I have known LKY well for some 45 years, ever since he came to Harvard for a lecture. I have huge admiration and respect for him and can state without equivocation that I consider him one of the most able, foresighted and analytical global leaders of the last half century.
LKY is a beacon drawing you to Singapore to see its breathtaking achievements, but even more, if you’re lucky enough to spend some time with a legendary human being. Whenever he speaks, whether the meeting is large or small, you can hear a pin drop. The reason for all the attention given to LKY is the universal recognition of his powerful intellect, his good judgment, and his strong leadership. He believes in accountability, including accountability for himself. He says what he means and he means what he says.
Indeed, Lee himself had become aware that a younger generation of Singaporeans no longer regarded his views with the same weight and relevance as older citizens who had rallied around him unwaveringly in the country’s tumultuous journey to nationhood.
To him, it is patently obvious that Singapore’s vulnerability as a nation-state makes strong government essential for its existence. To him, it is also obvious that too strong reliance on the state discourages personal effort and erodes the drive to succeed. Hence, the state must not over-provide, but must always have policies that keep the competitive edge keen. These are the “hard truths” that undergird Singapore’s policy choices; and are the facts of life that a young generation must come to grips with, to keep Singapore going.
I did not believe they wanted to invade us, but they wanted to intimidate and con us, so that we know our place at the bottom of the pecking order in the region. We need a sturdy, strong, and capable SAF, not only to defend Singapore but return blow for blow when necessary. If we do not have this strong SAF, we are vulnerable to all kinds of pressures, from both Malaysia and Indonesia.
To have such an SAF, we need a robust economy that is not easily put off-course by external shocks. The economy needs constant renewal of its structure and of the type of industries and services it attracts, those that require higher skills to match a better-educated population. We have bene successful for the present in attracting investments. So we have had to bring in immigrants and foreign workers from Malaysia, China, India and the region. If we do not have these immigrants and foreign workers, the economic opportunities will pass us by. To miss these investments would be stupid. Every major investment strengthens and expands the base of our economy and makes it less likely that we will be badly affected by a downturn in any particular sector.
The economy and defense are closely interlinked. Without strong economic growth, we cannot keep up the kind of 3G SAF, one that every few years has to renew its equipment with new-generation missiles, ships, aircraft and submarines. We need the sea lanes to Singapore to be open; hence a capable navy is crucial.
These are sensitive subjects that we cannot talk freely about because they would provoke our neighbors. But never forget that the more prosperous and vibrant we are, the more the angst of the people in our region.
If we are weak, either in our economy or in our armed forces, we are at risk. We are safe because we are sturdy and robust.
My main message is: If you think I am just playing a broken record, you may live to regret it. I have lived through many economic and political crises in the region and the world. These have crystallized some fundamental truths for me that we forget or ignore at our peril.
Without a strong economy, there can be no strong defense. Without a strong defense, there will be no Singapore. It will become a satellite, cowed and intimidated by its neighbors. The government must be led by the ablest, most dedicated and toughest. The task will become more complex as a more educated and confident electorate believe that Singapore has created a sturdy base and need not be as vulnerable as before. What will never change is that only the best can lead and secure such a Singapore.
Lee would cover topics and terrain as breathtakingly wide-ranging as one would expect from a leader who had, for 50 years, considered it his job to think of everything from macroeconomic competitiveness to social habits, marriage and procreation.
How to make Singaporeans understand that the good life is not theirs by right. That in the real world of nation-states, there are no butlers to pick up after them.
However, it became obvious that the main reason he had agreed to this unprecedented series of interviews was to help strengthen in Singaporeans the survival instinct that he feared would be threatened by the very success of his work. Singapore was a First World country but would always remain vulnerable — “an 80-storey building standing on marshy land,” as he put it.
When one of us moaned that he found such a view rather depressing, Lee’s eyes widened, pausing in realization that he needed to offer hope as well. “Yes, we are in the midst of a volatile region but we are in the center of the world’s fastest-growing region with India and China, and if we don’t grow, we are stupid,” he said by way of reassurance.
More than 90% of Chinese polled said they could accept an Indian or Malay as a PM. “You believe these polls? They say what is politically correct.”
“I’m concerned that Singaporeans assume that Singapore is a normal country, that we can be compared to Denmark or New Zealand or even Liechtenstein or Luxembourg.” Singapore could not afford complacency or wide latitude for experimentation, he argued. “If we ignore those circumstances, we’ll go down the drain.”
While much could be entrenched and institutionalized, certain instincts were difficult to pass on to generations with totally different life experiences. And time was running out.
Many young people regarded Lee as a mythological figure from another era. Distant and detached, feared and revered all at once were the adjectives that came to mind. He was a figure they heard stories about from their elders but never encountered or needed to know in their lives.
He did not conceal his annoyance when he felt that the questions reflected perspectives that he had no patience for.
He recounted how de Gaulle had fought the odds to rouse and rally his people at times of near-defeat. As he talked, his eyes gleamed, he gritted his teeth. He clenched both his hands into fists and his voice curdled in his throat before spilling forth. In that moment, the same fierce determination he showed as a young leader in the 1950s and 1960s when rallying his own people flashed across his face. One remembered all over again that Lee was born a fighter. In that moment too, one could see the scale of the terrain that he pictured himself battling in. Not for him the quotidian concerns of a country content with its creature comforts. This was a leader who had overseen events unfold in grand terms, life and death, danger and escape, success and failure — of a people, of a country. Singapore is not in that moment of epic change. Will it have in its sinews the same fighting spirit as its founding father when that time comes? It is a question only the young can answer.
Some commentators say that you have created Singapore in your image, including “always living in fear of a catastrophe.” Why are you so worried that it could all fail?
Denmark, Sweden can get by with mediocre governments, Singapore cannot. The civil service will go down. If at the core center quality goes down, then in all the subsidiary organizations quality will also go down. You will no longer inspire. Because no man can judge a person accurately if that person is superior than he is. So we never ask somebody who’s inferior to judge. Very seldom does an inferior person say, “He’s better than me.” Once you have weak people on top, the whole system slowly goes down. It’s inevitable.
They stopped sand. Why? To conscribe us. As Mahathir says, “Even at their present size they are trouble, you let them grow some more they will be more trouble.” We’ve got friendly neighbors? Grow up.
Forgive me for saying this: Assuming that I’m just nearly as intelligent as you are, but I’ve lived more than 85 years and I’ve been through all these ups and downs and I’ve spent all my life since the age of 32 figuring out how to make this place work, right?
Why do you think we spent all this effort to solve our water problem until we became specialists in water?
Who’s coming to our rescue because of water? The US? No. We rescue ourselves. Either the media grows up, especially the young reporters, or we’re going to bring up a generation that lives in a dream world of security when none exists.
Do you really believe that? Look, they want to take over the hub status of our airport.
I thought logic would overcome this prejudice when we joined Malaysia, the logic of the altered demography. I was wrong. The Tunku had no intention, none whatever. He was a nice man, he had Chinese friends. But he hand the Malays had to be on top. That’s his vision of social balance.
All my relatives in KL have migrated to Australia; they have given up. But we are here in Singapore and we intend to be permanently here. As long as we’re strong enough and we have an international balance, we will be secure.
That is how rational and pragmatic countries operate. We don’t have to love each other to work with each other. A convergence of interests does not erase emotions but can temper them. Najib is a rational leader. He wants to cooperate with us because he sees the benefits of Malaysia. But he has to deal with the emotions of his domestic ground, just like politicians everywhere.
Yes, in that they’re less able to bully us. No, they will get more resentful. They already say, “We shouldn’t have let them out.”
If I’d known all this turmoil, I might never have entered politics. If you ask me to repeat what we’ve done from 1959 until now — I say no, no, we cannot repeat the outcome.
Without a strong economy, how do you have a strong defense? So, how do you have a strong economy? By maximizing your human resources. Your people, the way they are trained, organized, educated to serve the world’s needs, which means infrastructure, connections, linkages with those parts of the world which will add value to our lives. Second, we leapfrogged the region because they wanted to squeeze us. We brought in multinationals.
