https://geopolitics.wiki/interview-with-lee-kuan-yew/
https://www.academia.edu/33315090/From_Third_World_to_First_A_Case_Study_of_Lee_Kuan_Yew_and_Language_Management_in_Singapore_2016_
https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/data/pdfdoc/lky19851009.pdf
https://paulbacon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/zakaria_lee.pdf
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The Sage of Singapore: Remembering Lee Kuan Yew Through His Own Words
Though the founding father of a tiny country on the tip of the Malay peninsula, Lee Kuan Yew was one of the giants of the arriving Asian century. Not only did he miraculously transform the impoverished colonial entrepôt of Singapore, rife with drugs and prostitution, into a gleaming model city-state of the 21st century; his practical vision of soft-authoritarian capitalism also became the template for Deng Xiaoping's "opening up and reform" in China, laying the basis for the rise of a prosperous East Asia.
By
Nathan Gardels, Contributor
Editor-in-chief, The WorldPost
Mar 23, 2015, 11:57 AM EDT
|
Updated Dec 6, 2017
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Though the founding father of a tiny country on the tip of the Malay peninsula, Lee Kuan Yew was one of the giants of the arriving Asian century. Not only did he miraculously transform the impoverished colonial entrepôt of Singapore, rife with drugs and prostitution, into a gleaming model city-state of the 21st century; his practical vision of soft-authoritarian capitalism also became the template for Deng Xiaoping's "opening up and reform" in China, laying the basis for the rise of a prosperous East Asia.
We met twice, in 1992 and 1995, in steamy Singapore, sitting in the icily air-conditioned salon at Istana, the former British governor's residence, looking out over the manicured lawns, as we delved deep into the contrasts of Confucian communitarianism and Western individualism. We met one last time in a snowbound chalet in Davos, Switzerland, in 1999 after his formal retirement as "senior minister" and graduation to "minister mentor," the sage behind the throne.
Here are excerpts of those interviews:
Nathan Gardels | Now that the Cold War is over, isn't a new conflict arising between East Asian "communitarian" capitalism and American-style "individualistic" capitalism? Further, isn't this economic conflict rooted in the deeper differences between civilizations: the authoritarian bent of Confucian culture and the extreme individualism of Western liberalism?
Lee Kuan Yew | This is one facet of the problems that arise in a global economy. Latecomers to industrial development have had to catch up by finding ways of closing the gap.
As it has turned out, more communitarian values and practices of East Asians -- the Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Hong Kongers and Singaporeans -- have proven to be clear assets in the catching-up process. The values that East Asian culture upholds, such as the primacy of group interests over individual interests, support the total group effort necessary to develop rapidly. But I do not see the conflict you describe as competition between two closed systems.
The original communitarianism of Chinese Confucian society has degenerated into nepotism, a system of family linkages, and corruption, on the mainland. And remnants of the evils of the original system are still found in Taiwan, Hong Kong and even Singapore.
"The original communitarianism of Chinese Confucian society has degenerated into nepotism, a system of family linkages, and corruption, on the mainland."
Hong Kong and Taiwan differ from China, of course, because Confucian ways have been moderated by 100-odd years of British rule in Hong Kong's case and 50 years of Japanese rule in Taiwan.
China itself is now in the process of sloughing off not only the communist system, but also those outdated parts of Confucianism that prevent the rapid acquisition of knowledge needed to adjust to new ways of life and work.
So, I see this conflict as a part of interaction and evolution in one world. Systems are not developing in isolation.
Having said this, America and East Asia are, of course, very different cultures. Chinese culture grew up in isolation from the rest of the world for thousands of years and then extended itself into Korea, Japan and Vietnam. From the other end of the continent, Indian culture spread out and reached as far as Thailand and Cambodia.
So, one can take a broad brush and shade East Asian culture over Korea, China, Vietnam and Japan. Indian-Hindu culture in a very broad sense covers Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma and Southeast Asia.
Then there is an overlay of Muslim culture, completely different from Hindu culture, which is also to be found now in Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of India. There are 190 million Muslims in Southeast Asia, primarily in Malaysia and Indonesia. Thailand is more Buddhist, like Burma.
Seeing the ancient, complex cultural map of this part of the world, can we all of a sudden accept universal values of democracy and human rights as defined by America? I don't think that it is possible. Values are formed out of the history and experience of a people. One absorbs these notions through the mother's milk.
As prime minister of Singapore, my first task was to lift my country out of the degradation that poverty, ignorance and disease had wrought. Since it was dire poverty that made for such a low priority given to human life, all other things became secondary.
"My first task was to lift my country out of the degradation that poverty, ignorance and disease had wrought. Since it was dire poverty that made for such a low priority given to human life, all other things became secondary."
[Image: singapore]
British Reoccupation of Singapore, 1945, Imperial War Museum
So, our values are different, as they always have been. But now, television, the Internet, satellites and aircraft have brought us all into one world. After taking our separate paths for thousands of years, we now meet, and there is total misunderstanding.
"As a man of two cultures, I have learned that one cannot change core values overnight just by exposure to a different culture."
I am one who has been exposed to both worlds: Singapore was governed by the British but it was basically an Asian society, so I could see what British standards were like, and compare and contrast them to Asian standards. And I was educated in Britain for four years and saw how the British comported and governed themselves. As a man of two cultures, I have learned that one cannot change core values overnight just by exposure to a different culture.
For Asia, I think that over the next one, two, or perhaps three generations (with each generation marking 20 years), there will have to be adjustments. So, a hundred years from now, I'm sure Europeans, East Asians and Americans will arrive at something approximating universal values and norms.
UNIVERSAL NORMS
Gardels | Universal values in terms of human rights?
Lee | Let's call it "human behavior" in general. The only exception might be the Muslims, because Islamic injunctions about how to punish adultery by stoning to death, or thieving by cutting off hands, are written down in the holy Quran. I am not sure Muslims are going to change as easily as Buddhists or Hindus. But I cannot see them remaining totally unchanged either. After all, for them to catch up, even if only to modernize their weaponry so they can get the big bomb and blow up Israelis, they have to train and equip a whole generation of young minds with the scientific approach to the solving of problems. Inevitably, that critical scientific mentality must bring about change in their perceptions of core values. But it is a long and slow process. In sum, I don't think a resolution in the U.S. Congress can change China or anybody else.
Gardels | In principle, do you believe in one standard of human rights and free expression?
Lee | Look, it is not a matter of principle but of practice. In the technologically connected world of today, everybody can watch the Tiananmen crackdown on TV. Today, transportation is subsonic but in another 20 years your son will be able to travel at supersonic speeds; instead of 15 hours, in just a few hours he will be able to go from New York to Singapore.
In such a world, no society can be protected from the influence of another. But that doesn't mean that all Western values will prevail. I can only say that if Western values are in fact superior insofar as they bring about superior performance in a society and help it survive. If adopting Western values diminishes the prospects for survival of a society, they will be rejected.
For example, if too much individualism does not help survival in a densely populated country such as China, it just won't take. At the same time, however, much Chinese leaders berate Americans because the U.S. is the world's major power, the leadership knows that the Americans have in fact been the least exploitive of China when compared to the Japanese or Europeans. This reality is deep in the historical memory of the Chinese people. The Americans left behind universities, schools and scholarships for educating doctors.
