Cold War Asia as a Method

This essay discusses Asia-to-Asia technical aid—the subject that Aaron S. Moore explored through Japan's dam constructions and Nippon Kōei—by intersecting its historical trajectory with the evolution of South-South Corporation, which was once a crucially important political tool of the Global South. I take a critical look at the 1970s when Asian nations emerged as newly industrializing countries and left the Global South. Using Cold War Asia as a method, I call for a deeper historicization of Cold War Asia to resist a simple model searching and such developmentalist discourses as the “from receiver to donor” narrative espoused by Asia's so-called miracle economies.