Read on Twitter
Lee Teng-hui symbolized Taiwan's modern changes, not just through democratization and identity formation, but also as a paradigmatic developmental state technocrat. Through understanding Lee's rise, we can also understand the ROC state and the emergence of Taiwan. A thread: 1/n https://twitter.com/heguisen/status/1288810053445787649
Lee was an agricultural economist in the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, the main agricultural policy making body in the Republic of China. Its policies drove decades of agricultural productivity growth that undergirded the Taiwan economic miracle decades later. 2/n
Lee's specialist position in the JCRR, though low in terms of the bureaucracy, was nonetheless hard fought for, especially due to his being benshengren (pre-49 Taiwanese), which was highly unusual in the exclusionary KMT bureaucracy that favored waishengren ("mainlanders"). 3/n
In JCRR, Lee focused on Taiwan's agricultural economy, publishing several book-length reports using difficult econometric analysis. He argued forcefully for an improvement of the entire economy through a focus on agricultural policies to uplift farmers' livelihoods. 4/n
He went to the US twice for graduate study, first at Iowa State (MS), then Cornell for his PhD in agricultural economics. His dissertation won the American Agricultural Economics Association outstanding dissertation prize in 1969, under renowned ag economist John Mellor. 5/n
The book revised from the dissertation made an important argument that later became orthodox in neoclassical and Marxist economic traditions: that agricultural development was key in producing the capital needed to invest into industrial development. https://books.google.com/books/about/Intersectoral_Capital_Flows_in_the_Econo.html?id=33q6AAAAIAAJ 6/n
Mellor wrote in the foreword that Taiwan offered a model: "first, substantial investment in agriculture and development of the agricultural sector, and then, form that base of agricultural development, major transfers from the agricultural to the nonagricultural sectors" 7/n
What Lee was arguing was novel in 1969 as other models (PRC, Soviet) emphasized an initial investment in heavy industry. An agriculture-first model, followed by Lee's thesis for "intersectoral capital flows" arguably mirrors the paths of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. 7/n
(This coincided w/ influence of Tom Schultz in ag econ and predated his Nobel prize). Lee's work in Cornell put him on a global map. Shen fought to keep Lee in Taiwan, fending off job inquiries from the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East. 8/n
But Lee was not interested in leaving Taiwan, despite the popularity of his research globally, with invitations from the Japan Center for Economic Research (日本経済研究センター) and the U. of Washington, with potential support from the Agricultural Development Council. 9/n
After returning from the US, Lee transitioned his career to focus on the KMT bureaucracy. As a symbol of Taiwan's modernity, Lee's agricultural economic technical background was an asset. U.S. State Department officials noticed Lee's rise with intense interest. 10/n
Note the observation that Lee's lack of promotion despite "being a veritable work horse" likely frustrated him, but also made him a symbol outside the KMT of how anti-benshengren policies delayed for decades his likely well deserved promotion to Division Chief. 11/n
The report also underscores his importance to the young democratization movement, including the editors behind The Intellectual 大學雜誌 that led the later Tangwai 黨外 movement. Of course, Lee later became central in establishing Taiwan's formal democracy as President. 12/n
These were just some of the documents I found on Lee in the course of my book research. If you want to learn more about Lee, I'd recommend checking out Henry Shih-Shan Tsai's biography, which @kerim has quoted below on Lee's early readings of Marx https://twitter.com/kerim/status/1288828253919010817 /end
Quick archival bibliography: many thanks to the archives and archivists at NARA, Hoover Institution, Stanford East Asia Library, and 農委會 (Council of Agriculture, formerly JCRR) for these documents.
