Overview:
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The Asia Foundation (TAF) was established as a Central Intelligence Administration (CIA) proprietary in 1954 with the mission “to undertake cultural and educational activities on behalf of the United States Government in ways not open to official U.S. agencies.”
TAF stresses that it is a non-profit, non-governmental, and non-endowed organization, depending “solely on monetary contributions from donors to accomplish its work.” However, the bulk of its funding comes from grants made by the US government and the State Department, and an annual appropriation from Congress, with some additional support from other governments (OECD members and Asian countries), grant competition, individual donors, multilateral organizations and private corporations and foundations. The Foundation is privately run, and its offices throughout the region are known to have a relatively high level of autonomy. In the post-Cold War era and after a thawing of relations between the U.S. and China, its development strategy has evolved to focus primarily on neoliberal development practices - including liberalizing market reforms and good governance initiatives.
History:
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The CIA created TAF as a means of extending U.S. Cold War policy through civil-societal and cultural channels, and continued to covertly fund the organization throughout the late 1960s, long after they had publicly declared termination of support. It is generally believed that the Foundation served as a cover for intelligence operations while carrying out legitimate development programs at the same time. During the Cold War, TAF development aid was reserved for anti-Communist countries, or for indirectly building resistance against Communism. The Foundation’s interest in Taiwan and South Korea, for example, was based on their function as regional strongholds against Communism. Now, with developed economies and political systems, these countries are less a target for traditional TAF development programs as they are a means of navigating U.S. policy with China and North Korea. In 1997 the Taiwan office of TAF was closed, but several former grantees established the non-profit Asia Foundation in Taiwan (AFIT) in partnership with TAF, largely as a means to deal with China.
Democratic Development in Asia (by Becky Shelly, Democratic Development in East Asia)
Post-9/11
The events of September 11, 2001, dramatically altered the course of U.S. foreign policy in the region - and, by extension, that of funding and development aid. With fighting Islamist terrorism as a top priority and a renewed focus on democratizing reforms, the government saw powerful allies like Russia and the ascendant China in a new light - not to mention Indonesia, the most-populous Muslim-majority country in the world. Former TAF Director William Fuller had the following to say about policy shift in the region after 9/11:
“In terms of geopolitical changes in the region post-9/11, I think they've been dramatic. Look at what has happened to the U.S. relationship with China. Prior to 9/11, concerns about China revolved around its emergence as a tough competitor on the global economic stage and human rights issues. But since 9/11, those concerns have been subordinated to the issue of terrorism and how the Chinese and Americans can work together on the problem. That's quite a change.
Or consider the new attention being given to countries like Indonesia and the Philippines. Prior to 9/11, the U.S. government's aid program to Indonesia was expected to shrink; now it's one of our biggest. Similarly, I think our relations with Mr. Putin and Russia have been put on a better footing since 9/11, and we have new relationships with countries in Central Asia like Uzbekistan that would have been unimaginable a few years ago.”
Development and Democracy in Post-9/11 Asia
(by William Fuller, Philanthropy News Digest)
What it Does:
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Through collaboration with private and public partners, the Foundation oversees research, policy and development programs in areas such as governance, law, civil society, women’s empowerment, democracy/election reform, education and literacy, economic reform, environment and international relations. TAF is headquartered in San Francisco, with an office in Washington, D.C. and 17 offices throughout Asia. In 2007, the Foundation provided more than $68 million in program support and distributed 974,000 books and educational materials valued at $33 million throughout Asia.
2007 Program Highlights
TAF lists the following program highlights from 2007 in its Annual Report for the same year: In Northeast Asia TAF sponsored the 10th annual U.S.-China-Japan trilateral dialogue on regional issues and initiated “two new projects to combat environmental pollution in Northeast Asia;” In Afghanistan, TAF conducted “the single largest, nationwide public opinion poll; in Mongolia they launched “Securing Our Future,” which involved a scientific inventory of the country’s rivers; in Pakistan TAF organized training programs on investigative journalism; in Cambodia, the Foundation developed a national task force against human trafficking; and in tsunami-affected areas in Sri Lanka, the Foundation turned buses into mobile libraries to provide books and much-needed teaching materials; and in Thailand TAF sent volunteer lawyers and paralegals on foot from village to village to help sort out post-tsunami legal problems such as land disputes and missing identity cards. The Foundation also works in lesser-known areas, like Bangladesh, and Timor-Leste, a country struggling to build a post-independence society.
Program Areas
Governance Programs - including conflict management, counter‑corruption, decentralization and local governance, development of central executive institutions of government, legislative development, civil society development, media development, information and communication technology, and Islam and development.