Of course, the Americans tried to convert everybody to Christianity. In fact, today there are factions in Chinese society, not just in the communist leadership, that believe the Americans are the most evangelistic of the whole lot: the others will just trade with you and leave you alone but Americans will come and want to convert you. Now it's not Christianity but human rights and democracy American-style! The Chinese leaders call it "human rights" imperialism.
TIANANMEN SQUARE
Gardels | But wasn't the Tiananmen movement, with its replica of the Statue of Liberty, really a cry for "human rights and democracy American-style?"
Lee | I would not define what happened in the spring of 1989 as a movement for democracy. It was a movement for change from the total control of the Communist Party. If you had questioned a cross-section of the student leaders and others who participated, many of them would have had no clear idea of what they wanted in place of the Chinese Communist Party that governs that immense land.
Really, to young people, democracy means "More freedom for me!" But how does one govern one-quarter of humanity on that basis? By what principles? By what methods? The demonstrators didn't think it through. "Let's make things better." "Let's stop this corruption." "Let's stop nepotism." "Let's have more freedom of association." That is all they really wanted.
[Image: 166908969]
Tiananmen Square, 1989
The tragedy of Tiananmen was that the participants got carried away by the dynamics of mass emotion in a very densely populated city. Their grievances exploded into one big demonstration, and it became a frontal challenge to the Communist Party, and a personal challenge to Deng Xiaoping as a leader.
As the events progressed, the slogans that were being put up became increasingly strident. I watched what was on Chinese TV and in the Chinese newspapers. The whole thing had evolved into an attack on Deng.
In my view, that was unwise. There is, after all, no tradition in Chinese history of satirizing the emperor. To do a (satirical) Doonesbury cartoon of the emperor is to commit sedition and treason. About four or five days before the end, I heard a clever little doggerel making fun of Deng. I thought, God, this is it. Either they will get away with this bit of irreverence and disrespect, in which case Deng is finished, or Deng is going to teach them a lesson. Deng slapped them down -- with an unnecessary use of armor, in my view -- to show them who was the boss.
Why such force, I asked myself? These are not stupid people. They know what the world will think. My only explanation is that Deng must have feared that if the movement in Beijing was repeated in 200 major Chinese cities, he would not be able to control it. As with traditional Chinese rulers, he set up a clear, if brutal, example for all to see.
Gardels | So Deng was afraid of the pro-democracy movement erupting in 200 cities, among the 20 percent of the population that doesn't live in the countryside, with its 800 million peasants.
Doesn't this point up the problem of how one central policy can't rule two Chinas -- the urban and the rural -- at the same time? You yourself have argued for a "twin-track" policy that allows more freedom in the cities where the educated classes demand it. Otherwise economic reform will falter.
Lee | No, not freedom. They will have to have participation in the way they are governed. Please, let's use neutral words, because when you use words such as "freedom" and "democracy" you scare the Chinese. Since Tiananmen, these have become code words for subverting China. So when you talk to them like that, they say, "Well, okay, relations with the West are off. It is them or us. And it has got to be us."
I would say this to China's leaders: once 20 to 30 percent of the urban population (out of each year's student cohort) has a college education, the next 40 to 50 percent are in polytechnic or technical school, and the rest have a general education of about US tenth-grade level, you can no longer just give orders from the top down if you want to succeed in your economic development. With today's high technology, you just can't squeeze the maximum productivity out of advanced machinery without a self-motivated and self-governing work force. What is the point of having $100 million worth of machinery in a factory if you can't get 95 percent productivity or more out of it through the use of quality circles, involving engineers in the productivity process, as the Japanese do?
So the process of economic advancement requires participation. One simply cannot ask a highly educated work force to stop thinking when it leaves the factory. A broader participation in the larger society must take place or the whole economic effort will collapse.
WANING WEST? NOT SO FAST
Gardels | As a result of Deng's policies, for the first time in 500 years, the West is no longer the formative influence on world affairs. According to the World Bank, China will be the world's largest economy by the year 2020. Is this the last "Western" century?
Lee | Not so fast. I wouldn't put it so apocalyptically. First of all, when we are talking about Asia, we are really talking about China. Asia's influence on the world without China would not be all that much.
Now, China may well become the world's largest economy, but will it become the most admired and the most influential society? Will it have the technology, the standard of living, the quality of life, the lifestyle that others want? Have they got songs, lyrics and ideas that engage people? That is going to take time.
What will not take a long time is for China, and hence Asia, to say to the West "stop pushing us around." When Britain was eased out of its position as the world's number-one power, America took over effortlessly. It was uncomfortable for the British, but they gave way with grace. Britain needed America's help in two world wars. She paid dearly for that help and had to dismantle her empire. So the American takeover was accompanied with much grace on both sides.
As Harold Macmillan put it, the British decided to play the role of the Greeks to the Romans; in other words, to help America absorb Britain's experience, just as the Greeks helped the Romans run their empire. Washington was the new Rome for Britain. Both shared a common language and a common culture, at least originally.
But now, for America to be displaced, not in the world, but only in the western Pacific, by an Asian people long despised and dismissed with contempt as decadent, feeble, corrupt and inept is emotionally very difficult to accept.
The sense of cultural supremacy of the Americas will make this adjustment most difficult. Americans believe their ideas are universal -- the supremacy of the individual and free, unfettered expression. But they are not -- never were.
In fact, American society was so successful for so long not because of these ideas and principles, but because of a certain geopolitical good fortune, an abundance of resources and immigrant energy, a generous flow of capital and technology from Europe, and two wide oceans that kept conflicts of the world away from American shores.
It is this sense of cultural supremacy which leads the American media to pick on Singapore and beat us up as authoritarian and dictatorial, an over-ruled, over-restricted, stifling and sterile society. Why? Because we have not complied with their ideas of how we should govern ourselves. American principles and theories have not yet proven successful in East Asia -- not in Taiwan, Thailand or South Korea. If these countries become better societies than Singapore, in another five or 10 years, we will run after them to adopt their practices and catch up.
And now in America itself there is widespread crime and violence, children kill each other with guns, neighborhoods are insecure, old people feel forgotten, families are falling apart. And the media attack the integrity and character of your leaders with impunity, drags down all those in authority and blame everyone but themselves.
Gardels | Zbigniew Brzezinski has said, "What worries me most about America is that our own cultural self-corruption -- our permissive cornucopia -- may undercut America's capacity not just to sustain its position in the word as a political leader, but eventually even as a systemic model for others."
Lee | I wouldn't put it in that colorful way, but he is right. It has already happened. The idea of individual supremacy and the right to free expression, when carried to excess, has not worked. They have made it difficult to keep American society cohesive. Asians can see it is not working.
Gardels | In other words, "Extremism in the name of liberty is a vice."
Lee | Those who want a wholesome society safe for individual citizens to exercise their freedom, for young girls and old ladies to walk in the streets at night, where the young are not preyed upon by drug peddlers, will not follow the American model. So we look around, at the Japanese or the Germans, for a better way of doing things.
