Nguyễn Đỗ Cung (Vietnam), Uncle Ho visiting the Gia Lam machinery factory, 1960.

Dear friends,

On 30 April 1975, Vietnamese communist forces won a great victory in the war of resistance against United States imperialism. Fifty-one years later, the celebration of the liberation of Vietnam and the reunification of our people remains one of the most important days in our calendar – not only for what it commemorates, but for what it continues to teach us.

From 1965 to 1972, the US sent nearly three million troops to Vietnam. By the end of the war, over two million Vietnamese civilians and over one million Vietnamese soldiers had died in the conflict. The brutality and inhumanity of the US against the people of Vietnam is legendary, and we still suffer the consequences. There are over four million victims of the chemical weapon Agent Orange in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – a crime for which the US has never been held accountable.

Economic Coercion

US hegemony is not only built on a sprawling network of military bases, armed conflict, and invasion. It is primarily built through soft power, economic pressure, and diplomatic manipulation. Today, Vietnam is threatened far more by the soft power of Western empire than by the threat of military invasion. This year, the Communist Party of Vietnam officially declared that foreign diplomacy is now as important as military defence to our national security. We know too well that the US, its allies, and its puppets do not need to shoot a gun or launch missiles to interfere in a sovereign nation. Tariffs, sanctions, and fomenting unrest through clandestine counter-revolutionary activity are just as effective as bullets and bombs.

Even though the war ended in 1975, the struggle against US imperialism continues to this day. Right after the war, the US imposed severe sanctions on Vietnam and we became economically isolated, especially as the Soviet Union began to weaken and eventually collapsed. Vietnam was devastated by war. Our civil infrastructure and industry had been bombed into non-existence and we could not trade with most nations. By the late 1980s, Vietnam was on the verge of nationwide famine. Millions of lives were at stake. The USSR was no longer in a position to help.

For these reasons, in 1986, Vietnam launched the policy of Đổi Mới (Renovation). In order to secure financing from the International Monetary Fund, Vietnam allowed limited privatisation and developed a market economy. It was during this time that the US stepped up economic intervention and sanctions against Vietnam. This has been the primary weapon that Western imperialism has used against my people ever since.

In order to normalise relations with the US, Vietnam was forced to pay off the huge debt accrued by the fascist puppet regime that had occupied South Vietnam until 1975. We had to pay the US more than $145 million to compensate them for the very money and weapons used to massacre Vietnamese civilians during the war. Vietnam had no choice but to accept the terms of the empire. It took us over twenty years to pay off that debt. We were paying this unjust war debt to the US until just seven years ago.

Trần Văn Thăng (Vietnam), Joining hands to build a new countryside, n.d.

Political Subversion

In addition to such economic attacks, the US has also built up its soft power to sabotage Vietnam politically. The US has spent billions, openly and covertly, to back NGOs and outlets such as USAID, Human Rights Watch, Radio Free Asia, and Voice of America to spread misinformation about Vietnam and to seed counter-revolution inside the country. Vietnam is hardly the only nation to suffer such intervention. We all know the chains of colour revolutions in Asia and Eastern Europe in the 2010s, such as the Arab Spring in West Asia and Maidan in Ukraine. These interventions completely changed the political economies of the affected nations and in many cases led to social collapse and devastation. The US would love nothing more than for the socialist government of Vietnam to collapse. From 2014 to 2019, the US backed protests and political sabotage campaigns across Vietnam. Despite the hardship and chaos, all of these colour revolutionary attempts have been defeated due to the solidarity between the people of Vietnam and our socialist government.

Ha Qiongwen (China), US imperialism, get out of South Vietnam!, 1963.

The Four No’s

Vietnam has had to be resilient and creative in responding to decades of economic warfare and constant schemes from the West. US imperialism is not just about invasions and military force. Economic and political might are also major coercive instruments, every bit as destructive as tanks and aircraft carriers. Because we are constantly under attack, both politically and economically, Vietnam cannot afford to be dragged into a conflict with any other country. In many ways, we are still recovering from the devastation of the war and the comprehensive embargoes, so it is vital that we spend our limited resources on helping our people and developing our economy.

This need for stability and peace has led to a comprehensive package of diplomatic strategies and policies refined since the 1990s, taken together known as Vietnam’s ‘Four No’s’ policy, codified in the Defence White Paper (2019):

1. No military alliance with any country. Vietnam has had enough war. We know better than most nations how destructive war is, and we will do everything to avoid being dragged into another.
2. No alignment with one country against another. Vietnam does not want to become a puppet of any country, and we do not want to bully any country. Vietnam wants to be a friend to every nation on earth as much as possible.
3. No foreign military bases on our territory. Vietnam does not allow any country to put military bases on our territory, and does not allow any country to use part of our territory to wage war on another. As history, and especially the US aggression against Iran, clearly shows, foreign military bases turn host countries into the targets of hostile forces, or at the very least make it difficult to avoid being drawn into wars between other countries. Bases can also become headquarters for intelligence operations used to destabilise nations from within. The fact is that the United States has been pressing us to allow it to put military bases in Vietnam for years, especially naval bases along our coastline. Our answer will always be no.
4. No use or threat of force in international relations. Vietnam does not speak with violence; we use negotiation and communication to resolve conflicts of interest. This does not contradict modernising the military or the primary mission of the Vietnamese armed forces, which is to defend the country, including by force when necessary.

Nguyễn Gia Trí (Vietnam), Northern Spring festival, n.d

The Struggle Continues

Over the past century, so much conflict between our nations in Asia has been stoked by the West. War and conflict are not new to Asia, and some of our nations have had tensions long before the US was even founded. But it is undeniable that the US has leveraged existing conflicts and manufactured new ones to keep Asian nations at each other’s throats instead of working together to build a stronger, more peaceful region. Vietnam is one of the few nations in Asia that has, for the most part, managed to avoid conflict with our neighbours since the 1990s. Things are not perfect, but our ‘Four No’s’ policy has been a relative success, and it is a formula that can be adapted to any nation.

The most important thing for anti-war movements everywhere is to understand the economic base: capital, money, and natural resources. This is the core insight of Marxism-Leninism – once you understand the economic base, you can see through the curtain of lies. The US uses freedom and democracy to dress up aggression. The war on Iran is not about saving anyone; it was about oil and US control of the region.

As Hồ Chí Minh taught us, theory must always come with practice. Step one: learn the truth of capitalism and imperialism. Step two: build your action and your plan. Vietnam did it, Laos did it, Cuba did it, China did it. The struggle continues.

Wherever you are in Asia, whichever nation and culture you come from, I hope you will study Vietnam’s ‘Four No’s’ policy and consider advocating that your own country develop a similar programme. Every nation in Asia should come together to push the US military and intelligence apparatus out of our region. We must not allow ourselves to be further divided and weaponised against one another for the benefit of empire. Hands off Asia!

Warmly,

Luna Nguyễn

Luna Nguyễn (known online as Luna Oi) is a Marxist-Leninist content creator and translator based in Vietnam, where she produces educational content on Vietnamese socialism and anti-imperialism.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Chen Chieh-jen (Taiwan, China), Factory, 2003.

Dear friends,

United States military bases are everywhere in the world: the US maintains some 750 to 800 military bases in roughly eighty countries or areas. Taiwan, China, is just one of them. The US military base in Taiwan was formally closed in 1979, though arms sales have continued ever since. But what receives far less scrutiny is ideological control. In Taiwan, the US did not only build bases – it built a systematic apparatus of ideological domination, one that has proved even more durable than its military infrastructure. The withdrawal of troops does not mean the end of control.

Taiwan is a part of China. The two landmasses were connected by a land bridge during the last Ice Age; when sea levels rose approximately ten thousand years ago, the strait formed between them. The indigenous people are mostly from the mainland; Han migration from the mainland has continued for 900 years, through the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Today, Han people make up approximately 95% of Taiwan’s population. My own ancestry is from Guangdong, going back 300 years. From 1684, Taiwan was administered as part of Fujian Province; from 1885, it became a province of China in its own right.

This long connection has been broken three times by imperialist invasion and occupation of Taiwan: Dutch colonisation from 1624 to 1662 (38 years); Japanese colonisation from 1895 to 1945 (50 years); and, from 1950 to the present, through US military and ideological control, a form of colonisation that has lasted decades and seems almost unending.

Lih Shih-Chiao (Taiwan, China), Entrance of a Market, 1945.

US Intervention in the Chinese Civil War

In 1945, the World Anti-Fascist War ended and Taiwan was reconnected with the mainland – but only briefly. Between 1945 and 1950, US imperialism intervened in the Chinese Civil War and supported the Kuomintang (KMT) with military, financial, and other resources. In 1949, the KMT was defeated by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and retreated to Taiwan. Since then, the Taiwan Strait has been in troubled waters.

In 1950, the Korean War broke out. To prevent the expansion of the People’s Republic of China’s influence, the US included Taiwan in its containment strategy. Taiwan was incorporated into the US-led Far East anti-communist, anti-China Cold War frontline – along with the so-called ‘Four Asian Tigers’, including Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, located off the eastern coast of mainland China and forming a containment chain. During the Cold War, the US established a military base in Taiwan. In 1950, President Harry Truman dispatched the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait. In 1954, a Mutual Defense Treaty was signed between the US and the KMT authorities – a clear intervention in China’s internal affairs. The US used economic assistance and ideological control to dominate Taiwan.

With US support, the KMT enforced martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987 – a period known as the White Terror. Many Taiwanese people rose up to fight against the KMT’s repressive rule; many were arrested, interrogated, charged, tried, imprisoned, and even executed by intelligence agencies with US backing. There is a mass graveyard of those killed; many remain unidentified, just under the ground.