I didn’t understand all this when I started. I was British-trained and the British were structured in a different way. They don’t go for change, but stick to tradition. The Americans innovated. Why did I learn? Because I had to make this society produce results, then we will become prosperous, then we can have a strong defense, and the world has a place for us. If you believe we’re like Norway or Sweden or Denmark, then we won’t survive. Singapore is an 80-storey building on marshy land. We’ve learnt how to put in stakes and floats so we can go up for another 20, maybe over a hundred storeys. Provided you understand and ensure that the foundation is strong. Crucial is interracial, interreligious harmony. Without that, quarrelling with one another, we are doomed.
- Can a vulnerable country afford political dissent?
- When you say I should loosen up and then allow an opposition, just look around you and see, which country in SEA or South Asian has reached a steady state where they swop governments and life goes on? You show one to me.
The Chinese and Indian immigrants will think, “Better go back, or hop on to America or Australia, because Australia is further away from this volatile area. Best of all, go to America.” Even Singaporeans may start thinking like this.
I had to read them when I was PM, but I’m not any longer. I look ahead for over-the-horizon problems and opportunities.
I said, look, let’s build up relations with China, and let’s build up relations with India, let’s increase ties with the Gulf. Russia, that’s far away but we try to get closer, they have oil. These are going to be additional motors to drive us forward. Recently, I told the Malaysians I’ve got those opportunities, so do not believe that I have no choice but to invest in Malaysia. You want Singaporeans to invest here, you’ve got to be constant, you cannot be fair weather today, rain tomorrow and stormy the day after, and then back again to fair. These are long-term investments. They understood me.
He also sees a more sinister reason for Western diatribes against Singapore — an unspoken fear that it could prove to be a viable alternative model for emerging countries, especially China.
During his fabled 1992 tour of the South, Deng threw down this gauntlet to the party: Study and surpass Singapore.
Lu’s book catalogues the secrets of Singapore’s success: incorruptible government, able and honest leaders, a disciplined workforce, and policymaking focused on longterm good rather than short-term gain.
All liberalizing autocrats have believed that they can, like Lee, achieve modernity but delay democracy. But they can’t. Other than the oil-rich Gulf states, Singapore is the only country with a per capita GDP of over $10K that is not a democracy. It is an obvious exception to the rule and one that will not last.
Lee also sticks to his government’s line that is is not its job to ease Singapore towards a two-party system and ensure a less traumatic handover if that came to pass. After all, his party had clawed its way up from the ranks of a rowdy opposition, succeeding against the colonialists and leftists in its own nest.
Lee believes that the same kind of pitched battle is possible in today’s Singapore. Any opposition party can challenge the PAP and knuckleduster its way into power. The worthy will prove themselves in conflict. Contrary to what the critics claim, the opposition’s main problem has nothing to do with the state of civil liberties. It is that the PAP has left no stone unturned. Any credible opposition would not be able to come up with a truly alternative platform because if it were made up of smart people who want to do what is best for Singapore, it would arrive at similar conclusions to that of the PAP’s, he said.
What does it take to be a politician, we asked. His answer, without a moment’s thought: “You must have convictions. If you don’t have convictions, you are going in for personal glory or honor or publicity or popularity, forget it.”
This place is like a chronometer. You drop it, you break it, it’s finished. Some countries, you get a second chance, you buy spare parts, you put it back again. I’m not sure we’ll ever get a second chance.
If liberal democracy is so superior it will take over the world just like the market economy.
The key features we have kept are, first, separation between the bureaucracy and Parliament and the political leadership. Second, every 5 years, there’s a free vote. So if any party comes in, it will find itself with a functioning system. We have created a system whereby if Singaporeans believe we’re unfit to govern, they will vote us out.
By nature I’m not a person who’s tied to theories. Theories should evolve from practice. A theory has to be tested. I don’t believe that democracy is the best form of government for all countries and will spread throughout the world. If it is, why are the Western countries so keen to force it down peoples’s throats?
The Chinese have a different position, more in keeping with what happens in the animal kingdom. I’m successful, I’m powerful, I multiply. You’re weak, you’re no good, you’re sterile. You have no women, I have a harem. The net result is, the next generation, many get their genes from the bright and the energetic. The Chinese emperor at the end of every imperial examination, once in 3 years, chose the top scholar, the zhuang yuan, to marry his daughter. It didn’t matter whether the scholar married any number of concubines after that. The emperor wanted the royal family to be infused with good genes.
It’s because the electorate is now more stratified into working class, upper working class, lower middle class, upper middle class and the entrepreneurs and the very wealthy. So their interests are more variegated. But back then, survival was key. So I was able to change the laws. I decided, for example, all sea fronts can be reclaimed without compensation to your land, otherwise we wouldn’t have had the reclamations that we had. If we had to pay compensation to the owners, our development would have been aborted. I changed the rules.
- It’s a fairer system.
- Is it? Without the basic stability of everybody having a home and a stake, would your property be worth anything in a situation of infractions and contentions, and would we get new investments?
Samuel Huntington says some cultures do not receive democracy well. He singled out the Orthodox Christians, the Muslims. He said Japan is an exception. But I’m not sure Japan is an exception. Their democracy is a very special democracy. It’s father to son, very much the old samurai tradition. So the faction leaders are like the old samurai heads. I’m not sure that they are going to become, as he said, a liberal democracy which is a la America. We have built up a democratic system which suits us.
One man, one vote puts the minorities in a captive position, as it could happen to minorities in Singapore. We understood that and we prevented that from happening constitutionally and by policies. Otherwise, we’ll end up with the equivalent of the Tamil Tigers situation. The same has happened in Xinjiang too.
No. The greatest attraction is, you can change governments without violence. In China, the greatest disadvantage was that you can only change governments by rebellion, qi yi. Qi yi means righteous uprising. That means the ruler has lost his mandate and deserves to be overthrown. Here, we can be voted out if we are no longer fit to govern. If we’re voted out, the system is still working. It is our duty to ensure that. And the elected president is to add another layer of safeguard to give the country a chance for recovery.
Historically America has been a single dominant culture, the product of the original British settlers and successive waves of immigrants have assimilated into the culture while also modifying it. Its key elements have been European heritage, English language, Christian religion, Protestant values. Ethnic, regional, racial and other subcultures existed within this overarching dominant culture in which virtually all groups share.
This is his intellectual critique. He may be right, he may be wrong. But he believes sincerely enough to put it down in writing.
The standard answer is that Americans are united in their commitment to political principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other documents and often referred to as the American Creed, liberty, enterprise. Most Americans do adhere to these values. Those values however are the product of an original unifying culture and if that culture disappears, can a set of abstract political principles hold this society together? The experience of other societies that were united only by political principles such as the USSR and Yugoslavia is not reassuring.
He doesn’t mention the Hispanics but he’s warning the Democrats, Al Gore and Clinton, “You’re barking up the wrong tree. You must assimilate these peoples into your culture, not allowing multicultures. Multicultures, they will outnumber you.”
- Doesn’t the fact that they gave PC answers give you hope that they aspire to this multiracial ideal that you yourself have set out?
- You know as well as I do that there are certain areas where you say one thing as a principle, it’s another problem when you have to make a choice. It’s not easy.
Well, they were hammering us for not following their prescription of what a democracy should be: their liberal democracy in America. So I answered, there are many forms of democracy. We create a constitutional framework which suits us, the needs of our people and their basic values. I was talking of the Confucianist societies. In India, you criticize anybody and everybody. Two Indian litigants are in court and you can be sure they are there for a long time because it’s part of the culture. You have two Chinese for a one-week trial, by the second day they say, “Suan le.” Settle it. So, in China if you can demean a leader, and that leader puts up with it, that means he’s no good.
You’re just reflecting the views of the Western-educated intelligentsia that we need an opposition so it can take over the government. There’s no chance of the opposition having enough capable people to take over. It’s as simple as that. We can’t find enough good people to run the government, we are constantly looking for such candidates. You can see the quality of the people that Low Thia Khiang has found. He’s tried very hard.
You may or may not believe me, but I’m no longer the decision-maker. Yes, I have influence. Yes, I make them pause and think again. But they make the decision because it is they who will have to carry the ground and be responsible for the future. I tell them that I no longer have the same feel.
Do not believe for one moment that we’ll always carry the workers. We only carry them if they feel they’ve had a fair deal whether in a downturn or an upturn. They say we give out goodies. Every government does what it can to win over the votes nearer election time. We don’t want to do it too early because people forget. But if you do not give them a better life and their children the hope of a better future, we won’t persuade them to support us. It’s as simple as that.