Though America is no longer a model for social order, many other parts are obviously worth emulating. How Americans raise venture capital, take risks and start up new firms is worth emulating. I don't see that in France, Germany or Japan.
That is not just creativity of ideas, but the ability to bring the new ideas to fruition and test them in the marketplace. That is all greatly admired around the world. But this free-for-all, this notion that all ideas should contend and there will be blinding light out of which you'll see the truth -- ha!
[Image: 476966997]
Singapore, 2015
Gardels | Isn't that innovative spirit, the capacity for initiative, part and parcel of a society where all individuals are free to create?
Lee | No, it is not. The top 3 to 5 percent of a society can handle this free-for-all, this clash of ideas. For them, you can turn an egg on its head and ask, "Will this work?" but if you do this with the mass of people in Asia, where over 50 percent of the people are not literate and the other 50 percent are just barley literate, you'll have a mess.
The avant-garde may lead a society forward; but if the whole society becomes like the avant-garde, it will fall apart. Let the avant-garde lead the way, and then when they have debugged the system, others can follow.
In this vein, I say, let them have the Internet! How many Singaporeans will be exposed to all these ideas, including some crazy ones, which we hope they won't absorb? Five percent? Okay.
That is intellectual stimulation that can provide an edge for society as a whole. But to have, day by day, images of violence and raw sex on the screen, the whole society exposed to it, it will ruin a whole community.
Gardels | Isn't that an outmoded view in the Information Age? I cite Shimon Peres: "The power of governments was largely due to the monopoly they had over the flow of knowledge. But ever since knowledge has become available to all, a new dynamic has been set in motion and cannot be stopped. Each and every citizen can become his own diplomat, his own administrator, his own governor. The knowledge to do so is available to him. He is no longer inclined to accept directives from on high as self-evident. He judges for himself."
Lee | That is true only to a point. Every lawyer knows the law, yet every lawyer at the bar knows who are better lawyers and who are the best.
The more knowledge there is the more people know who is best qualified to do the job. In a cabinet meeting, every minister gets the same information. But the ministers who tip the balance in reaching a decision are not the ones who have clever arguments, but those whose judgments are respected because repeatedly, from experience, they have been proven right.
It is not the information that makes the difference, but better use of information through better judgment. We are not all equally gifted or talented. This will still be true in the information society.
NO PLACE IS AN ISLAND ANYMORE
Gardels | America's most prominent futurist, Alvin Toffler, has said, "I used to think of Lee Kuan Yew as a man of the future. Now I think of him as a man of the past. You can't try to control information flows in this day and age." Bill Gates of Microsoft said something similar: "Singapore wants to have its cake and eat it, too." They want to be wired into cyberspace, but keep control over information that affects their local culture.
"But no place is an island anymore," Gates says. Not even Singapore. If you get the Internet, you will get Madonna's lewd lyrics and New York Times columnist Bill Safire calling you a dictator. Are you a man of the past, or a man of the future? Can you have your cake and eat it, too?
Lee | I know two fundamental truths: First, in an age when technology is changing so fast, if we don't change we'll be left behind and become irrelevant. So you have to change, fast. Second, how you nurture the children of the next generation has not been changed, whatever the state of technology.
From small tribes to clans to nations, the father-mother-son-daughter relationship has not changed. If children lose respect for their elders and disregard the sanctity of the family, the whole society will be imperiled and disintegrate. There is no substitute for parental love, no substitute for good neighborliness, no substitute for authority in those who have to govern.
If the media are always putting down and pulling down the leaders, if they act on the basis that no leader deserves to be taken at face value, but must be demolished by impugning his motives and character, and that no one knows better than media pundits, then you will have confusion and eventually disintegration. Their attacks may make good copy and increase sales but will make it difficult for society to work.
Good governance, even today, requires a balance between competing claims by upholding fundamental truths: that there is right and wrong, good and evil. We cannot abandon society to whatever the media or the Internet sends our way, good or bad. If everyone gets pornography on a satellite dish the size of a saucer, then the governments of the world have to do something about it or we will destroy our young and with them human civilization. Without maintaining a balance, no society has a future.
Gardels | Censorship, then, is the affirmation of community values?
Lee | I would put it in slightly stronger terms. It is community approval or disapproval. When I was a student in England, I used to read a little notice in the newspapers that so-and-so could not be invited to Buckingham Palace because he had been divorced. Now they bring women that are having extramarital affairs to Buckingham Palace.
A certain barrier has been brushed aside. But such social conventions and sanctions have an important function, to uphold standards in a community. If I want to copulate in my front yard, I cannot be allowed to say it is my own business. If everyone does it, the children would be brought up confused. So the government and society must say "stop it." That is the value of social sanctions -- they are a necessary way of making everyone understand that some kind of behavior is off limits.
MULTICULTURALISM AND AIR-CONDITIONING
Gardels | Looking back, what have been the key building blocks of Singapore?
Lee | We are not a homogeneous society. If we were like Japan, then many problems would not exist. But we are a conglomeration of people who were thrown together by the British, each seeking out a better life than the one he or she left behind.
Such a mixture of people -- Indians, Chinese, Malays -- needs to reach a social contract, if you will, of live and let live. Otherwise, there can be no common progress. If you want to beat the other fellow down and insist that he act like you and observe your taboos, then the whole place will come apart. A live-and-let-live contract is thus a social precondition.
Gardels | Anything else besides multicultural tolerance that enabled Singapore's success?
"Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history."
Lee | Air conditioning. Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics.
Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.
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Interviewing Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
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September 16, 2013
By The Independent
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By Tom Plate
From Los Angeles
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, whom I first interviewed in 1996, was always a terrific interview and if you ask Western journalists how many public figures they can say this of, you may be surprised at how few they name. But I cannot think of one journalist who left Istana after an interview with Lee disappointed. I even tell my university students that one clear sign of an utter lack of journalistic talent would be to conduct an interview with Singapore’s first prime minister that came out dull.
Many public figures like to dodge tough questions but, if asked in a proper way, Lee is the reverse: He relishes the challenge. He does not want for intellectual self-confidence, he is not intimidated by the Western journalist, and he will generally say what he thinks.
In the hours of intense interviews for Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew, the 2010 book that was the first in the Giants of Asia series, Lee overtly ducked only one question (the identity of the three holdover cabinet ministers who had been unhappy and who wished to bail on his successor Goh Chok Tong) and when the his full quotes were presented to him for review (his standard policy – but he never asks to see what will actually be published), wished to have removed three comments he worried would create diplomatic problems for his son, the prime minister. One of those concerns (his outspoken view on ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka) he agreed could be left in when I strongly protested that this view had to be included.
Edgy aides
In all the half-dozen interviews over the years Lee was always rational and reasoned, though he could be abrupt. It seemed to me during the conversations for the book in summer 2009 that the pair of aides present were in a constant state of nervous edginess, whether over fear of what I might ask of him or of what their boss might bark at them. But the then-senior minister, though suffering various ailments, answered questions with a laser-like attentiveness to the main points. It was this extraordinary talent for articulation that made it possible to construct a book about him over two mere afternoons, whereas much more time was needed for the ‘Giants of Asia’ books that followed (Mahathir, Thaksin, Ban Ki-moon).
