The Asia Foundation and the Trend of Cold War Era Taiwanese Literature

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to examine the relationship between the Asia Foundation and Taiwanese literature from the perspective of the US cultural Cold War. The paper is divided into three parts. First, the Asia Foundation, a Taiwanese support enterprise, is explored through its depiction in the media. Although a private organization, the foundation operated under the goal of anticommunism in close collaboration with the US government, being actively involved in areas in which it was difficult for the US to directly intervene without drawing the criticisms of neocolonialism and imperialism in addition to inspiring antipathy among intellectuals of aid-recipient nations. According to twenty-years of reports from the United Daily News starting from 1950, the foundation focused on manpower resources and the development of education in order to lay down the basic structure of modern Taiwanese society. This initiative took the form of support for Taiwanese universities and academic institutions, the establishment and solidification of worldwide anticommunist organizations, backing for the overseas community in education and business, exchange programs for rural youth including 4-H clubs, aid for science education and industrial research, assistance for exchange in culture and academia, and a support enterprise, lead by the UN, for city and community development planning. These kinds of activities and aid measures had a broad influence in Taiwanese society including a trend in favor of the US in academia, the cultivation of pro-US public figures, the fostering of pro-US leaders in Southeast Asia through overseas education, education in science and technology, the translation and publication of anticommunist literature, and the exchange of individuals and culture between the US and China in the political and academic world.