The apparatus of ideological control took many forms. The US built a systematic propaganda machine in Taiwan through the educational system, the media, and other channels, alongside policies that sent young people to study abroad, mostly in the US. Pro-US elites were ideologically indoctrinated through fellowships, foundations, and bodies like the Asia Foundation and the East-West Center in Hawaii. The Asia Foundation, it was later revealed, had been funded by the CIA as part of a broader programme of covert ideological operations across Asia – a fact publicly acknowledged by the US State Department in 1967.

I am one example of this system: I was a fellow at the East-West Center. The main themes of this ideological control are anti-communism, liberalism, modernisation theory, ‘universal values’ framed as individual freedom, human rights, Western democracy, and an overarching anti-China, pro-US sentiment. As a consequence, Taiwan’s mainstream ideology today is pro-US, anti-communist, and anti-China.

Huang Rong-can (Taiwan, China), The Horrible Inspection, 1947.

US Intervention after Normalisation with the People’s Republic

In 1979, the People’s Republic of China and the United States established diplomatic relations. The conditions were that the US would sever diplomatic ties with the KMT authorities in Taiwan, withdraw its troops – completed by 1979 – and terminate the Mutual Defense Treaty, which ended on 1 January 1980. But the withdrawal of troops did not mean the end of control.

After 1979, US control of Taiwan did not stop. The US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act immediately after diplomatic recognition, mandating continued arms sales and maintaining unofficial relations through the American Institute in Taiwan – a de facto embassy. Even without a formal military base, steady arms sales have continued. Every single US president has sold arms to Taiwan.

Since 2019 alone, the US has approved billions of dollars in weapons, including M1A2 Abrams tanks, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and HIMARS mobile rocket systems. In October 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that US Special Operations Forces and Marines had been secretly training Taiwanese forces – a covert military presence without a formal base. The most recent arms packages have required Taiwan to fund US arms purchases, a controversy that remains alive on the island today.

Ideological control, too, has continued unbroken. The educational pipelines, the media ideology, the elite networks cultivated over decades – all of this persisted after 1979 and persists today.

Yin Xiuzhen (China), Portable City, n.d.

People’s Struggle and Internationalist Solidarity

These structures of control have shaped resistance movements across Taiwan. For half a century, I have been involved in one such struggle: the movement to protect the Diaoyutai Islands. The Diaoyutai Islands belong to Taiwan, China, but in the early 1970s, the US – seeking to consolidate the US-Japan anti-communist alliance – transferred the administrative rights of the Diaoyutai Islands, then part of US trust territories from the World Anti-Fascist War, to Japan. The movement to protect the Diaoyutai Islands began in response and has continued for five decades.

Throughout this period, Japanese imperialism – with the support of US imperialism – has constantly encroached on Chinese sovereignty over the islands, bullying and humiliating Taiwan’s fishermen. I am the founding chair of the Diaoyutai Education Association in Taiwan. Our mission is to educate and inform the Chinese people about this ongoing infringement by the US and Japan on China’s sovereignty.

A related struggle is the work of the China War of Resistance Against Japan Historical Truth Preservation Society. The Japanese government has yet to acknowledge its atrocities in China during the World Anti-Fascist War. Some twenty-four million Chinese people were killed by the Japanese invasion, but the Japanese government has not admitted what was done to the Chinese people. In March 2026, around twenty members of the society, including myself – victims of the Japanese invasion of China – travelled to Japan to hold the Japanese government accountable for its wartime atrocities.

These efforts intersect with broader solidarity networks across the region: a participant in an Okinawa-Taiwan dialogue project, for instance, serves on the board of directors of the Diaoyutai Education Association, linking the struggles against US military bases in Okinawa with the defence of Chinese sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands. Unfortunately, Japan is heading the other way. Its right-wing government, under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, is pursuing the largest remilitarisation since the end of the World Anti-Fascist War.

Sharing local struggles and local analyses across the region reveals how much we have in common – but it also demands deeper class analysis. In Iran, in Taiwan, and in China, different classes of people are impacted differently by imperialism, and the narratives of imperialist leaders often differ sharply from those of the people. When our Historical Truth Preservation Society went to Tokyo in March 2026, we spoke with both government officials and activists in Japan’s civil movements. We found nothing in common with the officials as we held them accountable for wartime atrocities. But we found strong solidarity with civil movement activists.

I had always assumed that Japanese people’s perspectives would have been shaped by their government’s ideological propaganda. Our encounter with the Japanese civil society activists demonstrates that such solidarity is not only possible but necessary – even when a right-wing prime minister tells a very different story. Solidarity between peoples of similar experiences and classes across countries cuts through these divisions. Each of us carries an enormous amount of work in our own areas, but we must connect.

Warmly,

Chen Meei-shia

Chen Meei-shia is the founding chair of the Diaoyutai Education Association and emerita professor of public health at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, China. She has been involved in movements for sovereignty and against US and Japanese imperialism for over fifty years.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Kazem Chalipa (Iran), Desert, 1984.

Dear friends,

I write from Isfahan, the third-largest city in Iran and the second-most impacted by the recent war. Since the ceasefire on 8 April 2026, we Iranians finally got a break from fighter jets flying overhead and explosions through day and night, from wondering whether our loved ones were safe.

Iran came under attack from US military and occupation bases hosted by family monarchies around the Persian Gulf. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia provided their airspace and their land to US assets and military facilities. They have spent billions of dollars on so-called defence systems from the United States, wishfully thinking these would protect them from any potential attack. The way this has worked is that the US has always tried to divide and conquer by portraying Iran – both to the world and to the Persian Gulf countries – as a threat to security. By doing so, it has convinced these monarchies to buy weapons and defence systems and to enter into security pacts with the United States.

This war is a turning point in the history of not only the region but the history of the US as a hegemon and imperialist power. The myth of US bases as shields has been challenged in a way that cannot be ignored.

Mohammad Reza Ghaderi (Iran), Every day is Ashura and every land is Karbala, n.d.

Defence or Escalation?

Hosting US military facilities has been sold as protection. In practice, it transforms Persian Gulf states from ‘protected partners’ into exposed forward positions – high-value targets in any confrontation. This war has been about Iran, but the logic applies to any country the US desires to attack, whose retaliation then strikes those bases. Protection has turned into exposure. US bases do not simply deter conflict; they import conflict. By embedding Persian Gulf states in Washington’s military architecture, these facilities narrow diplomatic manoeuvre, invite retaliation, and make civilian infrastructure vulnerable to spillover. The promised shield – security guarantees, rapid response, deterrence – becomes a bullseye.

These fixed military facilities become visible targets, especially given Iran’s military doctrine, which relies on missiles and drones rather than fighter jets. Iran has produced and can continue to produce thousands of drones – affordable, easy to deploy, and capable of bypassing security and defence systems. The host states have lost their autonomy. They have lost their sovereignty. By hosting US bases, they became tied to US escalation choices. They did not have a choice about whether to take part in this war; by hosting those bases, they had already taken a side.

The Persian Gulf states host a dense network of US occupation facilities: Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the United States Fifth Fleet headquarters at the Naval Support Activity Bahrain, and installations in Kuwait, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. These bases and assets are framed as deterrents against Iran, yet their geography places host societies right beside command centres, runways, ports, radar systems, and fuel depots – precisely the assets that become initial targets when retaliation comes. These so-called allies, who are complicit in the killing of Iranian civilians, become legitimate targets. The host country does not merely host the shield; it hosts the target set.

US occupation facilities have endured more than 170 attacks since October 2023. The full damage sustained by the United States is far greater than initially acknowledged – US officials have privately estimated the true cost at closer to $50 billion, roughly double the Pentagon’s public figure. Censorship has been heavy. People – including Western citizens – have been arrested in the UAE, Kuwait, and elsewhere for filming the aftermath of Iran’s responses. The pattern is not accidental: foreign bases operate as tripwires. Specific targets have included Al Udeid in Qatar, the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, and Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Many of the radar systems the US had boasted about as invincible have become sources of vulnerability for these family monarchies.

A Chatham House analysis identifies the flawed bargain: Persian Gulf regimes trade sovereignty and flexibility for a security umbrella that asymmetric threats can easily bypass. When Iranian drones and missiles started hitting US targets, the US could barely defend itself, let alone protect the hosting countries. That has been one of the complaints these regimes have voiced – that the US has, in effect, abandoned them. Because of these security pacts, they have neither the sovereignty nor the capability to defend themselves. The structure of the base bargain produces a strategic inversion: what appears as insurance functions as a liability when the country targeted by the US strikes the infrastructure that enables US operations. The slogan ‘a pact with the US will save you’ has been shattered. These bases have become massive bullseyes, and they have created a problem for the region in which host governments cannot de-escalate independently while hosting and facilitating escalation against other suffering nations.

Habib Sadeghi (Iran), A Funeral for Hearts, n.d.

Orientalism and Hyperreal Enemies

The foundation of all of this is ideological. In an article I wrote with Christopher Weaver, ‘Hyperreal Warriors and Orientalist Foes’, published in Middle East Critique just after the 12-day war of June 2025, we observed how the orientalist depiction of Iran portrays it as an irrational actor who is a permanent threat to the US, the Zionist entity, and the Persian Gulf states. In fact, these orientalist tropes serve the imperialist depiction of Iran in order to convince countries in the same region to enter into pacts and become complicit partners in US crimes. On the other side of this orientalist depiction is a ‘hyperreal enemy’ who cannot be defeated, who is invincible, and from whom only a pact with Washington can save you. Both sides of that spectrum serve the same narrative war.

The imperial playbook is repetitive and predictable. They keep saying that ‘Iranians chant death to America’, or that the US wants to liberate women. In fact, US animosity towards Iran did not start with the 1979 revolution. It started well before, when in 1953 the CIA orchestrated a coup d’état against the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh – not because he was an ayatollah or chanted against the US (he was secular) but because he wanted to nationalise Iran’s oil. That is the true source of US hostility to other nations.

Kazem Chalipa (Iran), Untitled, n.d.