Some critics felt the book was too favorable or soft – and some even got the mistaken impression that I thought Lee a perfect human being and Singapore a perfect place. To some extent that was my fault, but to a greater extent it was due to the nature of the ‘conversations’ approach to the book. You see, by reputation (if to a lesser extent by reality), American journalists are viewed as aggressive types. That comes both from the legacy of the Watergate era, when persistent investigative journalism toppled a U.S. president, and from the norms of the U.S. system, which by custom and First Amendment endow the news media with an independence role. In style, too, the push-down-the-door, mike-in-the-face style always been de rigueur. American journalists like to think of themselves as where Clint Eastwood might meet Ernest Hemingway. (Yeah, right….)
Yet the cowboy approach doesn’t always work; and in fact it sometimes works only to deny American reporters interview access. In the past decade I know in particular of at least two very well known sitting prime ministers in Asia who walked out on Western journalists expecting a lengthy interview session. It is difficult to relax a leader whom you wish to be candid and lengthy when your opening question is along the lines of: ‘How corrupt are you and when were you first corrupt’?
First American journalist who…
For his part, of course, a corruption question would never arise about Singapore (a tremendous achievement when you think about it) but Lee had been known to despise Western journalists whose sole homework for the interview would be to review negative human-rights reports and dreary old clips about caning and chewing gum. As far as I know Lee never denied me an interview if he was in town and available and I once asked an aide why. The answer was something like- For one thing you were the first American journalist who didn’t try to tell him how to run Singapore!
I once asked him why he bothered with an interview with me. He responded with a look as if I were crazy: “Because it is my job to influence the people who influence people’s opinions about Singapore.” The response was telling. For all his enormous towering and sometimes-scary ego, he cared most about making his little country look good and important.
And so on the occasion of his 90th birthday, why don’t we tell him that he did a very good job of that.
____________________________________
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore's prime minister
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SPIEGEL Interview with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew "It's Stupid to be Afraid"
Singapore's first-ever prime minister, long-time government head and current political mentor Lee Kuan Yew talks about Asia's rise to economic power, China's ambitions and the West's chances of staying competitive.
08.08.2005, 00.00 Uhr
[Image: The elder statesman Lee: "We run a meritocracy."]
The elder statesman Lee: "We run a meritocracy."
Foto: DPA
SPIEGEL
: The political and economic center of gravity is moving from the West towards the East. Is Asia becoming the dominant political and economic force in this century?
Mr. Lee: I wouldn't say it's the dominant force. What is gradually happening is the restoration of the world balance to what it was in the early 19th century or late 18th century when China and India together were responsible for more than 40 percent of world GDP. With those two countries becoming part of the globalized trading world, they are going to go back to approximately the level of world GDP that they previously occupied. But that doesn't make them the superpowers of the world.
SPIEGEL: Their leading politicians have publicly discussed the so-called "Asian Century".
Mr. Lee: Yes, economically, there will be a shift to the Pacific from the Atlantic Ocean and you can already see that in the shipping volumes of Chinese ports. Every shipping line is trying to get into association with a Chinese container port. India is slower because their infrastructure is still to be completed. But I think they will join in the race, build roads, bridges, airports, container ports and they'll become a manufacturing hub. Raw materials go in, finished goods go out.
SPIEGEL: You've been the leader of a very successful state for a long time. Returning from your time in China, are you afraid for Singapore's future?
Mr. Lee: I saw it coming from the late 1980s. Deng Xiaoping started this in 1978. He visited Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore in November 1978. I think that visit shocked him because he expected three backward cities. Instead he saw three modern cities and he knew that communism -- the politics of the iron rice bowl -- did not work. So, at the end of December, he announced his open door policy. He started free trade zones and from there, they extended it and extended it. Now they have joined the WTO and the whole country is a free trade zone.
SPIEGEL: But has China's success not become dangerous for Singapore?
Mr. Lee: We have watched this transformation and the speed at which it is happening. As many of my people tell me, it's scary. They learn so fast. Our people set up businesses in Shanghai or Suzhou and they employ Chinese at lower wages than Singapore Chinese. After three years, they say: "Look, I can do that work, I want the same pay." So it is a very serious challenge for us to move aside and not collide with them. We have to move to areas where they cannot move.
SPIEGEL: Such as?
Mr. Lee: Such as where the rule of law, intellectual property and security of production systems are required, because for them to establish that, it will take 20 to 30 years. We are concentrating on bio medicine, pharmaceuticals and all products requiring protection of intellectual property rights. No pharmaceutical company is going to go have its precious patents disclosed. So that is why they are here in Singapore and not in China.
SPIEGEL: But the Chinese are moving too. They bought parts of IBM and are trying to take over the American oil company Unocal.
Mr. Lee: They are learning. They have learnt takeovers and mergers from the Americans. They know that if they try to sell their computers with a Chinese brand it will take them decades in America, but if they buy IBM, they can inject their technology and low cost into IBM's brand name, and they will gain access to the market much faster.
SPIEGEL: But how afraid should the West be?
Mr. Lee: It's stupid to be afraid. It's going to happen. I console myself this way. Suppose, China had never gone communist in 1949, suppose the Nationalist government had worked with the Americans -- China would be the great power in Asia -- not Japan, not Korea, not Hong Kong, not Singapore. Because China isolated itself, development took place on the periphery of Asia first.
SPIEGEL: Such a consolation won't be enough for the future.
Mr. Lee: Right. In 50 years I see China, Korea and Japan at the high-tech end of the value chain. Look at the numbers and quality of the engineers and scientists they produce and you know that this is where the R&D will be done. The Chinese have a space programme, they're going to put a man on the Moon and nobody sold them that technology. We have to face that. But you should not be afraid of that. You are leading in many fields which they cannot catch up with for many years, many decades. In pharmaceuticals, I don't see them catching up with the Germans for a long time.
SPIEGEL: That wouldn't feed anybody who works for Opel, would it?
Mr. Lee: A motor car is a commodity -- four wheels, a chassis, a motor. You can have modifications up and down, but it remains a commodity, and the Chinese can do commodities.
SPIEGEL: When you look to Western Europe, do you see a possible collapse of the society because of the overwhelming forces of globalization?
Mr. Lee: No. I see ten bitter years. In the end, the workers, whether they like it or not, will realize, that the cosy European world which they created after the war has come to an end.
SPIEGEL: How so?
[Image: Downtown Singapore.]
Downtown Singapore.
Foto: AP
Mr. Lee: The social contract that led to workers sitting on the boards of companies and everybody being happy rested on this condition: I work hard, I restore Germany's prosperity, and you, the state, you have to look after me. I'm entitled to go to Baden Baden for spa recuperation one month every year. This old system was gone in the blink of an eye when two to three billion people joined the race -- one billion in China, one billion in India and over half-a-billion in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
SPIEGEL: The question is: How do you answer that challenge?
Mr. Lee: Chancellor Kohl tried to do it. He did it halfway then he had to pause. Schroeder tried to do it, now he's in a jam and has called an election. Merkel will go in and push, then she will get hammered before she can finish the job, but each time, they will push the restructuring a bit forward.