In fact, in several cases I said, “No, I don’t think we should make this person a minster, he doesn’t measure up.” But they went ahead. But these people don’t have the temperament. One shook hands with fishmongers and then washed her hands. You’re going campaigning, you have to go to hawker centers, shake hands. At the end of the day, you wash your hands with soap and water. But if you do that in public, you lose that sense of empathy.
The weak point is that there are not enough good people willing to go into politics. But for the inflow of foreign talent, we haven’t got enough good people to run the economy. You have about one thousand in each cohort to spread over in the administrative service, defense, police and professional services. They are spread very thin. What counts? First, integrity. Second, commitment. Third, ability. And fourth, most important, a capacity to expound and carry people with you.
We took Ng Eng Hen and Vivian Balakrishnan out. They’re a success. But what a waste. They spent many years as a cancer surgeon and as an eye surgeon. So much better if they had from the beginning done economics and business administration.
It’s a serious problem. If we don’t have the economy going, the burden on Singaporeans who are working will be so heavy that many of the talented will migrate.
The opposition, a thinking opposition, will find Singapore’s choices finite. We’re not America or Australia in ratio of population to resources.
- Worldwide, too, you’ve had this wave of young people desiring change. Do you see that sort of tide sweeping over Singapore?
- In Singapore, change to what? It comes with time. If there’s a change, a plausible alternative, yes. But you can see the alternative is not plausible. People come back from abroad, they say, “Absurd to pay the ministers so much.” But they cool down very soon. Why? You’re making this much in the private sector. You expect these ministers to stay for 20 years and sacrifice their families? Sacrifice themselves? Maybe they’re prepared to. But sacrifice their families? They need to provide for their families. We have to be practical.
It’s a divide between the successful and the less successful which happens in every society. The successful have forgotten that without the peace and stability that made their education, their job or the business opportunities possible, they would never have made it. But having made it, they think they make it on their own. They don’t owe the government or society anything. They are bright chaps, but how did they make it? Because we kept a balance in society. With peace, stability, we built up our education system and enabled the brightest to rise to the top. Even those who are less bright were given the opportunities to go as far as they can.
He said every 3 years we have a new generation, a change in mindset. That’s America because it’s a fast-changing society. In our case, probably every 10 years.
People take what they have as a new base. 10 years from now, they take all these as a given. They believe that will always be there, they don’t need to make any effort. I don’t think they understand that there was a lot of hard works and planning before we got there, and a lot of effort has got to be put in to keep it like that.
The blacks in WW1 were carriers of the ammo and so on. WW2, they fought together. The came back to America, the blacks went back to the slums, the whites went back to the suburbs. Now, have they made enormous progress?
Well, George W. Bush survived the intimidation. He survived Al Gore. Second time he survived John Kerry. John Kerry and Al Gore both brighter than him but he had good coaches, Karl Rove. So he got through.
Look, I’ve lived long enough to know that nobody settles the future of his country beyond more than a decade or so of his life.
Part of the team is in place but you need a leader. You need somebody who can communicate, who can mobilize people, move people. It’s not enough to have good policies. You’ve got to convince people. That’s one reason I am making fewer speeches. I want them to fill the gap.
If we don’t allow constitutional change, we will have a revolution. Either you have revolution by consent, or you have a revolution by violence.
I do not see the CCP, however it transform itself — unless a very unusual generation take charge — considering losing power because China has never had an evolutionary change. Deng Xiaoping tried to formulate within the party an orderly change of leadership. Usually in China, as in Russia, it’s skulduggery and violent struggle for succession. Under the existing circumstances, I do not see them surrendering power through either a referendum or elections. India is the other extreme. Every dissident province is allowed to go its own way. Boundaries of states are continually redrawn from British days to include people of the same language into the province. Any other way, India would have fallen apart.
Why should you go and take up arms when you can change it by persuasion? If you believe your cause is right, we are not going to stop you. We’re not going to stop you from publishing your newsletter, we’re not going to stop you from holding indoor meetings.
Small base, highly organized, very competent people, complete international confidence, an ability to engage the big countries. We lose that, we’re down. And we can go down very rapidly.
If you lose, they’ll pull our fingernails out and brainwash us and we know that and they make no bones about it. That’s number one, you must have the convictions to want to do it and do it not for glory but because you feel you have to do this.
How could I tell the people, “I’m tired, get somebody else to do this?” I was responsible for this. I had to see it through. I’ve done it and seen it through.
Did I expect we’ll be so successful? No, because I could not predict how the world would develop, but I knew that if we seized every opportunity, we will progress with the world. If there is no outer world and we are dependent on the region, we’ll be down several stages. But we leapfrogged, first by linking up with Britain, Europe, America, Japan.
Then in the 1980s we saw China. I was convinced they were going to grow big. By 1982-83 I could say that with confidence. So we started to develop and cultivate our links with China. The effort has paid off. India too. It is a big country, we better have a balance. So we got 2 extra boosters. Then we got the oil states in the Middle East and we have started engaging Russia in a small way. I don’t think we can be what we are without all these external links.
No, thank you, I’ve got to go back. This is my country and my obligation and I do not want to be somewhere where my contribution doesn’t make a difference.
That was my intention. If the new PM fails, I have failed. Mahathir never thought that way. He undermined his successors.
They can’t just take a course in leadership for 6 months. They have to work together and understand this is the way it can work in Singapore. So there’s no glitch when the leadership transition takes place. But I tell them frankly, they have to make the decisions in the light of the international situation that has changed and the domestic mood and a younger generation that’s different.
So when I meet them face to face, I say, how long have you been in Singapore, what do you know about Singapore? I was born and bred here, I live here. Are you better qualified than me to decide what works for this country? How many hours a day do you spend thinking of Singapore? I’ve said that once and after that, nobody wanted to take me on. No, I just chewed the interviewer up, without being rude. He was interested in a peripheral way, just to knock me down in the interview. This is my life and the lives of people who have entrusted me with this responsibility.
I did some sharp and hard things to get things right. Maybe some people disapproved of it. Too harsh, but a lot was at stake and I wanted the place to succeed, that’s all. At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.
They listened to him. He doesn’t talk very much, but when he talks, they listen. And they say, this man knows what he’s talking about because he’s got a first-rate understanding of security issues. George Yeo too doesn’t talk nonsense. So foreign leaders and ministers see him and they take him seriously.
The two men fall into a long list of opponents Lee took on over the decades. They were hardly the toughest of enemies but he sought to demolish all of them with the same determination. Many often recoil at this streak of Lee to crush his opponents thoroughly and seemingly without mercy.
Of course, yes. I have said if we have a credible First World opposition, we’ll treat them with First World civility. That’s that. But that doesn’t mean we don’t demolish you. I mean, you look at Tony Blair and David Cameron, each was trying to demolish the other, well, politely.
- If there were an emerging opposition politician, who among the current ministers would be able to handle them the way you did?
- No, they may not deal with them in the way I do but they will deal with them effectively. Everybody has his style and that style is partly innate, partly experiences you’ve gone through. I would not have been so robust or tough had I not had communists to contend with. I have met people who are utterly ruthless. I say, all right, it’s a street fight, either you lose or I lose and that’s that.
He defined the media’s role early in office. He said that the freedom of the media “must be subordinated to the overriding needs of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.”
We started off on a fundamentally different basis from the Western media. First of all, the Western media never started in this way. It’s the freedom of the owner to hire and fire people, to purvey his views. Even today, Rupert Murdoch, if you take a line which he doesn’t agree with, you’re fired. So you find The WSJ slowly changing its stance. It’s an exaggeration when they talk about a free and independent media. Rupert Murdoch decided to back Tony Blair because he was in favor of enterprise and against state control of enterprises. So all Murdoch’s papers swung in favor of Tony Blair.
I don’t think we’re going to have the same problems as Malaysia because their press lost credibility. The position of the media on TV and in print was so divorced from reality that people look for alternative channels. So bloggers, opposition newspapers fill up the space.
The Western media will always take that line because they believe theirs is the acme of perfection and that anything that deviates from that and is successful must be knocked down. If we were failures, why do they worry? But we are successful.
Once you have the right of reply, then the journalists no longer appear so clever. If they write something and the other side cannot reply, they sound very clever. But when they write and they get rebutted in a succinct and acerbic manner, then they look very small.
Let’s make no bones about it. I carry my own hatchet. If you take liberties with me, I’ll deal with you. I look after myself because when you enter a blind alley with the communists, only one person comes out alive and I have come out alive. So, I’m not afraid of going into an alley with anybody, let alone the foreign press. What can they do to me? Can they influence my votes? They can’t.
