"Fuel for the Good Dragon": The United States and Industrial Policy in Taiwan, 1950?1965

In the summer of 1965 the Agency for International Development (AID) celebrated a small victory. Ambassador Jerauld Wright formally closed the aid office in Taipei and declared Taiwan the first country to “graduate” from U.S. foreign assistance. After fifteen years and $1.5 billion in economic aid, Taiwan was now a going concern, its growth, according to Wright, “one of the marvels of the present age.” “What has happened on Taiwan is what we want to see happen throughout Africa and Asia and Latin America,” AID chief David Bell affirmed. “Taiwan is an especially impressive case.” American and Taiwanese officials stressed the contrast between Communist failures on the mainland and the Republic of China's successful development through “free institutions” and “private enterprise,” a theme echoed by journalists covering the event. Reader's Digest heralded “Asia's newest economic miracle” and offered Taiwan as “proof of the wisdom of depending mainly upon private enterprise for economic growth.”1