SPIEGEL: You think it's too slow?
Mr. Lee: It is painful because it is so slow. If your workers were rational they would say, yes, this is going to happen anyway, let's do the necessary things in one go. Instead of one month at the spa, take one week at the spa, work harder and longer for the same pay, compete with the East Europeans, invent in new technology, put more money into your R&D, keep ahead of the Chinese and the Indians.
SPIEGEL: You have seen yourself how hard it is to implement such strategies.
Mr. Lee: I faced this problem myself. Every year, our unions and the Labour Department subsidize trips to China and India. We tell the participants: Don't just look at the Great Wall but go to the factories and ask, "What are you paid?" What hours do you work?" And they come back shell-shocked. The Chinese had perestroika first, then glasnost. That's where the Russians made their mistake.
SPIEGEL: The Chinese Government is promoting the peaceful rise of China. Do you believe them?
Mr. Lee: Yes, I do, with one reservation. I think they have calculated that they need 30 to 40 -- maybe 50 years of peace and quiet to catch up, to build up their system, change it from the communist system to the market system. They must avoid the mistakes made by Germany and Japan. Their competition for power, influence and resources led in the last century to two terrible wars.
SPIEGEL: What should the Chinese do differently?
Mr. Lee: They will trade, they will not demand, "This is my sphere of influence, you keep out". America goes to South America and they also go to South America. Brazil has now put aside an area as big as the state of Massachusetts to grow soya beans for China. They are going to Sudan and Venezuela for oil because the Venezuelan President doesn't like America. They are going to Iran for oil and gas. So, they are not asking for a military contest for power, but for an economic competition.
SPIEGEL: But would anybody take them really seriously without military power?
Mr. Lee: About eight years ago, I met Liu Huaqing, the man who built the Chinese Navy. Mao personally sent him to Leningrad to learn to build ships. I said to him, "The Russians made very rough, crude weapons". He replied, "You are wrong. They made first-class weapons, equal to the Americans." The Russian mistake was that they put so much into military expenditure and so little into civilian technology. So their economy collapsed. I believe the Chinese leadership have learnt: If you compete with America in armaments, you will lose. You will bankrupt yourself. So, avoid it, keep your head down, and smile, for 40 or 50 years.
SPIEGEL: What are your reservations?
[Image: Anti-Japanese demonstrators in Shanghai.]
Anti-Japanese demonstrators in Shanghai.
Foto: AFP
Mr. Lee: I don't know whether the next generation will stay on this course. After 15 or 20 years they may feel their muscles are very powerful. We know the mind of the leaders but the mood of the people on the ground is another matter. Because there's no more communist ideology to hold the people together, the ground is now galvanised by Chinese patriotism and nationalism. Look at the anti-Japanese demonstrations.
SPIEGEL: How do you explain that China is spending billions on military modernisation right now?
Mr. Lee: Their modernisation is just a drop in the ocean. Their objective is to raise the level of damage they can deliver to the Americans if they intervene in Taiwan. Their objective is not to defeat the Americans, which they cannot do. They know they will be defeated. They want to weaken the American resolve to intervene. That is their objective, but they do not want to attack Taiwan.
SPIEGEL: Really? They have just passed the aggressive anti-secession law and a general has threatened to use the nuclear bomb.
Mr. Lee: I think they have put themselves into a position internationally that if Taiwan declares independence, they must react and if Beijing's leadership doesn't, they would be finished, they would be a paper tiger and they know that. So, they passed the anti-secession law to tell the Taiwanese and the Americans and the Japanese, "I do not want to fight, but if you allow Taiwan to go for independence, I will have to fight." I think the anti-secession law is a law to preserve the status quo.
SPIEGEL: Another critical point in Asia is the growing rivalry between China and Japan.
Mr. Lee: It's been dormant all this while, right? But I think several things happened that upped the ante. They possibly coincide with the policy of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. There is this return to "we want to be a normal country." They are sending ships to Afghanistan to support the Americans, they sent a battalion to Iraq, they reclaimed the Senkaku islands, and most recently, they joined the Americans in declaring that Taiwan is a strategic interest of Japan and America. That raises all the historical memories of the Japanese taking away Taiwan in 1895. Then they're applying to be a permanent member of the Security Council. So, I think the Chinese decided that this is too much. So, they have openly said they will object to Japan becoming a member of the Security Council.
SPIEGEL: Well, the United States said the same to Germany.
Mr. Lee: Exactly. So, the whole process is trying to define the position for the next round, maybe in 10 to 15 years, by which time the world will be a different place.
SPIEGEL: Can the Chinese convince their North Korean ally Kim Jong-Il to get rid of his nuclear program?
Mr. Lee: North Korea is a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. The leaders in North Korea believe that their survival depends upon having a bomb -- at least one nuclear bomb. Otherwise, sooner or later, they will collapse and the leaders will be put on trial like Milosevic for all the crimes that they have committed. And they have no intention of letting that happen.
SPIEGEL: Who can stop them? The Americans?
Mr. Lee: Yes, but at a price, a heavy price.
SPIEGEL: Could the Chinese do it?
Mr. Lee: Possibly. By denying food, denying fuel, so they would implode. But will the Chinese benefit from an imploded North Korea? That brings the South into the North. That brings the Americans to the Yalu River. So, the North Koreans have also done their calculations and know that there are limits.
SPIEGEL: So Kim is in a strong position?
Mr. Lee: If I were Kim I would freeze the programme, tell the Americans you can inspect, but if you attack me, I will use it. That leaves the Americans with the problem of checking and verifying and intercepting ships, aircraft, endless problems.
SPIEGEL: Would that save Kim's regime?
Mr. Lee: In the long run I think they will implode sooner or later because their system cannot survive. They can see China, they can see Russia and Vietnam, all opening up. If they open up, their system of control of the people will break down. So they must go.
SPIEGEL: If the six party talks fail, do you foresee an arms race in Eastern Asia?
Mr. Lee: If the nuclear program is frozen, there won't be an arms race. Eventually, it is not in China's interests to have an erratic Korea nuclear-armed and a Japan nuclear-armed. That reduces China's position.
SPIEGEL: Many Americans fear that China and the US are bound to become strategic rivals. Will this become the great rivalry of the 21st century?
[Image: Chinese ships during a military exercise.]
Chinese ships during a military exercise.
Foto: AP
Mr. Lee: Rivals, yes, but not necessarily enemies. The Chinese have spent a lot of energy and time to make sure that their periphery is friendly to them. So, they settled with Russia, they have settled with India. They're going to have a free trade agreement with India -- they're learning from each other. Instead of quarrelling with the Philippines and the Vietnamese over oil in the South China Sea, they have agreed on joint exploration and sharing. They've agreed on a strategic agreement with Indonesia for bilateral trade and technology.
SPIEGEL: But the Americans are trying to encircle China. They have won new bases in Central Asia.
Mr. Lee: The Chinese are very conscious of being encircled by allies of America. But they are very good in countering those moves. South Korea today has the largest number of foreign students in China. They see their future in China. So, the only country that's openly on America's side is Japan. All the others are either neutral or friendly to China.