In 1984, Parliament approved the Non-Constituency MP scheme, under which the “best loser” among the opposition candidates would get a set in the House. Lee justified the scheme as one that would raise the quality of debate, improve transparency and persuade young voters that an opposition was unnecessary. Critics derided it as a “second-class MPs” scheme and a trick to perpetuate one-party dominance by persuading voters that the opposition didn’t have to win for Parliament to become more plural.
Using personal lives to make a political point is a choice weapon in Lee’s arsenal of persuasion, one he deployed to good effect when he turned to the camera crew during our interviews in politics and ask them:
“You have a home?”
Had the value of her flat appreciated? Yes, by $60K. One of his security officers had his Sengkang flat go up in value by $200K, Lee said.
Then the point was made: “What country in the world upgrades your property and increases your net worth? But we do it. Why? That’s our political compass. Give every man or woman an asset.”
That, said Lee, was the reason behind the PAP’s success. “Now, if you want to know our longevity, what’s it based on? Credibility. And everybody has a stake.” The promise of affordable housing fulfilled in a nation of homeowners.
Lee’s obsession with finding talented leaders stemmed from the belief that Singapore’s unique circumstances, or vulnerabilities, require people of high calibre to manage or even overcome them. “Leaving Singapore in the hands of mediocrities would be criminal. If we do not have a government and a people who differentiate themselves from the rest of the neighborhood in a positive way and can defend Singapore and its rights, it will cease to exist.”
The Chinese, Lee argued, have scores of bright young hopefuls queueing up for governmental jobs, all of whom have impeccable academic pedigrees and technocratic mettle. Singapore has just one or two who make the cut. There is not enough talent to make even two teams of able ministers, a critical reason behind the lack of a credible opposition in Singapore, according to Lee.
But the critical question is: What is this “talent” that Singapore’s leaders must possess? Lee admitted right of the bat that it is not enough to find people who graduate summa cum laude from Ivy League universities, or top surgeons and lawyers. It is certainly not enough to be a good orator or popular at the polls. The government uses Shell’s method of selecting its executives and looks for character, motivation and “helicopter quality,” or the ability to assess situations through analysis, sense of reality and imagination. “Talent” therefore takes in not only raw academic or professional success, but also the fuzzier concept of having the “right” personality and outlook. Integrity and honesty are vital.
After the criteria comes the process. And here, even critics agree that the government’s search for talent is rigorous and systematic, though the actual steps remain behind closed doors. High-flying professionals in the public and private sectors are handpicked and “invited to tea,” a euphemism for the first step in a grueling schedule of interviews that draw out the “inner core” of a person. Leadership hopefuls are brought before both Cabinet ministers and the party’s Central Executive Committee to test their mettle. Hefty dossiers are compiled on all; some endure 6-hour psychological tests and are probed on highly personal matters, such as their faith and marriage. They are pushed to say how they would grapple with moral dilemmas over their most deeply held values. The emotional interrogation was “very direct,” one failed candidate said. It left him feeling “exposed.”
After all the hoops they go through, are those who survive the kind of leaders that Singaporeans want? One crucial missing element for some is the electoral test, where candidates have to prove themselves before the voting public.
Singapore’s systematic and painstakingly planned political succession sharply contrasts with succession in most of the Third World where, because of lack of political institutionalization, political will and planning, succession changes often have been abrupt, disorderly and destabilizing, with unpredictable outcomes.
An emotional estrangement, she felt, had arisen between the leaders and the led. Interviewed 15 years later, however, she conceded that Singapore’s leaders are now “very visibly” friendlier and gentler with ordinary folk: “A kind of arrogance was their original stance when I wrote the article. No more now. Politically, it’s no longer expedient to be so.”
In 2008, more than half of scholars lived in private property, compared to 20% of the general population.
Indeed, some in Lee’s first Cabinet took issue with the nature and pace of renewal for just these reasons. They had wanted party activists who had rolled up their sleeves and done their time at the grassroots, not handpicked unknowns.
Lee is clear though that political cream does not just rise to the top. It needs to be sieved and strained, from a much bigger vessel than the party cauldron. You need to do it systematically and you need to scour the professions for it. This way, you also deprive the opposition of this cream. You do not leave succession to chance, you plan. Lee draws an object lesson from the democratic disasters in neighboring countries, where corruption, crass populism and deep divisions in the population have led to weak governments, policy flip-flops and, in some cases, total collapse.
Even in China, which pays ideological lip service to egalitarianism, many second-generation leaders are relatives and acquaintances of the country’s founding fathers. There is no truly egalitarian leadership anywhere in the world, Lee stated categorically.
Besides, he is adamant that having sterling academic grades or a good pedigree is not enough; even the most “elite” member of Singapore’s leadership has to be tested in action. Ultimately, leaders have to deliver the economic goods and earn their legitimacy at the polls. There are also different definitions of success, depending on what the leader’s mandate is: A grassroots leader has to be in touch with the ground, a PM has to be a good communicator.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan also underscored the painstaking nature of policy formulation. Policy is not rubber-stamped by governmental yes-men, he said. It undergoes a long period of internal debate among civil servants and, often, across several ministries. “Ideas are a dime a dozen, but turning an idea into an effective policy that achieves its purpose takes many man-months of careful analysis, evaluation of options, critical assessment and many rounds of refinement,” he said.
Accusing civil servants of “a particular brand of Singapore elite arrogance” and “believing our own propaganda,” he said that unless Lee “allows serious political challenges to emerge from the alternative elite out there, the incumbent elite will just coast along. At the first sign of a grassroots revolt, they will probably collapse.”
But Lee is unshakable in his conviction that he and his successors have worked out the best — if not the only — way, for the present, to find the right people to run Singapore. PAP leaders point to their repeated success at 11 general elections and the country’s sterling economic and social achievements as irrefutable proof.
In the end, it all boils down to that amorphous thing that both Shell and the PAP government look for in their leadership interviews: “sense of reality.” Singapore’s heirs are selected for having more or less the same sense of reality as the incumbent leadership. Therein lies the fundamental groupthink of which the PAP leadership selection stands accused. To Lee, this is not a problem. Singapore cannot afford to have leaders who do not share the same view on how to manage the country’s existential realities: its ethnic fault lines, its geographical vulnerability and its open economy.
We have a population of just over 3M. Every year, we have about a hundred people of quality, with potential leadership qualities. Of them, you’ll end up with 20, 30. We scour every profession, every business, but to succeed in politics, you’ve got to come in when you’re still in your 30s or early 40s, when you’re not too set in your ways or you cannot empathize with people — go canvassing, shake hands, kiss babies and so on.
We are so short that in 2001, we took 3 doctors; each of them was at the top of their profession.
Over the years we found that whatever the field, whether it’s GE, IBM, Microsoft, the leader is somebody who’s got several basic qualities: high IQ, yes, necessary, but that’s only one fragment. EQ, leadership, stamina, determination, resourcefulness, and a host of other features, which eventually manifest themselves in your success in your profession or your business.
You show me one. How is the American presidential candidate selected? From the bottom up? No. From within the elite of the Democratic Party and the elite of the Republican Party.
Temasek executive director Ho Ching says it’s time for her to move on. Who’s the successor? At this point, nobody from inside the organization is ready to take over the job of managing this complex portfolio of companies. So Temasek had to look outside for a successor.
In China, when they have to promote a person as foreign minister, they have 3 or 4 candidates, all of equally great ability. But that’s 1.3B people. The rejects of Beijing University could score a first class in our university.
The Chinese system is even more selective and meritocratic than ours because they don’t fight elections. So they ignore that EQ part. We have to get people who can fight elections and win. You can have all those qualities to lead, but if you can’t fight an election and win, keep close to your constituents and win again, you’re of not much value.
So you’ve got to come in early and learn how to get on with people. Our system is, we throw them in at the deep end of the pool. If they can’t make it, we fish them out. In the private sector, you don’t have to win elections. Once you satisfy your higher-ups, you’re OK. The same applies in China. All those who’ve worked with us in Suzhou where they succeeded, are now in high position in Beijing and other provincial governments. It is your performance that counts.
They don’t understand. Experience pushed us slowly towards understanding that leadership is a conglomerate of qualities and leaders require the same qualities in almost any field, whether you are a general, a politician, a CEO or chief editor.
