The Work of The Asia Foundation

Abstract

URING THE DECADE since the end of World War II, vast amounts of money have been expended by agencies, national governments, and private organizations for foreign aid. Recently, an increasingly large proportion has gone into the economic development of underdeveloped areas. From this extensive and expensive experience, some general principles are becoming clear, particularly in regard to so-called underdeveloped areas in Asia. Many Asians have long been aware that their societies suffer from severe limitations in the skilled leadership and material resources required to implement their part of development programs. It is equally clear that there is a limited tolerance of any Western goals and methods which may conflict with the cultural patterns of their societies. Certainly most Asians have a sincere desire for peace, human dignity, economic progress, social justice, political stability, and national prestige. But inevitably, and properly, Asians see paths to these goals in a perspective different from that of the United States. This should give Americans no cause for alarm. It is a reappearance, in a different setting, of the individualism and the aspiration for self-determination which is so deeply engrained in the American tradition. Asians have demonstrated, especially for those Americans who sometimes forget their own history, that foreign assistance is most likely to be of real value if it helps Asia's leaders utilize local initiative in familiar ways and to progress toward goals which they readily recognize and accept. If, out of impatience, American experts try to take short cuts, forcing Asians to adopt rather than helping them to adapt Western knowledge and techniques, the United States risks not only a waste of money and effort but a substantial sacrifice of the goodwill which might otherwise be a by-product of cooperation. Experience has also shown that purely economic and military aid alone is not enough-in fact may not always be the most important. Turning deserts into gardens and eliminating yaws are direct, observable physical benefits which the most underprivileged can recognize, but it is not so much the material resources as the national climate-and the individual attitude-which traditionally have made the greatest contributions to progress in the West as in the East. So, international cooperation is not just a oneway flow of men, money, and machines to Asia, for all these are inadequate

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