From Dependency to Sovereignty

There is no single response to capitalism and imperialism. Iran is an example of incorporating indigenous cultural values and ideology into a strong response. To understand the resistance coming from Iran, it is necessary to learn about Shia theology, with its tenets of social justice and dignity. Iran has made it clear: we will not negotiate at gunpoint, and we will fight to the last Iranian, but we will never surrender to imperial power. Our slogan is no to humiliation. The reason Imam Ruhollah Khomeini called the US regime the ‘Great Satan’ is not only rhetorical. It comes from lived experience: Satan is deceptive, evil, and breaks promises. We have seen how the US attacks Iran during negotiations and breaches international deals. The world is waking up. We must educate people about different models of resistance and find indigenous responses rooted in our own values. Iran has been under brutal sanctions for four decades, and still it is bringing the imperialist power to its knees.

US bases import war. They make host territories militarily relevant in confrontations that the host may not control. Deterrence myths obscure vulnerability. Missiles, drones, and asymmetric tactics bypass the supposed shield. Neutrality is the real strategic asset. Persian Gulf security requires de-escalation, sovereignty, and regional diplomacy – not deeper dependence on forward basing. Security requires distance from the imperialist power, not dependency on it. Who benefits from this base architecture, and who absorbs the consequences? Once we answer that, it becomes clear who actually benefits from any pact with the US. These bases must be removed from the region, and the peoples of the Persian Gulf and Asia should join hands with the Iranian people to ensure their removal.

Warmly,

Dr. Setareh Sadeqi

Dr. Setareh Sadeqi is an assistant professor at the Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran. She writes on orientalism, US imperialism, and the geopolitics of West Asia.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Manash Das (India), Red Ant, n.d.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental Asia.

Every five years, the electorate in Keralam goes to the polls to elect a new state government. One of 28 states in India, Keralam has a population of 35 million. It has been governed by the Left Democratic Front (LDF), which is led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), for the past decade. On 4 May, the Election Commission of India announced that the LDF had won only 35 of the 140 seats in the legislature and that the LDF’s long-time adversary, the United Democratic Front (UDF), led by the Indian National Congress, had won the election with 102 seats.

It would have been a historic victory had the LDF prevailed because no front has won three consecutive elections in Keralam – a state with a highly educated and politically divided population. It was miraculous enough when the LDF was re-elected in 2021 with 99 seats, increasing its majority by eight seats over the 91 it had taken in 2016. No front had ever achieved that.

The question remains as to whether the recent defeat is merely a return to the back-and-forth routine that the electorate has imposed on the two fronts or a deeper sign of trouble for the left, led by the CPI(M)?

Gopika Babu (India), Kudumbashree, 2021.

The Development of Modern Keralam

Over the past year, the LDF government of Keralam announced two major achievements. First, that Keralam has eliminated extreme poverty, making it the second place in the world to do so after China made its announcement in 2021. Second, that Keralam’s infant mortality rate has dropped below five per 1,000 live births, lower than that of the United States. For context, Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief minister (2016 to 2026), was born in 1945. Before his birth, his mother had buried eleven children – at the time, Keralam’s infant mortality rate was above 100 per 1,000 live births.

These achievements, among many others, came partly because of the advances of modern science and technology, but mostly because of the pro-people policies championed by left governments since the formation of the state of Keralam in 1956. It is undeniable that the Communists played a key role in democratising the state’s institutions and shaping modern Keralam’s society, despite the repression that the left faced. Between 1957 and 1987, left governments could not finish their terms, either because of central government intervention (as in 1959) or because of weak coalitions. It was the left that initiated agrarian reform, laid the foundation for public education and healthcare, and brought dignity to the lives of workers.

Over all these years, cadres did not fold their flags and give up the struggle whenever the left lost an election. They filled the streets whenever the government attempted to impose anti-people policies, especially during the neoliberal era, and they remained the most powerful social force defending the achievements of Keralam. But they also continued to develop their society in a progressive way: to build cooperatives and public libraries, to open cultural centres, and to organise workers into unions.

Keralam is home to over 16,000 registered cooperative societies. These range from financial cooperatives (which make up roughly a quarter of the total) to labour cooperatives of many kinds of workers, hospitals, educational institutions, hotels, and more. Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research has published a study which explains the history of, and theoretical insights from, the cooperative movement in Keralam. Keralam is also home to more than 9,500 registered public libraries, most of them in rural areas. The history of the public library movement in Keralam goes back to the period of the national freedom movement and anti-landlord struggles. During that era, night classes were organised to teach the masses how to read and write, and to introduce them to world affairs and a new ideology of emancipation.

Amongst the achievements was the literacy campaign that eliminated illiteracy, and the creation of the cooperative Kudumbashree, one of the largest women’s empowerment programmes in the world, with 4.8 million members. The process of building these programmes led to the democratisation of Keralam’s society and to the creation of a highly capable political cadre for the left. It is this twin process – the cooperative movement and literacy programmes – that has strengthened Keralam over the past 69 years.

From lowering the infant mortality rate to increasing life expectancy, from a school system which leaves no one behind to the complete abolition of child labour, from universal vaccination to complete electrification, Keralam has achieved standards of living that are available to the wealthiest capitalist countries in the world. But there is a significant difference in the process. The capitalist countries achieved their wealth by colonising most of the world, the slave trade, and the continuing neocolonial extraction from the Global South. On the other hand, Keralam marched into a new life by restructuring its own society, redistributing wealth, and deepening the participation of the people, making democracy more meaningful. Land reform, the literacy campaign, public education, comparatively higher wages for labourers, people’s planning, and the strengthening of local governments were all steps towards this.

Swathi Kamalakshmyvijay (India), Untitled, n.d.

An Election Is Lost

Over the past thirty-eight years, the left has governed Keralam for twenty-four of them. Each time it has completed its five-year term in office, despite attempts at sabotage. Over the past decade, it was the government led by Vijayan, fondly called ‘The Captain’, that focused on welfare, infrastructure, healthcare, and social development. The government strengthened public education and healthcare systems through the modernisation of schools and the expansion of public hospitals. It earned praise for its work during the catastrophic floods of 2018 (with smaller floods in later years), the Nipah outbreak of 2018, and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Major infrastructural projects, including highways and bridges, transformed connectivity across the state. The government increased welfare pensions, expanded housing schemes, and promoted digital governance, much of this through the creative use of the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board. If elections were fought merely on policy achievements, the LDF would have won a third term.

But that is not how electoral democracy works in a bourgeois system, which shapes and channels a range of popular currents, including anti-incumbency sentiment and public dissatisfaction with the governing style. These are highly emotive ideas, and they were amplified on social media and in the corporate media to obscure the actual achievements of the government. The abolition of extreme poverty paled in the public conversation against the mass dissemination of anecdotal, but perhaps real, stories of government inaction on various other issues.

Juan Miguel Hernández (Venezuela), Communist India, 2021.

A Process Continues

In 1937, on the upper floor of a vegetable shop in Kozhikode, Keralam, five people secretly came together to form a party: the Keralam unit of the Communist Party of India. It was a time when people would have been beaten or even shot dead if discovered. Operating in hiding or in prison, that party unit grew as more and more members joined them. Along the way, some were hanged, some were shot, and others died with their bones shattered. But within just 20 years, in 1957, that party grew to lead the state after winning the first elections to the legislative assembly of Keralam.

An election is lost, but not a process. The left parties have said that they will closely study why their support base has seemingly eroded. Half of the members of the CPI(M) in Keralam joined the party after 2015, which means that most of its cadre have not grown out of the struggles to establish a popular democracy. They came to the party during its decade in government. They will now be tested in the fight to preserve and deepen democracy in Keralam. Genuine development of cadre takes place in the heat of the class struggle, to which the Communists in Keralam will now return.

In 1977, the Left Front won only 29 out of 140 seats, with the Communists winning only 17 seats. Yet within three years, in the 1980 election, the left won 98 seats (the CPI(M) winning 35 by itself). What is important about the period between 1977 and 1980 is that the LDF campaigned ceaselessly on people’s issues: the need to overcome socioeconomic distress and the absolute necessity of preventing any religious division in Keralam and in India. These campaigns strengthened both Keralam and the left, which is why they came together in 1980 to elect the government of E. K. Nayanar (who led the government from 1980 to 1981, from 1987 to 1991, and again from 1996 to 2001). From 1980 to 2000, the left established the principles of the people’s planning campaign and the role of cooperatives.

During Keralam’s first democratic elections, right-wing propaganda claimed that if the Communist Party came to power, religious believers would be jailed, women would be made common property, and violence and anarchy would prevail. It was the same kind of misinformation that had been spread about communists across the world. But over time, as the left came to power, the people of Keralam experienced for themselves what it actually meant to have Communists lead their society. Interestingly, the recent anti-communist campaign was of a different kind – the UDF camp argued that people should not vote for the left because being in power for consecutive terms corrupts a party’s real communist character.

Though the left has lost, the campaign was not about the insignificance of the left but about its necessity. The Communist movement is an inseparable part of Keralam. If it can recognise this and regain the confidence of the people, the movement will continue to transform Keralam while offering powerful lessons to the world.

Warmly,

Nitheesh Narayanan and Vijay Prashad

Nitheesh and Vijay work at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Together they edited 1921 Uprising in Malabar (LeftWord Books, 2022), which has a foreword by Pinarayi Vijayan, former Chief Minister of Kerala.

Editor’s note: Keralam is the native Malayalam name of Kerala. The state is currently undergoing the process of changing its official name. We at the Tricontinental Asia team have made the decision to use Keralam instead of Kerala for this and future publications.

Dinh Q. Lê (Vietnam), Untitled, 2004.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental Asia.

On the anniversary of Vietnam’s liberation, the International People’s Assembly and Tricontinental Asia launched the ‘Hands Off Asia!’ campaign, calling for the removal of US and NATO bases from Asia, an end to aggressive military pacts, and respect for Asian sovereignty. On this occasion, we organised a webinar with Asian women intellectuals and organisers – from Hanoi, Isfahan, Naha, Taipei, Manila, and Seoul – who came bearing different chapters of the same imperial book.

