Introduction

Some Western leaders such as John Kennedy, Lester Pearson, and Willy Brandt envisaged an “alliance for progress” whereby Western capital and knowledge would soon equip indigenous leaders with the means to fashion reality from their dreams. Economist Barbara Ward argued in 1961 that “the need is to remove the work of world development from the subsidiary attention of the wealthy nations and to make it a central theme of their diplomacy, their international relations, their philosophy of world order.” In his prescient works, The Great Ascent and The Future As History, Robert Heilbroner suggested in 1959 that the supposed efficiency of authoritarian regimes in promoting economic growth would mark “the commencement of a chapter of tragedy and sorrow,” in developing regions. The political repression of 1989 and slowing of the pace of economic growth put the great experiment into question, but few Chinese scholars believed that pragmatic policies could be completely reversed.