference, formally titled “Hands Off Asia: A People’s Call for Sovereignty and Solidarity” is organized by the International People’s Assembly (IPA) with the support of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research between Thursday, July 16, and Saturday, July 18.

Speakers will represent various trade union organizations, progressive political parties and people’s organizations from the region and beyond, with speakers coming from countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Nepal, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Iran, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Timor Leste in the region, along with delegates from Brazil and Cuba.

Key speakers include Dammika Patabendi, Sri Lanka’s minister of environment, Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda), former Prime Minister of Nepal, Cuban ambassador to Sri Lanka Patricia Lazara Pego Guerra, and Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

“The conference comes at a moment of escalating military confrontation, economic coercion, and political destabilization across Asia,” a press release issued by the IPA claims, citing the ongoing wars in Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon, military buildups in East Asia, economic pressures on the countries in the region in the form of debt trap, trade and tariff wars, and direct or indirect political interference in countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh among others.

Interconnected systems of imperial control

These crises are part of an “interconnected system of imperial control that uses military, economic, political and ideological tools at the same time,” the press release further says.

The organizers hope to “create a space for movements and organizations to examine” the imperialist pressures as a collective crisis rather than as “separate national crises” and devise a “shared program of action” for people’s movements across the region.

Despite the growing centrality of Asia in the global politics and economy, it is the home to roughly 60% of the world’s population and fastest growing economies with rapidly increasing share in the overall global manufacturing, production and consumption, a large number of these countries in the region remain under debt trap, and under the control of international financial institutions.

The Hands of Asia conference will deliberate on the contradictions of continued dominance of the Bretton Woods institutions over the countries in the region as one of its central themes along with specific discussions on growing militarization, imperial interference in politics, rise of the far right and their collaborations with the imperial powers.

The end of hyper-imperial interventions

The discussions around ongoing wars and genocide in West Asia, movements for sovereignty and multilateralism in international politics, and forms of cultural and ideological resistance will   aim to build global solidarity and a common resistance strategy against imperial control and intervention.

The conference aims to devise ways to push for the “closure of foreign military bases, cancellation of unjust debt, rejection of IMF conditions, the right to independent industrial and trade policies of nations, an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Palestine, the end of the genocide in Gaza, and an end to the war on Iran,” organizers claim.

“We hope very much that this gathering will drive forward the momentum to end the US hyper-imperialist military buildup in this part of the world,” underlining one of the objectives of the Hands Off Asia Conference, Vijay Prashad, historian and director of the Tricontinental: Institute of Social Research posted on his social media.