Oleh: Andri Fernanda

One of the interesting books introduced to me when I took the Study of Southeast Asia class was James Lin’s In the Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan. For me, this book moves beyond treating development simply as a discourse or an intellectual project. Instead, it examines how development was materialized on the ground through agricultural science, rural reform, and efforts to improve rural livelihoods. In doing so, the book shows how agrarian development in Taiwan helped produce a sociotechnical imaginary of modernization, progress, and national strength. In this book, Lin uses the story of Shen Zonghan as an entry point to explore how agrarian development was used as a form of political legitimation by the Guomindang, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang/GMD. The book also examines how Taiwan used the “Taiwan model” for diplomatic purposes and for the development of national identity.

To understand this argument, it is important to place Taiwan’s agrarian development within its longer colonial and postwar history. After Taiwan shifted from being a Japanese colony to becoming the new home of the Republic of China under the Kuomintang, following Japan’s defeat in World War II, Taiwan already had a well-developed agricultural base through irrigation systems, land surveys, and scientific farming during the Japanese colonial period. Therefore, in 1949, when the Kuomintang arrived after losing the Chinese Civil War, it adapted colonial agriculture, which I would call a heritage of the Japanese colonial period, to serve its political and economic needs.

To restore its stability and legitimacy, the Kuomintang government launched a series of land reforms and rural modernization projects, which were supported by United States aid during the Cold War, as Taiwan faced political uncertainty, rural poverty, and food shortages in the early postwar years. Therefore, the collaboration between the Kuomintang and U.S. aid led to the creation of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, also known as the JCRR, which later became a crucial institution in implementing programs related to technocratic development.

Later, Taiwan was seen as a model of capitalist agrarian reform, which offered a peaceful alternative to the violent land reforms in Communist China during the 1950s and 1960s. This became famously known as the “Taiwan model,” which symbolized progress, discipline, and modernity simultaneously. Furthermore, this Taiwan model was also used as a form of soft power to promote anti-communist ideology and, at the same time, to strongly assert Taiwan’s position in a global context.

Surprisingly, in 1971, Taiwan lost its seat in the United Nations, and the ROC government turned toward the Global South by sending agricultural experts, technicians, and development teams to developing countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. These experts and technicians later became commonly known as “straw hat diplomats,” representing Taiwan as a small state that nevertheless had the capability to contribute to global development. Then, the role of Taiwan changed from being a recipient of aid to becoming a donor state during the global development era of the 1970s and 1980s.

From my reading perspective, I believe James Lin is trying to showcase that the long history of Taiwan’s agricultural transformation was not an isolated national story. Rather, it was shaped by transnational exchanges of knowledge, ideology, and power. Therefore, I would say that its transformation gives Taiwan a strong historical position in a global context, especially in relation to colonial legacies, politics, the Cold War, and development discourse.

This discussion also reminds me of the Indonesian context, especially the Green Revolution, or Revolusi Hijau, in the 1970s, since I believe that it had a similar context and pattern. At that time, Indonesia received funds from international foundations, and this intervention aligned with the political purpose of improving food production as a way to reduce social anxiety, which could be used and mobilized by the communist party. The Green Revolution was basically a program to develop agricultural technology to boost food production. Thus, it transformed traditional farming methods into modern ones through technology-based agriculture. This initiative was launched to combat poverty and food shortages caused by rapid population growth during that period. Farmers were encouraged to use new rice varieties developed by the International Rice Research Institute, or IRRI, in collaboration with the government. In essence, agricultural development served a dual purpose: it was an anti-communist project that simultaneously worked to stabilize social conditions.

 

	(Source: James Lin. 2025. In the Global Vanguard: Global Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan. p.107) This picture shows the Taiwanese-trained supervisors teaching soybean planting methods to other Vietnamese farmers.
	(Source: Kompas) This picture shows Soeharto and his wife (Siti Hartinah or Tien Soeharto) in Green Revolution in New Order Era.

 

 

Andri Fernanda Saat ini sedang menempuh PhD in Asian Languages and Cultures di University of Washington, USA. Merupakan salah satu penerima beasiswa Fulbright Scholarship. Pernah mengambil studi S2 Ilmu Sastra di Universitas Gadjah Mada, dan menyelesaikan tesisnya di Monash University, Australia. Merupakan salah satu penerima hibah tesis luar negeri FIB UGM 2016. Ia merupakan dosen Sastra Inggris di Universitas Bangka Belitung. Saat ini ia sedang menyibukkan dan menikmati hari-harinya sebagai mahasiswa sambil mengawasi Mediatikusastra, dan ngopi tentunya.