SPIEGEL: During your career, you have kept your distance from Western style democracy. Are you still convinced that an authoritarian system is the future for Asia?
Mr. Lee: Why should I be against democracy? The British came here, never gave me democracy, except when they were about to leave. But I cannot run my system based on their rules. I have to amend it to fit my people's position. In multiracial societies, you don't vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion. Supposing I'd run their system here, Malays would vote for Muslims, Indians would vote for Indians, Chinese would vote for Chinese. I would have a constant clash in my Parliament which cannot be resolved because the Chinese majority would always overrule them. So I found a formula that changes that...
SPIEGEL: ... and that turned Singapore de facto into a one party state. Critics say that Singapore resembles a Lee Family Enterprise. Your son is the Prime Minister, your daughter-in-law heads the powerful Development Agency...
Mr. Lee: ... and my other son is CEO of Singapore Telecoms, my daughter is head of the National Institute for Neurology. This is a very small community of 4 million people. We run a meritocracy. If the Lee Family set an example of nepotism, that system would collapse. If I were not the prime minister, my son could have become Prime Minister several years earlier. It is against my interest to allow any family member who's incompetent to hold an important job because that would be a disaster for Singapore and my legacy. That cannot be allowed.
The interview was conducted by editors Hans Hoyng and Andreas Lorenz.
Translated from the German by Christoper Sultan
____________________________________
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore's prime minister
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Monday, Dec. 12, 2005
For nearly five hours over two days this fall, Singapore's Minister Mentor LEE KUAN YEW spoke with TIME's Michael Elliott, Zoher Abdoolcarim and Simon Elegant on everything from China's rise to radical Islam, from American values to Singapore's first family. Lee was thoughtful, animated, defiant, playful, even emotional — and always provocative. Highlights of the conversation:
THE RISE OF CHINA
TIME: The coming East Asia summit is an unprecedented gathering of Asia's leaders. Do you see it as an epochal moment for the region?
LEE: It happened in an unplanned, almost accidental, way. Abdullah Badawi, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, offered to host an East Asia summit: ASEAN plus three — the three being China, Japan and South Korea. China's premier, Wen Jiabao, then offered to host the second summit. That would move the center of gravity away from Southeast to Northeast Asia and make some countries anxious. We agreed that we should also invite India, Australia and New Zealand and keep the center in ASEAN; also, India would be a useful balance to China's heft. This is a getting-together of countries that believe their economic and cultural relations will grow over the years. And this will be a restoration of two ancient civilizations: China and India. With their revival, their influence will again spread into Southeast Asia. It would mean great prosperity for the region, but could also mean a tussle for power. Therefore, we think it best that from the beginning, we bring all the parties in together. It's not Asians versus whites. Everybody knows Australia and New Zealand are close to the U.S. There shouldn't be any concern that this is an anti-American grouping. It's a neater balance.
TIME: The summit is a coming-out party for China. The Chinese leadership use the phrase "peaceful rise." Does that strike you as about right, or are you nervous?
LEE: My first reaction was to tell one of their think tanks, "It's a contradiction in terms; any rise is something that is startling." And they said, "What would you say?" I replied: "Peaceful renaissance, or evolution, or development." A recovery of ancient glory, an updating of a once great civilization. But it's already done. Now the Chinese have to construe it as best they can.
A year ago, a Chinese leader in his 70s asked me, "Do you believe our position on peaceful rise?" I answered, "Yes, I do — but with one caveat." Your generation has been through the anti-Japanese war, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four, and finally the Open Door policy. You know there are many pitfalls, that for China to go up the escalator without mishap, internally you need stability, externally you need peace. However, you are inculcating enormous pride and patriotism in your young in a restored China. So much so that when they started demonstrating against the Japanese, they became violent. Furthermore, when my son, the [Singapore] Prime Minister, went to Taipei last year, he and Singapore were attacked on China's Internet chat rooms as ingrates, traitors. The day before yesterday, I was an old friend of China; today I'm a new enemy. It's volatile. The Chinese leader said they would ensure that the young understood. Well, I hope they do. Somewhere down this road, a generation may believe they have come of age, before they have.
TIME: So is nationalism — rather than its political system, or the build-up of its military, or the destabilizing role the Chinese Communist Party once played in Southeast Asia — the main reason behind the suspicion about China?
LEE: The discomfort [with China] is primarily that it is becoming a very powerful country and that it's not averse to making its power felt. For instance, when we did not sufficiently make amends for having visited Taiwan, they just froze all economic ties at the official level. We are a very small part of their economy, but they are a significant part of ours — and they are fully aware of this. It's a lever they will use from time to time.
TIME: Western analysts did not expect President Hu Jintao to pay so much attention to the Communist Party, or crack down on the media — or to see so much nationalist sentiment surface. The West has a certain unease and wariness about China's leaders.
LEE: They are communist by doctrine. I don't believe they are the same old communists as they used to be, but the thought processes, the dialectical, secretive way in which they form and frame their policies [still exist]. Their main preoccupations are stability, the continuation of their rule over China, and economic growth. Without a strong center they fear that they will never become competitive, they will never get rid of their state-owned enterprises, and they could have trouble in their inland provinces that are not doing well. A year before they took power, both Hu and Wen left me with the clear impression that they were going to redress this inequality, as best they could. To do that, they need a Party that responds to their orders, not have powerful barons in the provinces.
TIME: Other countries have addressed such problems, particularly corruption, through alternative power centers, such as independent prosecutors and courts, and a free press.
LEE: They know they have a problem. But at the same time, how to solve it, because how do you suddenly find the resources to pay high wages? They call our [Singapore] system "high-paying clean government." If they go for "high-paying clean government," where is the revenue to come from? [But] as long as the center is determined and clean, they can gradually put it right.
TIME: Do you think the center is pretty clean?
LEE: The core leaders I know — Hu Jintao, [Standing Committee Chairman] Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, [Vice President] Zeng Qinghong — I say definitely yes.
TIME: You've resisted the idea that the last two generations of Chinese leadership were influenced by Singapore as a model. You've said, they will make their own model. But surely they have studied Singapore.
LEE: They have studied us. They want to know how we stay in power in spite of multiparty elections and a plurality of views. They have huge Communist Party buildings, huge organizations. They find in Singapore no [ruling] People's Action Party building, no big statues, but also no corruption. The pap is everywhere, and the pap is nowhere. And they were surprised that our M.P.s have lawyers, doctors, professionals and business executives helping them nurse their constituencies, writing letters for constituents, advising them and so on. They went into the constituencies with our M.P.s, to see how it works. And they asked, "How do you do this? How do you create this?" In their [system], the high-ranking cadre is on a pedestal, traditionally in a curtained sedan chair. They're trying to nurture a new generation of cadres to model themselves differently. Yes, they can pick up pointers from us, but they cannot change the "magistrate-in-the-sedan-chair" culture so easily.
© 2019 TIME USA, LLC. All rights reserved.