Vietnam: The ‘Four Nos’

The Marxist-Leninist translator Luna Nguyễn insisted that the liberation of Saigon in 1975 did not end US imperialism. Today, Vietnam is besieged less by armies than by the soft powers of sanctions, NGO networks, and what she called ‘clandestine counter-revolutionary activity’ by Western funding agencies and other global financial institutions. To normalise relations with Washington in the 1990s, Hanoi was forced to assume $145 million in debt accrued by the defeated Saigon regime. Vietnam paid the United States, in effect, for the bombs that had massacred its own civilians. That odious payment was settled only seven years ago.

Out of this experience came the ‘Four Nos’ of Vietnam’s defence policy: no military alliances; no alignment with one country against another; no foreign military bases on Vietnamese soil; and no use or threat of force in international relations. While Washington has pressed for naval basing rights along the Vietnamese coast for decades, the answer has always been no.

Kidlat Tahimik (Philippines), Magellan, Marilyn, Mickey & Fr. Dámaso. 500 Years of Conquistador RockStars, n.d.

Iran: Protection Became Exposure

Speaking from Isfahan, Iran, weeks after a ceasefire in the US-Israeli aggression on her country, Dr. Setareh Sadeqi of the University of Tehran turned to a region where many had said yes. The Persian Gulf monarchies have leased their land and airspace to US militarism. From Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to Naval Support Activity Bahrain to the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf monarchies have joined a dense network of US logistics nodes.

These bases were sold as a shield; the recent war revealed them to be a target. Since October 2023, US occupation facilities in the region have endured more than 170 documented attacks, and regional losses now exceed $50 billion. As Sadeqi put it: ‘The host country does not merely host the shield. It hosts the target set’.

The myth, she explained, is held in place by ideology. In her article ‘Hyperreal Warriors and the Orientalist Foes’, co-authored with Christopher Weaver, Sadeqi traces how Western discourse manufactures Iran as both timelessly irrational and invincibly menacing. In this narrative, the only answer is permanent dependence on Washington. Her conclusion provides necessary clarity: ‘Security requires distance from the imperialist power, not dependency on it’.

Okinawa, Japan: The Iron Storm Has Not Ended

Keiko Yonaha of No More Battle of Okinawa traced a chain of betrayals experienced by her people. In the Battle of Okinawa (1945), one in three or four Okinawans died. Two secret pacts appended to the US-Japan San Francisco Peace Treaty (1951) granted Washington the right to maintain bases anywhere in Japan and to seize operational command of Japanese forces in any crisis. Forced US military land seizures by bayonets and bulldozers drove Okinawan farmers into exile, some as far as Bolivia. Today, Okinawa with 0.6% of Japan’s territory hosts roughly 70% of the country’s US military facilities.

The cost of militarisation is paid physically, psychologically, and ecologically. Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence has documented sexual crimes by US troops since 1945. A five-year-old girl was raped and killed in 1945. A nine-month-old baby in 1949. A fifth grader was raped by three US soldiers in 1995. A twenty-year-old woman was murdered in 2016. A girl under 16 was raped in 2023, her case concealed for six months by Tokyo. The contamination of drinking water by ‘forever chemicals’ like PFAS cannot be investigated because the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement bars Okinawans from their own soil.

In December 2021, the two governments confirmed that Okinawa would be the front line of any so-called ‘Taiwan contingency’ – that is, a launching pad for US intervention in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. Keiko reminded us that mass protests in 1969 had once defeated US President Richard Nixon’s madman theory to expand the Vietnam War with nuclear weapons. Her point was that movements can still defeat empires.

Nakamura Hiroshi (Japan), sketches of the US military base at Tachikawa, 1955.

Taiwan, China: Ideological Colonisation

Professor Chen Meei-shia, emerita of National Cheng Kung University and founding chair of the Diaoyutai Education Association, framed Taiwan, China, as the third in a line of imperial interruptions: Dutch (1624–1662), Japanese (1895–1945), and ‘US military and ideological control, almost un-ending’, from 1950 to today. Forty years of martial law (1947–1987) and White Terror backed by Washington produced the mass graves of those who fought for democracy or reunification with mainland China.

When Washington normalised relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1979, it withdrew its troops from Taiwan but kept the leash. Through the Taiwan Relations Act, every US president has authorised arms sales. The most recent is a $400 billion package that includes US troops training Taiwan’s army.

The deeper apparatus is ideological – an educational system, fellowship pipelines like the East-West Center, and a compliant media industry have engineered a mainstream consciousness that Chen describes as ‘pro-American, anti-communist, anti-China’. Withdrawal of troops, Chen warned, ‘does not mean less evil than ideological control’.

M. Hill, AICD (Australia), Screenprint from a protest against US President Richard Nixon and the war on Vietnam, 1970.

The Philippines: From Tripwire to ‘Pax Silica’

Corazon Valdez Fabros, co-president of the International Peace Bureau, spoke against the live machinery of Balikatan 2026, the largest war games in her country’s history. Seventeen thousand troops from seven nations are on Philippine soil; Japanese Type-88 missiles have been positioned on sovereign land; fuel depots and ammunition hubs have been carved into the Subic municipality, northwest of Manila.

According to SIPRI, 2025 global military expenditure has reached an unprecedented $2.9 trillion, with the United States alone responsible for $954 billion, one-third of the planet’s war budget. ‘Every peso and dollar squandered on war’, Fabros said, ‘is a direct theft from the people’s fundamental right to survival’.

The war economy reaches the kitchen table. Philippine inflation runs at 4.1%. The Strait of Hormuz, closed by the US-Israeli war on Iran, holds two million Filipino overseas workers hostage. Meanwhile, under the brand name Pax Silica, a 4,000-acre US high-tech manufacturing zone has been carved out of New Clark City. It is, in Fabros’s words, ‘a colonial enclave granted diplomatic immunity and governed by US common law for up to 99 years’.

Lockheed Martin, Intel, Micron, and Applied Materials are not technology companies. They are the architects of the missile systems being tested in Filipino seas. ‘This is not innovation. It is occupation dressed up as progress’. Her demands, drawn from the Stop the War Coalition Philippines, are direct: cut military budgets, reject Pax Silica, abrogate unequal agreements, and defend the West Philippine Sea as a global commons.

Korea: A ‘Fixed Aircraft Carrier’

From Seoul, Hwang Jeongeun of the International Strategy Center read aloud the words that empire now speaks without disguise. In August 2025, Donald Trump told a summit he wished to ‘get ownership of the land where we have a massive military base’ in Korea. In May 2025, United States Forces Korea commander General Xavier Brunson called the Republic of Korea ‘a fixed aircraft carrier floating in the water between Japan and mainland China’, the closest allied presence to Beijing. Brunson also announced a ‘kill web’ fusing the militaries of South Korea, Japan, and possibly the Philippines into a single networked system targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, China, and Russia.

The 28,500 US troops, 62 bases, and 95 million square metres in South Korea are being repurposed. Presented as a defence of Korea, they are becoming an instrument against China, while Seoul is pressed to raise military spending to 3.5% of GDP. The architecture, Hwang warned, threatens to bury the Korean dream of inner-peninsular reconciliation.

Poster for the Hands Off Asia! webinar by International People’s Assembly and Tricontinental Asia, 2026.

The Long Refusal

The map of the world is dotted with some 902 known US military bases, many of them in Asia. The myth common to all of them is that they protect their hosts. The lesson, from Okinawa to Manila, from Bahrain to Seoul, is that they import war and exact a price in broken bodies, poisoned water, stolen land, and household hunger. Occupation is always sold as protection.

But Asia has not forgotten how it fought empire. The Battle of Okinawa did not silence Okinawa’s witnesses. The White Terror did not extinguish Taiwan’s labour movement. The Iranian people, after four decades of brutal sanctions, refuse humiliation. As Hồ Chí Minh insisted: ‘Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom’. That is the inheritance of liberation, and it is the demand of the present.

Hands off Vietnam. Hands off Iran. Hands off Okinawa. Hands off Taiwan. Hands off the Philippines. Hands off Korea. Hands off Asia!

Warmly,

Tricontinental Asia

Diego Rivera (Mexico), Pesadilla de guerra, sueño de paz (Nightmare of war, dream of peace), 1952.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental Asia.

On 30 April 1975, a tank crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace in Saigon, Vietnam, ending three decades of war. Vietnam had defeated the most powerful military force the world had ever known – at the cost of over three million Vietnamese lives and 7.5 million tonnes of US bombs dropped across Indochina. But this was not only Vietnam’s story. It was the culmination of a long tradition – stretching back nearly a century – of the peoples of Asia and the Pacific organising against US militarism and wars of aggression on our soil.

That tradition is now more urgent than ever. As the US-imposed New Cold War arrives in the Asia-Pacific – with an expanding architecture of military bases, missile deployments, and aggressive pacts designed not only to encircle China but to discipline any state that dares to defend its sovereignty – it is worth returning to the history of how Asian peoples have confronted this threat before, and won.

Nakamura Hiroshi (Japan), Sunagawa, 1955.

The Missing Peace

In October 1952, during the US war on Korea, over 470 delegates from nearly 50 countries gathered in Beijing, China, for the Asia and Pacific Rim Peace Conference. These delegates were trade unionists, teachers, women’s activists, monks, cultural workers, and internationalists of all kinds. Roughly one third were women. In the conference hall, Mexican communist muralist Diego Rivera’s monumental painting, Pesadilla de guerra, sueño de paz (1952) (Nightmare of War, Dream of Peace), depicted faceless soldiers persecuting civilians amid the wars then raging in Korea, Vietnam, and Malaya. On the opposite wall hung Pablo Picasso’s Dove of Peace (1949). Below the murals, delegates signed copies of the Stockholm Appeal (1950) against nuclear weapons.