Countries
Power Trips: US-Afghanistan (by Steve Henn, American Radioworks)
2007 Afghanistan Poll
A look inside the Asia Foundation survey (by Carl Robichaud, Afghanistan Watch)
Economic Reform Policies
Economic Reform and Development
(PDF)
Where Does the Money Go:
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TAF claims to have supported more than 1,000 NGOs over the last 5 years
Budget/Funding
FY 2007 $112 million ($71 from government and multilaterals; $4.7 million from corporations, foundations and individuals; $34.5 million in donated books and materials; and $1.7 million non-operating income)
Governments and multilaterals that funded TAF in 2007
Asian Development Bank; Australian Agency for International Development; Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Indonesia and the Philippines; Australian
High Commission, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka; British Embassy, Manila, Philippines; British High Commission, Sri Lanka; Canada Fund; Canadian International Development
Agency; Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade-Canada, Jakarta, Indonesia; Danish Embassy, Bangladesh; Danish International Development Agency;
Royal Danish Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia; Department for International Development, United Kingdom; The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; New
Zealand Embassy, Beijing; Norwegian Embassy, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Indonesia; Royal Netherlands Embassy in
Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, and Pakistan; Swedish Embassy, Bangladesh; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Islamabad, Pakistan; United Nations
Development Programme; United Nations Office for Project Services; United States Embassy, Kabul, Afghanistan; United States Agency for International Development;
United States Congress; United States Department of Labor; United States Department of State; United States Environmental Protection Agency; The World Bank.
Annual Report 2007 (PDF)
Trips/Contributions
In 2002-2003 the U.S.-Asia Foundation spent $113,757.57 to send 7 members of Congress overseas, primarily to China.
43.9% spent on Democratic Party
56.1% spent on Republican Party
Controversies:
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CIA
The Asia Foundation was established by the CIA as part of a broader Cold War strategy to extend operations beyond military and intelligence arenas - into civil society, academia and culture. TAF and similar organizations were a beard for covert operations, but mostly worked on more subtle levels to influence popular sentiment and socio-economic infrastructure in the interest of the U.S.’s anti-Communist policies.
Following inquiries regarding the agencies funding and connections to the U.S. Government from what the CIA termed an “aggressive leftist publication,” Ramparts in 1966, the CIA issued the following Memorandum on its connection with TAF. In part, the document reads:
“It is conceivable that such inquiries will lead to a published revelation of TAF's CIA connection. In the present climate of national dissent and in the wake of recent critical press comment on CIA involvement with American universities, we feel a public allegation that CIA funds and controls TAF would be seized upon, with or without proof, and magnified beyond its actual significance to embarrass the Administration and U.S. national interests at home and abroad. Some immediate defensive and remedial measures are required.”
See Memorandum From the Central Intelligence Agency to the 303 Committee for more information and other State Department Documents regarding termination of CIA funding for TAF - and regarding the continuing funding after a public declaration that CIA support had been terminated.
In a book entitled The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, the CIA’s former Deputy Director for Operations, Victor Marchetti, writes that part of TAF’s objective was to work on the civil-society side of anti-Communist operations by disseminating “a negative vision of Mainland China, North Vietnam and North Korea.” The following is an excerpt from Marchetti’s book:
“Another organization heavily subsidized by the CIA was the Asia Foundation. Established by the agency (CIA) in 1956, with a carefully chosen board of directors, the foundation was designed to promote academic and private interest in the East. It sponsored scholarly research, supported conferences and symposia, and ran academic exchange programs, a CIA subsidy that reached $88 million dollars a year. While most of the foundation's activities were legitimate, the CIA also used it...to recruit foreign agents and new officers. Although the foundation often served as a cover for clandestine operations, its main purpose was to promote the spread of ideas which were anti-communist and pro-American--sometimes subtly and stridently...Designed--and justified at budget time--as an overseas propaganda operation, the Asia Foundation also was regularly guilty of propagandizing the American people with agency views on Asia. The Agency's connection with the Asia Foundation came to light just after the 1967 exposure of CIA subsidies to the (American) National Student Association. The foundation clearly was one of the organizations that the CIA was banned from financing and, under the recommendations of the Katzenbach committee, the decision was made to end CIA funding. A complete cut-off after 1967, however, would have forced the foundation to shut down, so the agency made it the beneficiary of a large 'severance payment' in order to give it a couple of years to develop alternative sources of funding. Assuming the CIA has not resumed covert funding, the Asia Foundation has apparently made itself self-sufficient now.... during the 1960s, the CIA developed proprietary companies for use in propaganda operations. These proprietaries are more compact proprietaries and more covert than the now exposed fronts like Asia Foundation and Radio Free Europe.” (Marchetti and Marks, pp.157-158)
Covert Operations and the CIA's Hidden History in the Philippines (by Roland G. Simbulan, University of the Philippines)
- Table of Contents
- Overview
- History
- What it Does
- Where Does the Money Go
- Controversies
- Suggested Reforms
- Comments
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Founded: 1954
Annual Budget: $112 million
Employees: 450
Official Website: http://asiafoundation.org/
Asia Foundation
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