Monday, Dec. 12, 2005
Lee Kuan Yew Reflects
For nearly five hours over two days this fall, Singapore's Minister Mentor LEE KUAN YEW spoke with TIME's Michael Elliott, Zoher Abdoolcarim and Simon Elegant on everything from China's rise to radical Islam, from American values to Singapore's first family. Lee was thoughtful, animated, defiant, playful, even emotional — and always provocative. Highlights of the conversation:
THE RISE OF CHINA
TIME: The coming East Asia summit is an unprecedented gathering of Asia's leaders. Do you see it as an epochal moment for the region?
LEE: It happened in an unplanned, almost accidental, way. Abdullah Badawi, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, offered to host an East Asia summit: ASEAN plus three — the three being China, Japan and South Korea. China's premier, Wen Jiabao, then offered to host the second summit. That would move the center of gravity away from Southeast to Northeast Asia and make some countries anxious. We agreed that we should also invite India, Australia and New Zealand and keep the center in ASEAN; also, India would be a useful balance to China's heft. This is a getting-together of countries that believe their economic and cultural relations will grow over the years. And this will be a restoration of two ancient civilizations: China and India. With their revival, their influence will again spread into Southeast Asia. It would mean great prosperity for the region, but could also mean a tussle for power. Therefore, we think it best that from the beginning, we bring all the parties in together. It's not Asians versus whites. Everybody knows Australia and New Zealand are close to the U.S. There shouldn't be any concern that this is an anti-American grouping. It's a neater balance.
TIME: The summit is a coming-out party for China. The Chinese leadership use the phrase "peaceful rise." Does that strike you as about right, or are you nervous?
LEE: My first reaction was to tell one of their think tanks, "It's a contradiction in terms; any rise is something that is startling." And they said, "What would you say?" I replied: "Peaceful renaissance, or evolution, or development." A recovery of ancient glory, an updating of a once great civilization. But it's already done. Now the Chinese have to construe it as best they can.
A year ago, a Chinese leader in his 70s asked me, "Do you believe our position on peaceful rise?" I answered, "Yes, I do — but with one caveat." Your generation has been through the anti-Japanese war, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four, and finally the Open Door policy. You know there are many pitfalls, that for China to go up the escalator without mishap, internally you need stability, externally you need peace. However, you are inculcating enormous pride and patriotism in your young in a restored China. So much so that when they started demonstrating against the Japanese, they became violent. Furthermore, when my son, the [Singapore] Prime Minister, went to Taipei last year, he and Singapore were attacked on China's Internet chat rooms as ingrates, traitors. The day before yesterday, I was an old friend of China; today I'm a new enemy. It's volatile. The Chinese leader said they would ensure that the young understood. Well, I hope they do. Somewhere down this road, a generation may believe they have come of age, before they have.
TIME: So is nationalism — rather than its political system, or the build-up of its military, or the destabilizing role the Chinese Communist Party once played in Southeast Asia — the main reason behind the suspicion about China?
LEE: The discomfort [with China] is primarily that it is becoming a very powerful country and that it's not averse to making its power felt. For instance, when we did not sufficiently make amends for having visited Taiwan, they just froze all economic ties at the official level. We are a very small part of their economy, but they are a significant part of ours — and they are fully aware of this. It's a lever they will use from time to time.
TIME: Western analysts did not expect President Hu Jintao to pay so much attention to the Communist Party, or crack down on the media — or to see so much nationalist sentiment surface. The West has a certain unease and wariness about China's leaders.
LEE: They are communist by doctrine. I don't believe they are the same old communists as they used to be, but the thought processes, the dialectical, secretive way in which they form and frame their policies [still exist]. Their main preoccupations are stability, the continuation of their rule over China, and economic growth. Without a strong center they fear that they will never become competitive, they will never get rid of their state-owned enterprises, and they could have trouble in their inland provinces that are not doing well. A year before they took power, both Hu and Wen left me with the clear impression that they were going to redress this inequality, as best they could. To do that, they need a Party that responds to their orders, not have powerful barons in the provinces.
TIME: Other countries have addressed such problems, particularly corruption, through alternative power centers, such as independent prosecutors and courts, and a free press.
LEE: They know they have a problem. But at the same time, how to solve it, because how do you suddenly find the resources to pay high wages? They call our [Singapore] system "high-paying clean government." If they go for "high-paying clean government," where is the revenue to come from? [But] as long as the center is determined and clean, they can gradually put it right.
TIME: Do you think the center is pretty clean?
LEE: The core leaders I know — Hu Jintao, [Standing Committee Chairman] Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, [Vice President] Zeng Qinghong — I say definitely yes.
TIME: You've resisted the idea that the last two generations of Chinese leadership were influenced by Singapore as a model. You've said, they will make their own model. But surely they have studied Singapore.
LEE: They have studied us. They want to know how we stay in power in spite of multiparty elections and a plurality of views. They have huge Communist Party buildings, huge organizations. They find in Singapore no [ruling] People's Action Party building, no big statues, but also no corruption. The pap is everywhere, and the pap is nowhere. And they were surprised that our M.P.s have lawyers, doctors, professionals and business executives helping them nurse their constituencies, writing letters for constituents, advising them and so on. They went into the constituencies with our M.P.s, to see how it works. And they asked, "How do you do this? How do you create this?" In their [system], the high-ranking cadre is on a pedestal, traditionally in a curtained sedan chair. They're trying to nurture a new generation of cadres to model themselves differently. Yes, they can pick up pointers from us, but they cannot change the "magistrate-in-the-sedan-chair" culture so easily.
TIME: They will have to deal with democracy, or democratic pressures, at some point.
LEE: They don't view it the way you do. It's been their experience to always need total control at the center. If China's center loses power, the country will disintegrate. That's a deep-seated historical lesson. Deng [Xiaoping] said, "You cross the river feeling for one pebble at a time." They're going about it in a pragmatic way. With corruption and the grassroots, they find that when they allow a vote for the village chief, the corrupt officials are voted out. How far will they go? I think they'll go for small townships. As long as they can stay in overall control, they will keep experimenting.
TIME: Mao Zedong said: "A single spark can light a prairie fire."
LEE: A prairie fire will only start if there's a dry spell. They've got $700 billion worth of reserves. Never has the central government of China been so well equipped with the latest in transportation and communication technology. Is anybody going to die of hunger? No. Anybody needs to be turfed out of their homes and thrown onto the streets without alternatives? No.
TIME: Is that what it's all about then: keep the people fed and watered and they won't bother you?
LEE: With rural folk, yes. With the town folk, that's a different problem. As China moves to a majority urban society, [where people have access to] satellite TV, Internet, cell phones, the towns have to be governed differently. At the moment they are co-opting: you are a successful entrepreneur, you are a great artist, then join us. The Communist Party is a very broad church. You help drive China forward. Make it work better.
TIME: Do they know that they have to do more than make the Communist Party a broad church, that there's a mindset they have to change?