The conference was chaired by Chinese revolutionary leader Song Qingling (Madame Sun Yat-sen), who traced the meeting’s political lineage to a secret anti-imperialist conference held in Shanghai in 1933, during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria – convened in a dreary building in a Shanghai factory district where delegates sat on the floor. Nearly 20 years later, what had been clandestine was now a mass gathering: Korean delegates presented evidence of US biological warfare; resolutions demanded an end to the rearmament of Japan and the withdrawal of foreign military bases from the region.

This conference has been quietly erased from history, and both the copy and original of Rivera’s painting have since vanished. But the 1952 gathering was a crucial precursor to the Bandung Spirit – it was a platform to articulate and amplify the ideas of peace from an Asian perspective, which was inextricably linked to the demands for self-determination, sovereignty, and dignity, and directed squarely at the US-led military presence that was reshaping the region.

Yin Fukang (China), Oppose the military provocations and threats of war of US imperialism!, 1958.

A History of Resistance

What followed was decades of mass resistance against US militarism across the Asia-Pacific. In Okinawa, Japan, where roughly one-in-three civilians were killed during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, the US sent survivors to internment camps and seized their land for building bases without consent. When Okinawans returned home, they found that the old Japanese airfield had been replaced by Kadena Air Base – now almost 20 square kilometres, 1.3 times the size of Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.

The island never regained its sovereignty; instead, the US military administration formalised its occupation. By the 1950s, US soldiers were using tanks, bulldozers, and bayonets to force farmers off their remaining land. As Miyume Tanji documents in Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa (2006), the rent offered was less than two yen per tsubo – a fifth the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola – which 98% of landowners refused. Their slogan captured a truth that resonates today: ‘Money is for one year, but land is for ten thousand years’. Today, Okinawa represents 0.6% of the Japanese territory but 70% of its US bases.

Peoples across the Pacific – bearing the scars of 67 US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands alone, with a combined yield equivalent to 1.6 Hiroshima bombs detonated every day for 12 years – forged their own front. The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement, launched in Fiji in 1975, linked the struggle against nuclear contamination to the demand for sovereignty. At the 1980 conference in Hawaii, the movement added the word ‘Independent’ to its name, recognising that the demand to be nuclear free meant being free of the foreign military bases that bring weapons of mass destruction.

The most dramatic victory came in the Philippines. For decades, Filipino nationalists – led by senators Claro Recto, Lorenzo Tañada, and Jose Diokno – had argued that US military bases were instruments of neo-colonial control. As early as the 1950s, Recto warned that the bases would not defend the Philippines but could ‘become magnets for aggression instead’. Diokno, imprisoned for nearly two years under the dictatorial rule of Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law, founded the Anti-Bases Coalition in 1983. These decades of struggle converged in a single vote on 16 September 1991: the Senate of the Philippines rejected the US bases treaty, 12 to 11. The dissenters were later dubbed ‘The Magnificent 12’. Senator Aquilino Pimentel declared from the floor: ‘On this day, the day of our final deliverance, I hope, from the clutches of a colonial power, I say to those who threaten us with political oblivion or physical extinction for our vote of rejection: Go ahead, do your worst – because we will do our best!’

Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base were shut down and the Philippines became the first country in the world to force the US military out through a democratic process.

René Mederos (Cuba), Untitled, 1971.

The New Cold War

Today, US militarisation is creeping across the region, fuelling a New Cold War that threats to engulf Asia.

Philippines. Under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the US and Philippines, signed by US President Barack Obama in 2014 and expanded under President Joe Biden in 2023, the US now has access to nine military sites across the Philippines – including bases in the Province of Cagayan, which faces the Taiwan Strait.

Japan. The Japanese government has doubled its military budget to 43 trillion yen ($269 billion) over five years, purchased 400 US Tomahawk cruise missiles, and continues construction of a new US Marine base at Henoko, Okinawa – despite 72% of Okinawans voting against it in a 2019 referendum.

Australia. Under AUKUS, Australia will host rotational deployments of US nuclear-powered submarines and B-52 bombers, at an estimated cost of over $250 billion Australian dollars ($178 billion).

South Korea. The US maintains roughly 28,500 troops in South Korea, anchored by Camp Humphreys – the largest US overseas military installation in the world, built at a cost of over $10 billion.

Taiwan. Washington has approved over $20 billion in arms sales to Taiwan since 2019, including 66 F-16V fighter jets, Harpoon missile systems, and Abrams tanks — arming the island to the teeth in its campaign of confrontation with China.

Indonesia. The world’s fourth-largest country is currently reviewing a US proposal seeking ‘blanket overflight access’ for military aircraft through Indonesian airspace.

This is the architecture of militarisation – designed to encircle China and punish countries for asserting their sovereignty, while subordinating the people of Asia to Washington’s strategic interests.

The illegal US-Israeli war on Iran has confirmed that hosting a US military base is not a shield but a target. Across the Persian Gulf, some 40,000 US troops are stationed at over 20 installations, from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain – the very infrastructure from which the bombardment of Iran and Lebanon has been launched.

In Gaza, Palestine, over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed by US-backed Israeli aggression since October 2023 – a reminder that the US military machine operates as a single system from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.

Despite US ambitions and aggression, Asia has a deep, resilient tradition of anti-base, anti-war organising to draw on – from the 1933 Shanghai conference to the 1952 Beijing gathering, from Okinawa’s farmers to the peoples of Philippines and the Pacific islands. Many of the organisations that carried these struggles still exist; what must be rebuilt is their mass character.

On the anniversary of Vietnam’s liberation, the International Peoples’ Assembly and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research are bringing together voices from across the region – Vietnam, Iran, the Philippines, Japan, China, and South Korea – to confront the reality of US militarism in Asia. The peoples of this region, through our difficult and hard-won histories of liberation, know the cost of war intimately. You can register for the webinar or watch the livestream here.

Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, in his appeal to the nation 60 years ago, said: ‘Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom’. Today, concrete freedom means freedom from US military intervention and aggression.

Warmly,

Tings Chak and Atul Chandra

Tings Chak and Atul Chandra are the Asia co-coordinators of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Sheelasha Rajbhandari (Nepal), Agony of the New Bed, 2023.

Dear friends,

In the first general elections held since the Gen Z protests rocked Nepali society, the four-year-old Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), led by rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah, won a two-thirds majority. The left parties, on the other hand, suffered a major defeat, with the former ruling Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) or – CPN-UML – winning only 9 out of 165 seats in the House of Representatives. The Nepal Communist Party – a newly formed merger of over a dozen leftist parties – secured 7 seats. These major parties, which had held power before the Gen Z protests, could not even secure 10% of the total seats.

This defeat has ideological and political significance. From a leftist perspective, the defeat raises serious questions about the Nepali communist movement’s ideological deviations, internal divisions, institutional weaknesses, and declined sense of responsibility towards the people. In this context, the post-election political landscape in Nepal and its external relations have created a new dimension. For Nepal, a landlocked nation spread across seven provinces from the Himalayas to the low-lying plains of the Terai, diplomatic acumen is a primary necessity right now.

This newsletter attempts to analyse the historical background of Nepal’s leftist movement, the message of the March 2026 elections, and the tasks for the Nepali left in the new political landscape.

Jyoti Shrestha (Nepal), Ji ta Newa Bhyaa Mawa, 2025.

Nepal’s Modern Political History

Through the lens of dialectical materialism, every change in Nepal’s political history has been directed by the conflict over control of the means of production and social relations. The Anti-Rana movement of 1951, the People’s Movements of 1979 and 1990, the People’s War of 1996, and the Second People’s Movement of 2006 freed Nepali society from the web of feudalism and brought about a federal democratic republic.

However, the journey towards socialism remained incomplete. A political complexity was manufactured regarding the practical implementation of the concept of a ‘socialism-oriented’ state outlined in the republican constitution. Leftist and democratic forces could not break free from this debate.

The communist movement in Nepal, which achieved significant and respectable results in elections across different eras, secured a historic success in the 2017 elections. The leftist alliance between CPN-UML and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) won 174 out of 275 seats in the House of Representatives, achieving nearly a two-thirds majority. At that time, the two major communist parties merged to form the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), and the country received a powerful communist-led government. Although the government had the people’s mandate, the ruling party failed to implement Leninist organisational principles, and the government collapsed before the end of its five-year term due to the leadership’s arrogance, ego, and unilateral style.

In the 2022 elections, those two parties suffered a major defeat. The centre-right Nepali Congress emerged as the largest party with 89 seats, while CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre were reduced to 78 and 32 seats, respectively. Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Socialist), a party split from CPN-UML, failed to become a national party, gaining just 10 seats.

Hitman Gurung (Nepal), We are in war without enemies, n.d.

Nepali society remained in a transitional phase characterised by comprador capitalism, a remittance-based economy, and an ambiguous relationship with the state. Leftist political leaders either failed to internalise or chose not to heed Lenin’s maxim, ‘Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement’. Consequently, Nepal’s leftist parties could not escape the labyrinth of comprador capital.

Nepal’s leftist forces were confused about whether to consider parliamentary practice as the ultimate goal or to use it as a means to build a society based on social justice and equality, moving towards the destination of socialism. For this, they were unwilling or unable to articulate clear positions on structural issues such as control over the means of production, the role of the state, and the development of a self-reliant economy. As a result, they suffered a shocking defeat in the March 2026 elections.

The results of the March 2026 elections signal the impulse, anger, and desire for change in the psychology of Nepali voters. The failure of traditional political forces to channel this impulse through the sieve of wisdom resulted in the newly emerged or engineered forces securing nearly a two-thirds majority in parliament. Leftist political forces must now understand that the people want results, not just slogans and promises.

The Gen Z Rupture

The role of young voters, especially the generation accustomed to digital technology, was decisive in this election. Social media was no longer just a medium for information; it became the primary arena for setting political agendas and shaping public opinion.

The ageing left leadership completely failed to realise that issues like employment, digital infrastructure, education reform, and climate change were priorities for young voters. Despite the populism sought in election manifestos, conscious citizens prioritised long-term economic planning and issues of national sovereignty.