A reality is, however you start, however open and meritocratic the system is, as you develop, the population gets assorted and stratified. People get educated, the bright ones rise, they marry equally well-educated spouses. The result is their children are likely to be smarter than the children of those who are gardeners.
One of the reasons the Germans believe their general staff is so successful is because any general you put in charge of a front, he will fit with the other generals.
If I were the PM, I’ll be in the nitty-gritty, looking at the figures, saying, “Can we afford this?” Or, “If this carries on 3, 4 years, what will happen? I’ve got to study the details.” The immediate pressure is not the same anymore.
They’ve all gone to business school or studied public administration. There are few systems which they have not read up. But my lessons were learnt in the streets. This is a different generation, that’s all.
You must be prepared to go against it when you are convinced that you are going in the wrong direction. You must be prepared to say, “No, this is wrong. We must reverse.”
The benchmark salary for political office holders and top civil servants was set at two-thirds the median incomes of the top 8 earners in 6 professions: lawyers, bankers, engineers, accountants, chiefs of MNCs and local manufacturers.
Cheaper than one F15 fighter aircraft.
Throughout, Lee has defended the policy stoutly, as one that deters corruption and makes up for the sacrifices of office-holders. As for the argument that public office is about honor, not money, he has one word for it: hypocrisy. Politicians in Britain and the US positioned themselves to profit handsomely later with book deals, lectures and consultancy services. It often led to leaders preoccupied with crafting “exit strategies.” Do you want that system?
Do you make a good minister the first time you’re a minister? No. You make a good minister after 2 terms. Then you understand Singapore, you understand the people, you understand the workings of government, you understand what is possible. Why do we pay them high wages? Because otherwise you serve half a term and you say, “I’m off.”
The PM is a CEO of a team and he’s got to make that team work. And the team costs less than 0.02% of GDP or less than what Mindef has to pay for one F15 fighter aircraft.
It is people’s expectations — office is for honor. It is not. To do it for one term is an honor.
You need to be in a different country, then you come to understand how unusual it is. We’re in this part of the world where “money politics” is the culture, we’re not in Europe, nor Australia or some region where different political cultures prevail, different standards of living and different population to resource ratio.
You can take the communist approach, you are worth this much, I decide you’re cadre class 1, class 2, class 3, class 4. As Class 1, you are entitled to go to this top shop, this top hospital and so on. That system collapsed when all shops were flooded with goods but you need money to buy. Money was the determining factor whether you had or you did not have the things you wanted. Immediately the officials said, “I give you this license, you can make millions. You give me some of that.” So corruption set in. That’s how the Russian officials became corrupt, so too Chinese and Vietnamese officials.
We have not become corrupt. Once we are corrupt, we are finished.
If they’re quality people, they have no trouble going out. If you’re successful as a minister, you have no trouble going out. This is a small community. At the very top, you have no more than, say, if you get a Who’s Who list of CEOs, COOs, CFOs, chairmen, deputy chairmen, maybe about 3,000 people. You just pick up your phone and ask, “You know this chap? What’s he like?” There are headhunters who know the quality of every outstanding person.
My generation did it because we had prepared ourselves to give up everything. We staked our lives to do what we believed in.
Can a successor generation do that? No. They now have many options.
He realized that if capable men like him didn’t come in, Singapore would collapse. Then what would happen to his business? But in today’s environment, a Lim Kim San will say, “No, no, leave me out of this. I’m not the speechmaking type, I don’t like to go around kissing babies.” That’s that. The situation has changed. They see no reason why they should make this sacrifice.
The prospective Public Service Commission scholar is one of the most carefully scrutinized 18-year-olds in the world.
In less than 50 years, Singapore has gone from a port hub in the Straits of Malacca to an international business and financial center, as well as a cutting-edge manufacturing destination. Can it produce a pharmaceutical giant that can invent Warfarin? Probably not, said Lee. But it can adapt the drug for use in Asia, one of the fastest-growing markets in the world for pharmaceutical products. These are fields where Singapore can contribute, he concluded. It should know the practical limitations of its economy’s small size and limited resources.
Lee’s curt answer was to get real. “They economists who say that have not sat down as we have, for the last 40 years, working out the different variables, the size of our market, the level of our technology, the entrepreneurial skills available, and what is the alternative.”
For smallness is a big problem, at least according to Lee. There is a limit to what Singapore and other small nations can achieve, and they must know their place in the economic world order. With a small population, Singapore is not likely to produce a global manufacturing champion or have enough talented private sector CEOs.
Forget wanting to grow a Microsoft or a Sony from within, because the success of a place like Singapore must depend on the outside world. You told Lee that this sounded depressing but he declared, “I am not depressed by this. I am realistic. I say these are our capabilities, this is the competition that we face and given what we have, we can still make a good living provided that we are realistic.”
Singapore’s problem was that it had only gone through a “quasi-industrialization,” building an economy based on servicing MNC masters. Today, some economists reprise that point, and talk of a “brittle” Singapore economy that could be “here today, gone tomorrow.”
In his almost Darwinist take on the issue, he argued that the forces of globalization would see larger and more powerful MNCs eliminate their smaller rivals over time. Key ingredients in the success of these supersized behemoths are innovation and talent, both of which are functions of a country’s population size.
This is why countries like Singapore lack the critical mass to produce global manufacturing champions, and should not even try.
On the other hand, the potential of some of the world’s largest economies seems limitless to Lee. Japan (127M) and South Korea (49M) have the sort of numbers to compete in the big league, and he was convinced that the US (310M) would recover from its current economic troubles.
Singapore has been, and will always be, an interlocutor, he said. “We provide superior environment and superior services. Without that, we are finished.”
For that reason, Singapore has chosen to assiduously invest instead in key elements of its supporting services sector, such as growing an international financial center and ensuring excellent air and sea links and telecommunication facilities.
What little talent the country can produce either goes to the public sector, where the best brains are needed, or to high-paying professions such as medicine, investment banking and law. The result is that Singapore’s SMEs are recruiting mostly at the “second or third tier” of talent, he said.
Tackling these questions, Lee again drew the distinction between economic theory and the reality on the ground. He questioned whether the “haves” in Singapore, who, in many cases, may have done well because of their abilities and effort, were really willing to accept slower growth or higher taxes, so that the government could give more help to the “have-nots.”
In this globalized world, unless you’re big enough to be on top of the pile in that particular industry, you’ll play a secondary role. When I joined the board of Daimler-Benz in 1992, then chairman and CEO Jurgen Schrempp told me that the many brands across the world will reduce in number and consolidate to probably 10 or 12. He was determined that Mercedes Benz will be one of them. So he felt that he had to go global.
And in the end all that Creative has got now is MP3 players. Their Soundblasters and so on… other companies have caught up.
True, we latch on to a growth area like life sciences, but are we going to be leaders in life sciences discoveries? No. What we provide companies is the security for the discoveries, copyright protection, an attractive living environment for their researchers and scientists, and the facilities for research and to trial new products on our population, because our hospitals maintain good records and have different races and genetic pools.
Yes, you will be taken over if you’re successful. Get to world class and there will be a company that’s already eyeing all these possible takeovers.
So being in Singapore and faced with these problems, we’ve to go back and think them through. Economists and other observers come in and go by what’s happened elsewhere. They say we’re not producing entrepreneurs. The question is: Can we produce enough entrepreneurs to keep our economy going? HK and TW cannot. Can we compete with the large economies with R&D without having the same critical mass?
We climbed up the ladder within one generation. How did we do it? Because we looked at the outside world and said, look, this is the way we go, maximize our strengths and we got here. How do we go further up? By not competing with Chinese and Indians where we know they’re going to enter in a big way. We succeed by staying in little niches, securing qualities which they cannot match, like credibility, reliability, intellectual property and the rule of law. They cannot match that for a long time.
Remember this: don’t believe that the chaps on top are just entrepreneurs. They are all powerful minds. Bill Gates, Michael Dell, John Chambers of Cisco… I’ve met them and they are very able people. When are our able people? In the SMEs? No, the SMEs are collecting talent at the second, third tier. The first tier will not work for them. That’s our luck, right?
How did we differentiate ourselves from them? They are not clean systems, we run clean systems. Their rule of law is wonky, we stick to the law. Once we come to an agreement or make a decision, we stick to it. We become reliable and credible to investors. World-class infrastructure, world-class supporting staff, all educated in English. Good communications by air, by sea, by cable, by satellite and now, over the Internet. So it is a location which is different from any other in this region.
