The Asian Pacific League for Freedom and Democracy (APLFD), which might be the most long-lived non-profit political regional organization in Asia in modern times, was founded on 15 June 1954, in Chinhae, a southern Korean naval base 30 miles west of Pusan. The League was first named the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League (APACL) when it was inaugurated at the Chinhae Conference, attended by some 30 delegates from eight countries and districts from South Korea, the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan), the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau and Ryuku(Okinawa).
The purpose of the forming of the APACL was to check the expansion of Communism in a disordered world that surfaced after the Second World War. It was hoped that a united Asian effort could help to maintain the peace and prosperity of those free countries in the region. President Syngman Rhee of Korea noted in his opening speech at the Chinhae Conference: “ It is time for the Asians to take a common action for their common security before it is too late”. The founding members of the League believed that the organization of the APACL could further secure their national security under a collective will.
To cope with time, this organization has changed its name twice, first to the Asian Pacific Anti-Communist League in 1984, and then to its present name the Asian Pacific League for Freedom and Democracy (APLFD) adopted in 1990. The League’s founding goal for a peaceful and prosperous Asia has never been changed. Nevertheless, few people expected this organization could survive the time, across the Twentieth Century, and into the Twenty-First Century.
Архів ОУН. - Бібліотека. - Неперіодичні видання. - Asian Bulletin.