As a result, young and urban voters embraced the RSP in the elections. The RSP converted anger against established parties into votes. The same wave that brought the communist parties victory in 2018 turned against them. This shows that the communist parties failed to win the hearts of the people, failed to keep the people’s issues central, and lost dialogue with the masses.

Hitman Gurung (Nepal), Untitled, 2013.

Managing Geopolitical Complexities and Non-Alignment

Nepal is geographically situated between two giant neighbours – India and China. Moreover, it has also become strategically important for the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy. In such a situation, protecting Nepal’s neutrality and national interest is a major challenge.

Nepal must maintain balanced relations with both China and India while keeping its national interest at the centre. It needs to seek cooperation from neighbours for agricultural development, water resources, and connectivity without compromising on its sovereignty. For this, a transparent and nationally focused institutional mechanism is necessary in the selection, management, and implementation of projects like the controversial US-backed Millennium Challenge Corporation.

The Strategic Partnership Program, a military engagement programme between the US and Nepal, must not be accepted under any circumstances. It is imperative to strengthen Nepal’s negotiating capacity regarding the open border with India, the Lipulekh issue (a territorial dispute between Nepal and India over a strategic Himalayan pass near the border with China), water resource agreements, and energy trade.

Nepal, as a non-aligned nation, needs to have a clear stance on issues such as Venezuela’s struggle against imperialist intervention and the right to self-determination for Palestine. This will not only enhance Nepal’s moral standing on the world stage but also support its effective presence in multilateral forums like the United Nations.

However, diplomatic acumen to balance such stances with bilateral relations is equally important. In the past, Nepal’s vote in favour of Ukraine at the United Nations and the Nepali government’s decision not to issue visas on arrival to Iranian citizens were not in line with the non-aligned foreign policy.

Advancing Federalism and Local Government

The successful implementation of federalism envisioned by the constitution is key to Nepal’s balanced development. However, the centralised mindset, confusion in resource allocation, and lack of capacity building have raised questions about federalism itself. Local governments need to be strengthened and made self-reliant.

Economic self-reliance, agricultural modernisation, maximum utilisation of local resources, and institutional development of cooperatives are economic foundations for local government. From a leftist perspective, the concept of cooperatives and collective farming should be promoted from the local level. This is possible only if land management, easy access to agricultural loans, support prices for agricultural produce, and proportional access to the market are guaranteed. This will simultaneously end unemployment and make the country self-sufficient in food. The framework of accountability must be clear. This structural aspect is most important for the success of federalism.

Democratic and Sovereign use of Technology

In the digital age, the use of technology is indispensable to counter algorithmic propaganda and bring grassroots voices into the mainstream. The influence of social media seen in election campaigns must now be used for soliciting feedback for policy formulation and promoting public awareness.

However, mere use of technology is not enough for this. Establishing digital infrastructure as a public service, public ownership of media and data, and effective implementation of the right to information must be a mandatory agenda for leftist politics.

In addition, an important issue that Nepali leftists must raise is national data security. As the current government prioritises digital operations, there is a need for a vigilant campaigning and oversight regarding what the national strategy and capacity for digital security are.

Asha Dangol (Nepal), Where is my village?, 2015.

The Way Forward

Nepal stands at a decisive juncture. For the left, there is no alternative to respecting the democratic mandate given by the 2026 elections. Political parties must now focus on economic prosperity and social justice. However, the arrest of former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and former Minister of Home Affairs Ramesh Lekhak raises concerns about the new government’s political vendetta against the left.

Yet it is important to note that arrogance and conceit have brought Nepal to this point. A policy of consensus and cooperation on national issues must be adopted. For this, the left must focus its agenda on the following priorities:

1. The economic agenda. Breaking the cycle of comprador capitalism, developing national capital, increasing investment in the productive sector, and transforming the remittance-based economy into a production-based economy.
2. The diplomatic stance. Firmly adhering to the policy of ‘friendship with all, enmity with none’ without joining any military bloc. However, to put this policy into practice, the development of institutional diplomatic capacity, negotiation skills, and a clear definition of national interest are necessary.
3. Centring youth leadership. A new political direction must be determined by combining the energy of the youth with the experience of the old. There must be a clear institutional process for generational transition within political parties, a framework for youth participation in policy-making, and appropriate leadership development programmes for this task.
4. Ideological clarity. Parliamentary practice must not be seen as the final goal but as a tool for building a society based on social justice and equality. For this, the capacity to conduct fact-based analysis through theoretical study and connect it with the basic needs of the people must be developed.

Instead of merely copying Marxism, it is necessary to develop and implement it in the Nepali context by conducting a ‘concrete analysis of the concrete situation’. For this, there is a need to build a theoretical and ideological foundation based on the current class structure of Nepali society, the form of the state, the nature of global capitalism, and Nepali specificity.

Nepal’s journey towards socialism is difficult, but not impossible. The destination can be reached through clarity of thought and strengthening organisation.

Warmly,

Balram Prasad Baskota

Balram Prasad Baskota is a veteran communist and a leader of the Nepali Communist Party.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Gayan Prageet (Sri Lanka), What are You Trying to Hide?, 2015.

Dear friends,

On 20 March 2026, Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake made a startling revelation in parliament. He revealed that the government had declined a United States request to land two aircraft armed with anti-ship missiles at the Mattala airport in the south of the country. The president stated that the government turned down the US request to maintain Sri Lanka’s neutrality in the ongoing war on Iran.

President Dissanayake’s statement received significant attention in international media. This was the second time Sri Lanka was the subject of such attention. Previously, when the US torpedoed the unarmed Iranian warship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, within Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone, the Sri Lankan government offered humanitarian assistance to the survivors and admitted a second Iranian vessel (IRIS Busehr) to the Sri Lankan ports, helping evacuate its crew. Explaining the reason for this decision, the president stated ‘… while safeguarding neutrality, we place humanity above all else … If there are actions that must be taken to protect human lives, we will not hesitate to take them under any circumstances’.

Pushpakanthan Pakkiyarajah (Sri Lanka), Blooded Flowerscape, 2024–2025.

The Balancing Act

In revealing his decision to not allow US warplanes in Sri Lanka, the President was responding to critics who allege that the Sri Lankan government has been following a policy aimed at appeasing the US. Since being elected to government in September 2024, the National People’s Power (NPP), led by Dissanayake, has been walking a tightrope in foreign policy.

The NPP was formed by the left-wing Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in 2019 as a broader front aimed at appealing to a wider constituency. The JVP identifies itself as a Marxist-Leninist party and has been a vocal critic of imperialism since its founding as a militant insurrectionary organisation in the 1960s. When in opposition, the party frequently organised events and protests in solidarity with countries under US aggression like Cuba and Venezuela; the JVP was also heavily involved in pro-Palestine activism.

The NPP rose to power in the aftermath of the 2022 Sri Lankan economic crisis; the masses disillusioned by the established political parties mobilised around the NPP’s platform. The party’s slogans were mainly critical of the rampant corruption among the established political elite. The political and economic situation that the NPP inherited once in government was extremely complex. The government had to function within the constraints imposed by the IMF Extended Fund Facility programme that the previous government had entered into. Despite leftist critics outside the government urging it to quit the programme, the NPP’s pragmatic position was to maintain continuity and stability while renegotiating terms to ease the burden of austerity on the masses.

The official line of the NPP government is that the country is in a difficult and vulnerable position, and therefore a degree of economic stability should be achieved before considering drastic economic reforms. This cautious attitude is reflected in its foreign policy preferences as well. One principal challenge the government inherited was balancing Sri Lanka’s relationship with the two regional powers – India and China. As the immediate neighbour, India has long been sceptical about Sri Lanka’s ties with China, which had been growing amid the Belt and Road Initiative. Once in government, Dissanayake visited India on his first foreign tour and declared that Sri Lanka would never allow its territory to be used against India’s national security interests.

A trip to China followed this visit. In Beijing, the NPP government entered into an agreement to accelerate the construction of an oil refinery by Chinese company Sinopec in the southern city of Hambantota. With an investment of 3.7 billion dollars, this would bring Sri Lanka significant benefits if it materialises. Despite the JVP’s strong fraternal ties with the Communist Party of China, the NPP government has been careful not to provoke India in its dealings with Beijing.

Gayan Prageet (Sri Lanka), Bitter Kitchen IV, 2021.

Ambivalence in Diplomacy

The pragmatism the NPP government has shown in foreign affairs has led to several controversies. For instance, the government decided to continue a previously existing agreement to send Sri Lankan workers to Israel for employment. Furthermore, the influx of Israeli tourists into Sri Lanka and the government’s decision to grant Israelis visa-free entry, along with some other foreign nationals, sparked an outcry among pro-Palestine activists.

The government justifies these concessions on economic grounds, as Sri Lanka’s weak economy is desperate for foreign exchange. At the diplomatic level, the government has supported various initiatives at the United Nations, including condemning Israel’s actions in Palestine. However, this formal stance sits uneasily with continued economic relations with the genocidal state.

The other factor that has made matters challenging for Sri Lanka is the aggressive foreign policy turn of the second administration of US President Donald Trump. The US Department of State, in a 2025 report on Sri Lanka’s investment climate, described the situation as follows:

‘… The NPP’s commitment to the country’s $3 billion, four-year (2023–2027) Extended Fund Facility IMF program reassured investors, but many remain wary given the NPP leadership’s historically anti-Western, Marxist-influenced ideology.’

The report is also critical of the NPP government’s decision to halt the privatisation of SOEs planned under the previous administration, and its refusal to implement the neoliberal Economic Transformation Act (2024) enacted by the same. In April 2025, during Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ proclamation of tariff increases, Sri Lankan exports were slapped with a 44% tariff. Given Sri Lanka’s dependence on the US market (which accounts for around 40% of Sri Lankan apparel exports), this could have been devastating for the country’s already weak economy. Subsequently, the government negotiated and reduced the tariff rate to 20%.