Why? Because we are a reliable, dependable location. There is rule of law, we never break our word. We maintain stability, industrial peace and we are completely to be trusted. So you want to put that money into China. Yes, but only if the Chinese put half and you are in control. But here, it’s totally theirs. It’s not easy to reproduce Singapore and if you destroy it, you may never rebuild it.
But where are the researching minds? I once talked to the head of R&D for Philips. He spoke very frankly and said that when you do research, you must have a mind that is focused and determined to break through until you see light at the end of the tunnel. You burrow away, you burrow away and you never give up.
We try, but unless we have enough people with the brainpower to run these companies, it can’t be done. You look at all the successful companies, what is the key? Their brainpower. The thinker, good management, good innovators.
Well, the weakness is that the top MNCs may not come and we get the second tier who will be defeated by the top MNCs, which have gone to countries like Vietnam because it’s cheaper and smarter, and then the production in Vietnam will beat the production in Singapore.
What have we got to offer? Not cheaper labor or land, but higher quality infrastructure to justify the higher cost.
However, growth continues to be weak in the Western world. The US has blamed its woes on China, which it argues has persistently undervalued its currency to boost its export competitiveness. China and other emerging economies, meanwhile, accuse the US of trying to boost growth by flooding the market with cheap money, weakening its currency and giving rise to large capital flows that could destabilize Asia and other developing markets.
And, more important, ensure that the next generation has the opportunities to start on a more even playing field. Nobody in Singapore and no child is being disadvantaged, whether your family is dysfunctional or otherwise.
No, you’ve got to compare Singapore with HK, KL, Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta. That’s our environment. How can you compare yourself with Japan? Japan is a totally different country with a very different society and culture.
Is Japan better off? Are the Japanese people better off? Electorally, the politicians will say, well, I’m winning the votes this way. But is this the future for Japan? Rather bleak and dismal, isn’t it? They’ve got to change.
I feel some angst. I say this is unfair. But the world is unfair.
So I see no benefit in stopping growth because the envy will still be there. Instead, we cream off the growth and redistribute it to support the lower end. And you got to support them in ways that don’t remove motivation.
In today’s world, your worth is determined by your skills and knowledge. You may be a genius but if you got nothing to sell in the market, how much are you worth?
It is not a static situation in Japan. Now you see pictures of people sleeping under bridges in winter. That never happened in the old days. They went through a war in which the poorest of the farmers bore a grudge because they lost their sons and they lost their homes. So there was a tremendous feeling that hey owed something to these people.
Similarly, the British. It came from a guilt complex. The people who lost their lives and their homes were not the officers who went to Oxbridge but the rank and file, the conscripts. So the rich came out with a system supported by the Labour Party and adopted by the Conservative Party. From cradle to grave, the upper class owes it to them.
They didn’t think of the consequences and the impact on motivation until the system malfunctioned.
Successful CEOs are like gems you find on a beach. There are many pebbles, many beautifully colored ones, but they are all stones. Now and again, you will come across a real precious gem, a real emerald, pick it up, polish it. He must have a set of qualities that fits with the job, has energy, drive, ability to interact with people, ability to get people to work with him in a team.
In a nutshell, his beliefs are these: Human beings are created unequal, and no amount of social engineering or government intervention can significantly alter one’s lot in life. At most, government policies can help equalize opportunity at the starting point, but they cannot ensure equal outcomes. For Lee, there is no reason to hold back the able. Instead, the solution is to create the conditions for the ablest to go far so they can bring in jobs for the masses — and the redistribute the surpluses to help the less able.
It struck me as manifestly fair that everybody in this world should be given an equal chance in life, that in a just and well-ordered society there should not be a great disparity of wealth between persons because of their position or status, or that of their parents.
There is a tinge of regret at having to give up an emotionally-appealing ideal in the face of reality. “It was only after I had been in office for some years that I recognized that performance varied substantially between the different races in Singapore, and among different categories in the same race. After trying out a number of ways to reduce inequalities and failing, I was gradually forced to conclude that the decisive factors were the people, their natural abilities, education and training.”
Lee learnt fast that talk about an equal society and equitable income distribution rang hollow unless there was income to distribute. He realized it was more important to create wealth first — and worry later how to distribute it.
Human motivation and human nature being what it is, the driving force in a human being is to stay alive, then to sacrifice life for his wife, his children, his mother and father in the family and the clan, in that order.
The role of government is how to keep the society united so that you don’t have an underclass that feels disaffected, discontented and rebellious as in America. And the answer in Britain and in Europe is welfare… We cannot go that way or we will not perform.
So what we are doing is not give welfare, but we give a good education and capital gain. You decide whether you’ll spend it or you build on it.
You have trouble? Here, I give you this cash or assets. You decide what you will do. You can work or you can spend it. The less bright will sell their shares and use up the cash. Most of them hoard it and they become minor capitalists. So we have a property-owning democracy. The amount you own depends on your capabilities.
They have to take into account the prevailing attitudes, people’s expectations. You cannot suddenly lower those expectations. Frenchmen have got a certain way of life: I want my job guaranteed, I don’t care if it’s globalization or whether banks have collapsed. Never mind, Sarkozy, you got to fix this. If you don’t fix it we ill have a big demonstration, block the traffic, close down the railways for one day to demonstrate the workers’ power.
It’s not the school building, it’s the people who run those schools, the expertise, the care, the passion to help these children, which must come from the parents. You are a specialist but your children are not in these classes. You just do it as a job. If your child is one of them, it’s different.
We seized every opportunity and got here. A little bit too fast, the transformation too rapid. So disorientation. Everybody thinks oh, it’s easy, we’ll always go up, like going up the escalator, automatically we’ll get there. It’s not true. We had an unusual set of circumstances; the world was expanding rapidly; seized the moment, went ahead of the other countries, and we got ahead.
What was his own spiritual sustenance? Pausing before he replied, Lee said he had developed other “defensive mechanisms” to cope with the vicissitudes of life. “I’ve survived all kinds of crises. There must be something in me which helps me bounce back. I don’t need to believe in the supernatural to bounce back,” he said.
If the others in Cabinet share such sentiments, they are unlikely to say it publicly. Lee is probably the only one who could say it without occurring a huge backlash, partly due to deference to his standing and also because he has been consistent and immovable on this subject in the past decade, varying only in his nuance.
So I have no doubts that if we lose our Chineseness, our sense of being ourselves, not Westerners, we lose our vitality. So that was our driving force.
Of course Singaporeans, being what they are, they found no value in it: what is culture? I can read Chinese culture translated in English, which isn’t the same. It doesn’t give you a sense of self.
So the problem is solved, but it took 40 years to get there, because of ignorance.
What to do? If I knew as much then as today, how much pain and heart-rending frustration I would have avoided. That’s life. You learn and become wise after the event.
I did not foresee that French and Russian would just disappear, nor that the Internet would overwhelm the world with English. That was a stroke of luck.
Latin was the language of Europe. Up to the 16th century, many scholars wrote in Latin. The Church used Latin. By the 18th century, they were switching into their own languages. Gradually Latin disappeared. Latin is a dead language except for liturgies in the Catholic Church. No one can say English will be dominant forever.
But the path he chose came at an “enormous price” because it meant he knew no Chinese until age 32, when he struggled to learn the language as an adult.
The boy knows that if he doesn’t succeed in mastering English, he will get nowhere. That drive is enormous. This doctor understands, he doesn’t complain and said it makes his daughter work harder. And it’s not just working harder. Some of them come from the smartest schools, and they end up winning the prizes in school and scholarships. So Singapore parents know that their children are going to meet fierce competition.
But my answer to that is, in a tug of war, do you want this bright chap on our side or the other side, pulling for the Vietnamese or the Chinese team?
We have the resources, which we built up over the years, so we are able to respond decisively during the crisis, and there’s no panic.
The government cannot be diverted from its course, which has been carefully calculated, just because of a recession and the grumbles around. Our focus is on the long-term survival of Singapore.
If we were back in the 1960s, 4 children per family, this matter will not arise, we won’t have to do this. But then we would never have the accumulated capital to create the infrastructure and the schools and educational institutions, because we’ll be always trying to catch up with the population growth.
