Towards Development: The Yellow River project and UNRRA’s technical assistance to China, 1944–1947

Abstract

This article examines an international endeavour to manage the 1938 Yellow River dyke breach and to bring mechanized farming to the flooded area, as part of the UNRRA China Programme (1944–1947). It reveals why a Chinese Nationalist vision of international aid entailed technical assistance, and how this call for development was received by UNRRA’s multi-national, albeit predominantly American, cadre of experts at a transitional period from war to reconstruction. This article argues that technical assistance is integral to understanding the history of UNRRA and its role in negotiating different visions for the post-war world, especially a developmental one. Development did not emerge as a united concept; instead, the ambiguity created a space for experts with different backgrounds to fit themselves into the post-war programme. Focusing on those recipients and fieldworkers that shaped the UNRRA aid on the ground, it offers a non-European perspective for understanding how development thoughts gained momentum through a post-war programme, leading the way to global proliferation of development projects.