Mahela ‘Marco’ Manamperi (Sri Lanka), Exodus, n.d.

In the context of the US’ aggressive unilateralism, the NPP government has exercised great caution in commenting on international affairs, likely out of fear of retaliation. For instance, following the recent US aggression against Iran, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry issued a carefully worded statement highlighting the need to respect the UN Charter and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, while avoiding any reference to the US.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka also refused to join a United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning Iran which was sponsored by Gulf states along with more than 130 nations, including India and Pakistan. Addressing parliament, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath called the resolution unbalanced as it only attributed responsibility to one party:

‘… As a country, even though we are small, we took a firm and clear decision that we will not support unbalanced proposals’.

In the aftermath of the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores on 3 January 2026, the Sri Lankan government issued a similar statement emphasising the importance of respecting the sovereign rights of the Venezuelan people without denouncing the US explicitly. However, the JVP, in the capacity of a political party, released a strongly-worded statement condemning ‘the United States of America’s military aggression against the independent and sovereign State of Venezuela and the abduction of democratically elected President Nicholas Maduro’.

Jagath Weerasinghe (Sri Lanka), The Troubled Land, 2025.

The Contradiction

The ambivalence of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy under the presidency of Dissanayake reflects a deeper contradiction within which the NPP government operates. On the one hand, the NPP is led by a political party (the JVP) with a strong left-wing, anti-imperialist background and a committed cadre disciplined along Leninist organisational principles. It is this discipline among cadres that earned the party a reputation as a political force with integrity and incorruptibility.

On the other hand, the government is functioning in an adverse environment, characterised by numerous domestic and external restraints. Being a smaller country in the global capitalist periphery and facing serious economic constraints, Sri Lanka is exposed to significant external vulnerabilities. The ongoing oil price crisis following the war on Iran has worsened the country’s economic burdens. These vulnerabilities require the government to exercise caution and compromise in decision-making.

The openly aggressive behaviour of US imperialism further restrains the autonomy of small and indebted countries like Sri Lanka. A culture of unilateralism is increasingly overshadowing international relations. The situation has become more complicated due to India’s ambiguous position in the international arena. Once a vocal member of the Non-Aligned Movement, India has sought a strategic alliance with the US and expanded relations with the state of Israel under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s failure to condemn the US attack on IRIS Dena, which was in fact hosted by India during a joint exercise, has caused significant outcry within the country. Though not bound by India’s foreign policy preferences, Sri Lanka is also not in a position to totally ignore India in making calculations.

The contradiction between upholding its historical anti-imperialist convictions and balancing geopolitical realities in a hostile international environment will continue to define the foreign policy trajectory of Sri Lanka’s NPP government for the foreseeable future.

Warmly,

Ramindu Perera

Ramindu Perera is a PhD Researcher in International Law at the European University Institute, Florence. He is currently on study leave from the Department of Legal Studies, The Open University of Sri Lanka. He holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law from Lund University, Sweden.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Gulam Mohammed Sheikh (India), Whose World, Mappamundi, 2017.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental Asia.

On 4 March, two days after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and hundreds of others, including over 170 children in a strike on a girls’ school, US nuclear submarine USS Charlotte torpedoed and sank an unarmed Iranian frigate, IRIS Dena, in the Indian Ocean.

The attack on IRIS Dena took place in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone – roughly twenty nautical miles from the port of Galle. Sri Lanka’s navy responded according to international law and rescued 32 sailors, many of whom were admitted to the Karapitiya Hospital in Galle for treatment. The Sri Lankan navy also recovered the bodies of 84 sailors killed in the attack. Leaked cables from the US State Department have revealed that the US is pressuring Sri Lanka not to repatriate the sailors to Iran.

The IRIS Dena and its crew had only days earlier been welcomed as guests of the Indian Navy. The Iranian frigate was struck as it was returning from participating in MILAN – India’s flagship multilateral naval exercise. Days earlier, the vessel had been docked in Visakhapatnam, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, as an invited participant, and took part in ceremonial events, including a parade attended by President of India Droupadi Murmu.

The destruction of an invited naval guest within India’s maritime neighbourhood (by the US military, with whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought closer alignment) raises uncomfortable questions for India. The Indian government’s subsequent silence is striking; by withholding both public condemnation of the attack and condolences for the killed sailors, New Delhi risks self-inflicted humiliation. For a ship welcomed by India to be sunk without a formal response suggests a concerning subordination of regional prestige to diplomatic convenience.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth publicly boasted about the sinking of the Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean. President Donald Trump joked that a US Navy general said it was ‘more fun’ to sink the ship than capture it. The contrast could not be starker. Despite the US violating Iranian sovereignty and expanding its acts of aggression to the Indian Ocean, India has remained silent.

Saleh Kazemi (Iran), Eram Garden, 2025.

Modi’s Acquiescence to Israel

The attack on Iran and the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei began soon after Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel and his address to the Knesset (25–26 February). The nature of the visit was humiliating in itself. Modi was reportedly not invited as an official guest of state but rather as a personal guest of Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, a war criminal for whom an arrest warrant has been issued by the International Criminal Court.

Modi addressed a Knesset session that was boycotted by the opposition, while non-members filled vacant seats. He was also awarded a hitherto non-existent ‘Speaker of the Knesset Medal’ which was concocted specifically for him. He smiled and simpered and proclaimed solidarity with Israel against terrorism, all while Israel and the US were mobilising for a war against Iran. This humiliating behaviour damaged India’s dignity and made it appear complicit in the US-Israeli aggression against Iran.

Iran was attacked within two days of Modi’s visit to Israel. No one can say that India did not anticipate an attack on Iran, which was obvious to the rest of the world. This is a continuation of India turning its back on Gaza in the international arena – always careful not to condemn Israel for its ongoing genocide of Palestinians while expressing support for Israel against alleged ‘terrorism’.

India has come a long way under Modi, from being one of the first countries to recognise Palestine to shamefully abandoning the Palestinian cause and sliding into the embrace of a genocidal Israel. Under the Indian government’s benevolent gaze, India’s top industrialists have taken part in the production of Israeli drones that are used against Palestinians and Iran.

Middle Eastern Posters Collection, The U.S. Can Do Nothing, ca.1980.

India’s Strategic Losses in Iran

Iran has long been a strong friend and civilisational neighbour to India, even as claimed by the current Indian government. However, since the late 2000s, India has downgraded economic relations with Iran in a bid to get closer to Washington.

In 2008, India signed a nuclear deal with the US in return for abandoning Iran’s gas pipelines, a project that would have been vital for India’s energy security. However, the US nuclear deal has yielded little benefit in the field of nuclear energy.

Iran used to be India’s second-largest supplier of oil, but under US sanctions since 2019, Iranian oil exports to India have dwindled to zero. The Indian government has not had the initiative to seek ways to import heavily discounted Iranian oil, as China has done.

Nonetheless, Iran has been a time-tested friend of India. With long-run hostilities involving Pakistan, India’s only viable route to Central Asia has been through Iran’s Chabahar port. Iran has allowed India to develop this port, enabling continued trade with Afghanistan and the wider Central Asian region. Even so, under pressure from US sanctions, India dragged its feet on the port’s development.

The strategic importance of the Chabahar Port project for India cannot be overstated. It offers a route into Eurasia that bypasses Western-dominated maritime chokepoints and traditional trade corridors, potentially giving India greater economic and geopolitical autonomy in its access to Central Asia, Russia, and Europe.

The US recently ended the waiver that had allowed India to fund and construct the port without a word of protest from the Indian government. Chabahar was reportedly bombed on the first day of the US-Israeli campaign. Despite the implications for India’s own long-term strategic and economic interests, New Delhi has chosen to remain silent in the face of attacks on Iran.

Despite occasional statements critical of India’s stance on Kashmir, Iran has often supported Indian interests in various international forums, including by helping to block resolutions pushed by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation that could have led to sanctions against India. Under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose views guided Iran’s foreign policy, Iran had been a trusted friend. Yet, the Indian government did not have the spine to condemn his killing by the US.

Middle Eastern Posters Collection, Advertisement for Gathering of World Liberation Movements, Tehran, 1980.

Shallow and Opportunistic Calculations

India’s complete abandonment of non-alignment, autonomy, and political spine in the face of US hegemony stems from the shallow, opportunistic calculations of the Modi government. More precisely, these are the economic interests of India’s large corporations, which Modi has championed throughout his political career and whose priorities have been the cornerstone of both domestic and foreign policy since he took office.

India’s top corporate monopolies have keenly pursued partnerships with both US and Israeli corporations. With little concern for investing in the development of sovereign capabilities in technology, research, and innovation, these Indian corporations have entered subordinate technological partnerships with US firms as a strategy for their next phase of growth. These corporations seek access to the US market while leaving India’s domestic economy and technological base underdeveloped and impoverished.

The Indian government’s foreign policy and domestic economic strategy have been structured around these corporate interests. The government has been assiduously pursuing a subordinated partnership with the US solely to this end. This relationship of subordination that India has cultivated with the US is certainly not aligned with the interests of its own people.

Middle Eastern Posters Collection, Silhouette of Crowd with Shahada, ca. 1970s–1980s.

A Flawed Strategy

The US acts of aggression against India’s guests, within a maritime zone where India has positioned itself as a net security provider, only underscore that the subordinate partnership is unlikely to yield any benefits for India’s economy, its people, and the broader South Asian region.

Recently, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, speaking in India, did not mince his words when he said that the US has no intention of letting India develop the way China did by leveraging US markets. Trump’s imposition of 50% tariffs, later reduced to 18%, and the push for India to adopt zero tariffs on US goods and stop purchasing discounted Russian oil further illustrates this point. While the US is determined to make India complicit in its international misadventures, it is equally resolved that India should never grow into its own technological and industrial power.