What is the alternative? Have your economy go down? The most important thing for any country is to have economic growth. If you have no economic growth, you stagnate and decline.
If you want to keep your people rooted to your country, you must offer them economic opportunities. You look at HKers who have migrated to Canada in large numbers. But there were no economic opportunities in Canada. So they returned to HK but kept their families and children in Canada.
London was the center of the empire. So they had the metal and other exchanges. How could they keep it up after empire? By bringing in new firms and talents from all over the world to locate there, especially American banks.
- Many new immigrants spoke about how grateful they are to you for your leadership and to the opportunities made available to them in Singapore. And you remarked then that many Singaporeans do not feel that way.
- That’s normal. The simple reason is they are from a different base. It’s a sudden upgrading when they are in Singapore. For the adult Singaporeans, it’s been incremental, so he doesn’t feel it. For his children, they think our development is a natural course of events, which unfortunately it isn’t. I can think of circumstances where all our achievements could disappear rapidly, and we’ve nothing to fall back on.
Are the Chinese a nation? Yes, the Han, who are 90% of the population. They have 5K years of history. But Xinjiang and Tibet? They hope to make it a nation by mixing these regions with Hans. Every heterogeneous nation faces this problem.
Nationhood is a artificial creation, it’s an artifact of how you divide peoples of different races into countries that govern themselves.
What will deter them? The prices of homes and cars? In America, the home is cheap, the car’s cheap but there’s a glass ceiling and you are not within the magic circle and will never be accepted. It’s a white man country. Maybe President Obama can get by. He’s an exceptional man in exceptional circumstances, but socially the blacks generally don’t mix with the whites. You have to weigh that.
If we lose our second language, we lose all sense of our identity, not just the Singaporean. You don’t create a nation in 45 years.
No, it’s more than that. This is a near miracle. When you come in, you are joining an exceptionally outstanding organization. You’re joining something very special. It came about by a stroke of luck, if you like, plus hard work, plus an imaginative, original team. And I think we can carry on. Singapore can only stay secure and stable, provided it’s outstanding.
And he boiled down geopolitics into a startling basic worldview that human tribes are engaged in a fight for supremacy.
Like others of his generation, he saw the brutality of power displayed in WW2. His charisma and leadership were forged in the stirring milieu of anti-colonial, revolutionary fervor of the 1950s. His worldview may be described as pragmatic realist, grounded in a realistic assessment of power play between great nations and a clear-eyed view of just how insignificant Singapore is as a player on the world stage.
Margaret Thatcher once said that when she was in office, she read and analyzed every one of Lee’s speeches. “He had a way of penetrating the fog of propaganda and expressing with unique clarity the issues of our times and the way to tackle them. He was never wrong.”
Kissinger had this to say: “I’ve not learnt as much from anybody as I have from Mr. LKY. He made himself an indispensable friend of the US, not primarily by the power he represented but by the quality of his thinking.”
While many value Lee’s views on the changing world, in fact his geopolitical ideology is very simple. He filters everything through the lens of what is best for Singapore. Every fact, every nuance, every meeting, every new information, he acquires during his numerous meetings with world leaders, is stored away in his capacious brain and processed through the lens of how it would affect the Republic.
What kind of balance of power in Asia will most benefit Singapore? Lee’s conclusion is straightforward: Better the devil that is known than the one that is not. America has proved a benign power with only ideological and not territorial ambitions.
His answer was startling for the way it went back to basics. He bypassed talk on human society, politics, or geopolitical concepts of cooperation or competing spheres of influence. To Lee, the will to power is the dominant drive for humankind, pushing each group to reach beyond its own borders to expand its territory. And how do groups determine who their enemies and allies are? To Lee, such calculations are rooted in self-interest and degrees of genetic proximity.
This involves 2 core convictions. The first is his belief that relations among individuals, and among groups, are determined by genetic factors. People and societies tend to help those closest to them genetically. With that genetic lens firmly in place, Lee predicts that the shift of power from America to China will cause more disruptions than the transfer of power from white British to white Americans after the mid-20th century.
His other key conviction stems from the belief that groups are engaged in a battle for supremacy. Power is the underlying theme in Lee’s view of nation-states. Each nation seeks access to resources to maximize its own power base. It cooperates with others out of self-interest. Altruism in Lee’s worldview derives from a cool calculation of 2 things: whether an act will help advance one’s own self-interest as a nation; and whether an act will advance those of similar genetic makeup. If one or the other interest is advanced, a nation may proceed. Where there is a conflict between the two, self-interest rather than kin-interest will prevail.
It’s always been the same from time immemorial. A tribe wants more space, wants to take over the territory of other tribes, they fight and they expand. Even when it is part of them and they become a different unit, they still fight, for supremacy.
The Japanese, when they came into Singapore, did exactly what the British did, divide and rule. So they treated the Malays with kid gloves, they co-opted the Indians who had surrendered and they whacked the Chinese.
If you are not ready to be a hegemon, why do you keep on telling the world you are not going to be a hegemon? You’re just not a hegemon, all right?
I do not believe that trade and economic relationships are decisive. It is one factor but if you believe you can win and take over, why not? You suffer for a while but after that it’s all yours. But I do not believe that outcome is possible when both sides have hydrogen bombs. You will both destroy. So the competition will be at the edges.
Well, if you ask the same question when you are 46, that means you haven’t learnt very much. You ask Kishore Mahbubani, you ask anybody who’s served in the UN. Yes, between small countries you have no choice, right, because you can get UNSC saying stop fighting and if you don’t, we’ll take action. But when it involves a major power, when it involves another UNSC member, or even when it involves two non-Security Council members, say India and Pakistan, they just ignore exhortations and fight on.
Our ties with them are growing day by day economically even though we’re trying very hard to diversify into India and to other parts of Asia. All they do is squeeze us economically. HK now knows its place. The economy goes down, they might say, okay, I allow my chaps to go buy properties and the stock market immediately goes up. Do HKers realize who butters their bread? Yes, of course.
She took a position which is not tenable right from the beginning. She opposed China. She thought British system, democracy, American support, they can maintain 50 years. Rubbish. The day the flag came down, Chinese flag went up, that day China was the sovereign power.
The British understood it. I understood it. I’ve seen it happen across the world, all the colonies decolonized and I’m a trained lawyer. The imperial system of preferences has become meaningless. Every independent country goes its own way.
The costs are we are not liked by our neighbors. But our neighbors want to be friends with America, but we are better friends, so they are unhappy with us.
No, anything we do makes them unhappy. Right?
So I said, look, you want Bombay to be a financial center like Pudong, the Chinese made Shanghai an independent city with provincial status. So it deals directly with the center. Why not make Bombay the same? No, he said, “We can’t do that. If we do that we lose our revenue.” So I said, “Then you will always have Bombay as it is.”
They’re playing politics all the time. And there are 10 parties in the coalition. It’s not one country, it’s many countries.
The Chinese are one government: do it and you’ll be promoted. Don’t do it, you will be sidelined. It’s done.
No, I’m surprised that we’ve made this amount of progress. The reality has sunk home. But between sinking home and actually responding to it, there’s a time lag. It makes little difference to us. We’re not depending on the Asean market. We’re concentrating on US, Japan, South Korea, China, India, the Gulf. We have structured our economic ties that way because our neighbors were unable to move quickly. Had we followed them and gone at that pace, where will we be today?
They will not collapse but they will not do as well as they could. When the tide rises, all ship rise. Their ships are not in the best of conditions but they will still rise. We will do better because we keep in trim. The investments will come into the region.
How much closer both sides can get economically depends on how Malaysians in the peninsula welcome Singapore businessmen. Singaporeans must feel that their investments are safe, and that they are welcome.
They will not openly invade us, because, you know, the UNSC will say you have to leave and so on, they can see all our international connections. But they will harass us but if they know that they harass us, we can harass them back, ah, that’s a different matter.
We have the most modern weapons of all the states in Asean. We have the best-educated workforce. No other Asean country has a population like us: well-educated and computer-literate.
But we know that increasingly their interests are in Europe, in Africa, in North America and Latin America. That’s their economic future. And they don’t see themselves competing against the Chinese and the Americans in this part of the world. If you were them you’ll come to the same conclusion — what’s your cost base? What’s your strategic interest? So, those are the facts of life.
The drift away from them was relentless and the British saw it, too. That’s why they withdrew from east of Suez.