The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a major portion of India’s oil supplies passes, leaves India with only about 25 days of reserves, a serious blow to the Indian economy. On 6 March 2026, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent generously suggested that India could be temporarily ‘allowed’ to purchase Russian oil; after that, India would have to buy US oil at much higher prices. The Modi government appears blindly acquiescent to this economic extortion.

The intellectual hollowness of the Modi government’s economics and politics is increasingly apparent. India’s pandering to US misadventures is not only morally and ethically wrong, but also against the material interests of India and its people. The responsibility falls upon India’s working people and social movements to help India rediscover its spine and stand up for the rest of the Global South.

Warmly,

Bodapati Srujana

Bodapati Srujana is an Indian economist. Her research focuses on agrarian relations, banking, and inequality. She has participated in several studies around India.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Dear friends,

The 2026 elections in Bangladesh have ignited considerable debate. While segments of the middle and upper-middle classes lauded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) symbolic triumph over Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI), the election was markedly more complex than a routine political event. It has raised profound questions concerning the evolving political landscape, referred to as a ‘new settlement’, within Bangladesh.

The election underscored a second phase in the nation’s political development: it effectively served as a referendum on proposed constitutional reforms that have the capacity to modify Bangladesh’s fundamental identity and its secular character by revising the principles established after the 1971 Liberation War.

The regime change in July 2024 was not merely a response to the absence of democracy but a strategic realignment of the state to fulfil the objectives of the grand imperial project, global capital, and geopolitical strategy. The interim government initiated the ‘reset button’ under the guise of reforms and the July Charter.

Any substantive analysis of Bangladesh’s political crisis must take into account militarisation, political Islam, the influence of geopolitics within the framework of neoliberal capitalism, and the class question – especially pertaining to the economic demands and struggles of the labouring populations seeking emancipation from exploitation.

Election Engineering through the State Apparatuses

Election engineering becomes possible when state institutions are politically embedded and lack operational independence. In 2026, election engineering occurred on a massive scale. Administrative neutrality was frequently questioned because the independence of the police and law enforcement agencies remained contested.

The entire police force collapsed during the July political regime change, as police stations were attacked and police officials were killed. Subsequently, the recruitment process under the interim government supported the appointment of individuals ideologically aligned with its mandate to structure the July Reform.

The Election Commission, although constitutionally autonomous, operated within a framework in which appointments, promotions, and institutional authority were influenced by partisan considerations organised primarily by the two main political parties, the BNP and BJI. The secular-nationalist Awami League was not allowed to participate in the election.

Electoral crises and political dynamics were carefully engineered by development apparatuses, including NGOs and the civil bureaucracy, that built Bangladesh’s state. Industrial expansion under private ownership from 1975 to 1990, under military regimes, laid the foundation. Subsequently, the ‘NGOisation’ of development under democratic governments embedded civil society alongside state power in governance.

Joydeb Roaja, Go back to Roots, n.d.

Depoliticising Democracy through the ‘Minus Two’ Formula

Another mode of pre-election engineering is the ‘minus two’ formula, aimed at depoliticising politics by sidelining Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, leaders of Bangladesh’s two main political parties – the Awami League and BNP, respectively. Instead, the 2024 caretaker government promoted anti-corruption rhetoric and good governance, positioning Muhammad Yunus – a pioneer of microfinance and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize – as a capable political leader during the state of emergency.

This project was mobilised by NGOs, donor-backed civil society organisations, and corporate media. Paradoxically, the leadership of two leading NGOs, BRAC (which became a transnational NGO because of its intense involvement in Afghanistan), founded by Fazle Hasan Abed, and Grameen Bank, founded by Muhammad Yunus, are deeply embedded in family power networks. Yunus was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and Abed was knighted by the British Crown in 2010.

The State Department’s annual human rights reports on Bangladesh consistently framed the Hasina government in terms of democratic deficits, providing international cover for the transition. Equally significant was the blocking of Bangladesh’s BRICS membership bid, which would have reduced its dependence on IMF conditionalities – a trajectory that ran directly counter to US strategic interests in the region.

Seen this way, the ‘minus two’ formula is less a reform than a structural intervention. It exposes patron-client NGO networks that drive market reforms and global integration, on the one hand, and, on the other, validates technocratic governance by depoliticising real politics.

Quamrul Hassan, Untitled, n.d.

Political Transition and the Legitimisation of Fundamentalism

Since 1975, Bangladesh’s political economy has been shaped by neoliberal restructuring and strategic alignment with global power structures. Political Islam and military influence have become central to state formation, prefiguring contemporary tensions. From 2024–2026, the imperialist project leveraged opposition to the Awami League as part of a strategy to normalise the religious fundamentalist BJI.

Different social groups – the urban educated middle class, the rural and urban working poor, and Islamist political factions historically linked to the defeated forces of 1971 – expressed dissatisfaction with the governance of the Awami League regime in ways that reflected their societal positions. The urban middle class articulated discontent through liberal political frameworks. Concerns over corruption, institutional inefficiency, graduate unemployment, banking irregularities, and mega-project mismanagement intensified frustration. Lack of transparency in recruitment and promotion, coupled with restrictions on freedom of expression, further fuelled resentment. Many middle-class actors are also beneficiaries of Bangladesh’s NGO-centred political economy. During the July-August 2024 mobilisations, segments of civil society, NGOs, and the intelligentsia acted, in part, from this class position.

Bangladesh’s electoral politics is dominated by majoritarian factions. The Muslim majority, socially and ideologically shaped by Islam, regards faith as central to identity, a dynamic reinforced by political Islam. For decades, political Islam has intersected with civil society networks, partly due to substantial funding to NGOs from USAID and West Asian sources. Meanwhile, sections of zakat and charitable contributions have supported educational expansion through madrasas. Currently, approximately one in three children attend a madrasa, and over the past three decades, the number of such institutions has increased nearly eightfold.

The rehabilitation of BJI was not incidental to this process but central to it. The emergence of Bangladesh was rooted in Cold War anti-colonial movements. The 1972 Constitution and formation of the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League marked a shift to secularism and state-centred socialism.

BJI has a documented history of opposing the 1971 Liberation War, and the party was deregistered in 2013 following a Bangladesh High Court ruling that its charter violated the constitutional principle of secularism. Several of its leaders were convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal for atrocities committed in 1971.

The 2024 transition reversed this: BJI was re-registered and permitted to contest the 2026 elections, and the constitutional reform process has now revised the secular character of the state that was established after 1971. The strategic logic here is not ideological alignment with political Islam but instrumental calculation. A ‘moderate Islamic state’ with BJI as a legitimate political actor serves US regional interests more reliably than a secular-nationalist government with independent developmental ambitions and deepening military ties with China.

The delegitimisation of the Awami League through anti-corruption rhetoric created a political vacuum that BJI, with its organised base in madrasa networks and Gulf-funded civil society, was well positioned to occupy. The 2024 regime change has therefore elevated BJI as an effective and legitimate political party, opening the door to reshaping Bangladesh as a ‘moderate Islamic state’.

Anwar Hossain (Bangladesh), Bangladeshi mime artist Partha Pratim Majumder performing in front of the National Parliament House / Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban. Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka, 1985.

Geopolitical Realignment and the Indo-Pacific Context

Bangladesh occupies a critical geopolitical position. Bordering Myanmar, the country faces a humanitarian crisis involving nearly one million refugees, further complicated by ongoing insurgencies between the Arakan Army and Myanmar’s government.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has made significant inroads in Bangladesh. Through the BRI, and under the Hasina government, Bangladesh independently constructed the Padma Bridge Rail Link Project connecting Dhaka to Jessore, challenging the World Bank and, indirectly, the United States.

According to SIPRI, China supplied roughly 72% of Bangladesh’s arms from 2019 to 2023, making it the second-largest global recipient of Chinese weapons. In May 2024, Bangladesh and China conducted their first joint military exercise, ‘Golden Friendship 2024’, focused on UN peacekeeping and counter-terrorism, alongside a deal to establish a drone manufacturing plant.

The Hasina government demonstrated a capacity to negotiate sustained development through calibrated military partnerships and regional diplomacy. Access to material and financial support from BRICS would have further strengthened Bangladesh’s position, enabling it to sustain growth and secure more favourable terms with the IMF. However, Bangladesh’s inclusion in BRICS was effectively blocked by United States geopolitical strategy in the region.

Zainul Abedin, Muktijuddho, n.d.

Sidelining of the Workers and Peasants

Peasants and workers were largely absent from the 2024 regime change. Trapped between the formal and informal sectors, they gain media attention only when they occupy streets to protest factory closures and face police violence, or when climate displacement forces them to be trafficked and to undertake dangerous migration, such as crossing the Mediterranean from Libya or Tunisia to Europe. This absence was not accidental.

The political transformation of 2024 was structured around the demands of the urban middle class and organised political Islam, not the labouring majority. The case of the port workers makes this concrete. On 8 February, five Chittagong port workers were detained for protesting the interim government’s decision to lease the port terminal to DP World, a Dubai-based logistics corporation with extensive ties to Gulf capital and Western financial networks. Ten days after the election, they remain detained with no political response from the parties that claimed to represent democratic change. Their protest was not about abstract democratic principles; it was about who controls Bangladesh’s public assets and in whose interest. That question is precisely what the ‘new settlement’ was designed to foreclose.

Warmly,

Bidit Dey, Afsana Kishwar Lochan, Azam Khan, and Tashfeen Hussain

Bidit Dey is Professor of Marketing and Head of the Markets Subject Group at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, United Kingdom.

Afsana Kishwar Lochan is a writer, activist, and political analyst with over twenty years of experience in advocacy, social justice, and content creation.

Azam Khan is a political analyst with over twenty years’ experience in research, advocacy, and content creation about the political economy of geopolitics.

Dr. Tashfeen Hussain is an Associate Professor in the Department of Accounting and Finance at the Bissett School of Business, part of the Faculty of Business, Communication Studies and Aviation at Mount Royal University.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.