The only power that can counter the Iranians are the Americans and I don’t think the Americans are going to leave that area. The oil will prevent them from leaving that area because you can’t allow that region to go into the hands of Iran. So they are stuck there.
The British were there as protectors. When they withdrew from east of Suez in 1971, the Americans filled the gap. The Americans leave, who fills the gap? Nobody. So a regional power will take over. Who? Iran.
And the Iranians are producing nuclear scientists, they are bright people, brighter than the Bedouin Arabs. It’s finally the quality of your people, not just numbers.
The Germans were the ones with the highest standards because they had their refineries and petrochemical works near their towns.
No, on all fronts we have to change. We have to keep up with world standards. If we want to be a first-world oasis, we must produce first-world conditions, not just the environment but facilities, health standards, services, connectivity, security. We just have to keep up with the highest benchmark that exists at any one time. Then you are in the game.
China, when accused of pollution, replies that it manufacturing all these products to send to the West that have pushed pollutive industries to China.
I’m not a climate expert. I cannot calculate these probabilities. I have to accept what the experts tell us.
I don’t think it’s a lack of global leadership. What leader of any big country or even a small country like Singapore can say, “Okay, we give up growth, even have negative growth to save global warming?”
But the rooms for maneuver was constrained by social values. “This is a very conservative society. If we move in that direction, I think many of the older generation will be outraged because they say, ‘What will happen to my daughter? You’re encouraging this.’”
I asked if he felt frustrated by how society’s views were diametrically opposed to his own. Again, Lee took the practical view: Singapore’s conservatism was a fact of life. “If I were the PM, I would hesitate to push things through against the prevailing sentiment, against the prevailing values of society. You’re going against the current of the people, the underlying feeling. What’s the point of that, you know? Breaking new ground and taking unnecessary risk?”
I did not succeed, because I usually have to run my eye back to make sure that I’ve got the right word. So that slows me down. But because I read more slowly I read only once and it sticks. So there are compensations.
Young people nowadays aren’t apathetic because there’s no political activism in the institutions. They’re apathetic because they’re too comfortable. Campus activism was just theoretical posturing, immature debates between youth who were high on idealism but low on experience.
And in Cambridge, they had a debating society. They got ministers to come down to debate and they tried to pretend that they were aware of all these issues but, looking back, I think they were not really mature. In their early 20s, what experience have they got?
It was exactly the same thing with entrepreneurship, he thought. He attributed the commercial success of Jewish businesses to their persecution and deprivation in the ghettos. They learnt to be enterprising after having been barred from other professions. Singaporeans, by contrast, had it easy. “We have too many people who have comfortable lives and comfortable jobs. Why should they take the chance? You’ve got small capital, you might lose everything. You’ve got to start again. You’ve got to restart your life.”
Life’s too comfortable. We’ve become victims of our own success.
All right. You start a party today. What are you going to sell? Where’s your platform? How are you going to change people’s lives?
I think it’s better that they’re fearful and they take me seriously, than if they think I’m somebody they can brush off. That’s all. And if you’re the PM and you’re brushed off, you’re in trouble.
But what about the majority of people who haven’t got those qualifications? They will just go downhill and start becoming other people’s maids and laborers. You say it’s not possible? I say, think again carefully. Where were we in 1959? Where were we in 1963? What did we face in 1965? Singapore will always be like this, naturally progressing on autopilot? You must be nuts if you believe that.
I said, “Well, that’s the place for me. I’m from a small town.”
But mistakes did not mean regrets. Lee said, “I did what I thought was right, given the circumstances, given my knowledge at the time, given the pressure on me at the time. That’s finished, done. I move forward. You keep on harking back, it’s just wasting time.
“Do I regret going to Malaysia? No. It was the right thing to do. Did it fail? Yes. Do I regret pressing for a Malaysian Malaysia and making it fail? No. It was all part of a process of growing up.”
But I could never look at Lee as a wise grandfather-figure. The gap between us was more than generational, more than intellectual: it was visceral. I’ve never known anyone with such single-mindedness.
I could grasp people who looked back and said, “I was wrong.” But it takes no small amount of conviction in the essential rightness of one’s own enterprise to regard one’s history with a cold, clear eye and say, “I have no regrets.” About as much conviction, perhaps, as it takes to say, “I do not care what people think of me.”
What they think of me after I’m dead and gone in one generation will be determined by researchers who do PhDs on me, right? So there will be lots of revisionism. As people revised Stalin, Brezhnev and one day now Yeltsin, and later on Putin. I mean, I’ve lived long enough to know that you may be idealized in life and reviled after you’re dead.
So I found myself looking at a man who had gone from his posh bungalow home and his Cambridge education to the attap huts and shanty towns of old Singapore, who swept the streets and shook hands with laborers and farmers and shopkeepers and maids. He’d jumped into the political fray, an English-educated bourgeois, and somehow picked up Chinese and Hokkien to reach the masses. He’d had the nerve to tell them, in their languages, that he understood their problems and that they and their children could have better lives, if they would trust him. He had put on knuckledusters against enemies who had the real strength to crush him. Conviction.
You know, there are 2 standards. It’s one thing the people at large, it’s another thing your minister or your PM being such a person.
No, that is life. I can’t change them overnight. I think society, their own experiences, their own reading, their own observations will bring about the change despite their innate biases.
In the West, you marry the woman you love, and then you unlove her. India, you love the woman you marry.
You might mean well but don’t tilt at windmills, it’s a waste of time. But it was a comedy, it’s a story. I don’t tilt at windmills. I got mortal foes to fight against.
He went to Algeria and Algiers and he saw a French general there, a four-star general. He said, “Giraud, you’re a general of France. What is the American soldier doing outside protecting you?”
Churchill, because any other man would have given up. To say that when your troops have been defeated required an enormous amount of will and verve and determination not to yield to the Germans.
And any other leader, like Chamberlain, would have accepted his terms. Hitler had offered them a partnership of the world. You keep your empire, I will build one in Europe. He said, “No. You’re fascist. I’m going to fight you.” A very bold man.
I mean, if you ask the Americans, they’ll say Roosevelt. But Roosevelt had power and the industrial might of America. And Roosevelt once said to Harriman, “Churchill makes such rousing speeches. Why can’t my speechwriters do that?” So Harriman told him, “He rolls his own cigarettes.” That’s the difference. He rolls his own cigarettes, like de Gaulle. So when he talks, it’s deep from within, and not written up by a polished scriptwriter.
When we married in 1981, Papa wrote Fern and me a letter with advice on marriage. Of his relationship with Mama he said: “We have never allowed the other to feel abandoned and alone in any moment of crisis. Quite the contrary, we have faced all major crises in our lives together, sharing our fears and hopes, and our subsequent grief and exultation. These moments of crisis have bonded us closer together. With the years, the number of special ties which we two have shared have increased.”
Without her, I would be a different man, with a different life. She devoted herself to me and our children. She was always there when I needed her. She has lived a life full of warmth and meaning.”
Still the mind… empty the mind, relax. Look at yourself as a third eye from above and be aware of where you are in this cosmos — that you’re just a little particle. Get a sense of proportion that you’re just a little bit of this huge universe. Ignore your face. Ignore your body, and when you are deep in meditation, forget everything.
I wouldn’t say it’s a trick; it’s a psychological method.
I find that useful. Look at yourself as if you’re a different person looking at yourself, then you suddenly think, well, I have to put things in perspective.
It made a tremendous impact on him because he realized that this place could just go upside down.
- When you look back over your life, your political life and your personal life, what gives you the greatest sense of satisfaction?
- That I’ve lived my life the fullest. Given the circumstances, I did my best in politics. I did my best to bring up a family, which I could not have done alone. My wife did most of the nurturing.
Because as a conveyancing lawyer she’s particular about the meanings of words — they should be clear, they should be simple.
I’m not sure in Europe today whether they dig into your family affairs, but in America they do. So they play up Michelle Obama, the children, the dogs and so on. Maybe it gives them a better sense of the family, but how does that help them in deciding whether he’s a good president and whether he’s concentrating on the right things to get the economy going?
And there are things which I can do because of my many years of experience and my links with world leaders, both in the region and in the world, which the others cannot do. I can pick up the phone and ring up Kissinger or George Shultz and they can ring up whoever in charge.
He was “disturbed and upset” by Kwa, who proceeded to trounce him again the following year. How could he hope to win the coveted Queen’s scholarship and go to England to study law with someone like her around?