LEE: Oh yeah, they're not stupid. Talking to them, I do not think that they believe their grandchildren will live under this system unchanged. They allowed the book Studying in America by Qian Ning, son of [former vice premier] Qian Qichen, to be published. He was working at the People's Daily, went to the University of Michigan on a scholarship immediately after Tiananmen, and he wrote the book three or four years later. He had an impeccable communist pedigree, but what he wrote was quite subversive. When he arrived at Ann Arbor that summer of 1989, he suddenly realized that life consisted also of parties, barbecues, great friendships, not this hothouse self-criticism and politicking in Beijing. In one passage he says that all those who had their wives with them [in the U.S.], when these women go home, they would never be the same Chinese women. They had seen that a different style of life is possible. In an oblique way, he's saying he's changed his perspective of what is possible in Chinese society. This is the new world, multiple channels of interaction with the outside world, their students in universities abroad, businessmen scouting for opportunities abroad, tourists and businessmen coming to China.
TIME: You mentioned 1989, the year of the Tiananmen crackdown. You've said that came as an incredible shock to you. Do you think Deng Xiaoping did the right thing?
LEE: I cannot judge what he did, because I did not have his information. If, in fact, there was a danger of similar outbursts in other cities, then I think he had to move. But I said later to [then Premier] Li Peng, "When I had trouble with my sit-in communist students, squatting in school premises and keeping their teachers captive, I cordoned off the whole area around the schools, shut off the water and electricity, and just waited. I told their parents that health conditions were deteriorating, dysentery was going to spread. And they broke it up without any difficulty." I said to Li Peng, you had the world's TV cameras there waiting for the meeting with Gorbachev, and you stage this grand show. His answer was: We are completely inexperienced in these matters.
THE DANGER OF RADICAL ISLAM
TIME: How serious is the threat?
LEE: This battle is going to be won and lost in the Middle East. The problem in Iraq is very grave. If the jihadists win there, I'm in trouble here. [Their attitude will be]: We've beaten the Russians in Afghanistan, we've beaten the Americans and the coalition in Iraq. There's nothing we cannot do. We can fix Southeast Asia too. There will be such a surge of confidence for all jihadists. The U.S. must be seen�if not to have prevailed or to have created a democratic Iraq�to at least to have denied the jihadists a victory. Because otherwise the consequences for America and for the world are horrendous.
TIME: The 2002 plot to blow up seven embassies in Singapore using truck bombs�our sense is that you were taken completely by surprise.
LEE: Of course. How could we, in this most cosmopolitan and open of cities, where 15% Muslim Malays are completely mixed up with Chinese, Indians, Eurasians and others, go to English-language schools, do similar jobs, live in similar homes, produce 30-plus would-be jihadists?
TIME: You had no idea?
LEE: No idea at all. It was a stroke of good fortune. Our intelligence had under surveillance a few religious types [in Singapore]. One of them left for Karachi and went on to Afghanistan, soon after the country was bombed by the Americans [in late 2001]. He was captured by the [anti-Taliban] Northern Alliance. He was of Pakistani descent. So we found that this wasn't just a religious study group. If that fella had not gone off to Karachi to fight with the Taliban, we would have been hit with seven truck bombs. The nitrates were sitting [across the causeway] in [the Malaysian state of] Johore.
At the same time that this Pakistani, born and bred in Singapore and English-speaking, was caught by the Northern Alliance, another Pakistani born and bred in Bradford, U.K., was caught in Iraq and sent to Guant�namo Bay. I watched his father on the BBC, and thought to myself: two Pakistani families left Pakistan, one for Bradford, the other for Singapore, produced children, brought up in two totally different environments, quite distant from the Islam of Pakistan, and yet they both end up fighting in Afghanistan. This Islamist pull is more powerful than that of communism. The communists never fully trusted one another across racial boundaries. The Vietnamese communists never trusted the Chinese communists and so on. But with the Islamists there is total trust: You are a warrior for Islam, so am I: We swear to fight together.
TIME: Both the rise of China and the rise of radical Islam require very sustained, long-term engagement by the U.S. Are you confident that Americans have the ability and the patience for the long-term view, the long-term engagement?
LEE: In the past the U.S. had the option of opting out, as in Vietnam. Now Americans know they are vulnerable; 9/11 brought this home dramatically. American embassies and American businesses are being attacked worldwide. Opting out is not an option. To make the long-term burden sustainable you need a broad alliance, to spread the load, to reduce excessive burdens on yourself. You need others to agree on the basic causes and solutions. It's not poverty, it's not deprivation, it's something more fundamental, a resurgence of Arab and Islamic pride, and a belief that their time has come. The objective must be to reassure and persuade moderate Muslims, the rationalists and modernizers, which I believe the majority are, that they are not going to lose, that they have the weight, the resources of the world behind them. They must have the courage to go into the mosques and madrasahs and switch off the radicals.
AMERICAN VALUES
TIME: U.S. President George W. Bush speaks very openly and genuinely about his religious values. How do you find that?
LEE: I had this argument with a European leader, who said to me, "We Europeans don't like [Bush's] telephone line to God." And I said to him: But when you are fighting a fanatic on the other side who believes he represents God, it does help to give you a serenity and a tranquility of mind to believe you also have God on your side. Look at the President when he announced that he had ordered an attack on Baghdad. I never saw a man more composed�[he] spoke briefly into the microphone and walked away straight-backed, not a doubt in his mind. I thought to myself, that's not a bad commander.
TIME: You've been a staunch advocate of continued U.S. engagement in Asia. At the same time, you have been a pretty sharp critic, to put it mildly, of internal American society.
LEE: Because they want to impose certain values on me that would make it very difficult to govern a Singapore in the middle of a Muslim Southeast Asia. Sometimes, intellectually, I've got to give it as hard as they give it to me. It's important that we do that, because we intend to stand our ground with the Chinese and with our bigger neighbors. We are small, we are vulnerable, we can be destroyed. If we don't stand our ground, they'll just roll over us.
TIME: Do you like American society now?
LEE: I admire American society. But I would not want to live there permanently. If I had to be a refugee, like [former South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen] Cao Ky, who went to California, I would choose Britain, a less stressful society. [But Americans have] a can-do approach to life: everything can be broken up, analyzed, and redefined. Whether it can or it can't, Americans believe it can be solved, given enough money, research and effort. Over the years I have watched the Americans revise and restructure their economy, after they were going down in the 1980s, when Japan and Germany looked like eclipsing America, taking over all the manufacturing. Americans came roaring back. [They] have the superior system. It's more competitive.
TIME: But the U.S. is a very non-Singaporean society. It's messy and noisy, and it has turmoil.
LEE: You must have contention, a clash of ideas. If Galileo had not challenged the Pope, we would still believe the world is flat, right? And Christopher Columbus might never have discovered America.
TIME: You don't allow much contention in Singapore.
LEE: [The lack of contention] here could be a problem. But I do not believe you must have that degree of contention and political viciousness to be creative ... The exaggerated exploitation of political positions, just to do the other side in, it's so counterproductive, unnecessary. Take Hurricane Katrina. The politicking was incredible. So George W. Bush was not quick off the mark when Katrina struck. But I don't think his adversaries were simply that worried about New Orleans; they just wanted to put Bush down.
THE MAKING OF SINGAPORE
TIME: But you would concede that Singapore now needs more contention and turmoil?
LEE: Surely, surely. Ideally we should have Team A, Team B, equally balanced, so that we can have a swap and the system will run. We have not been able to do this in Singapore because our population is only 4 million, and the people at the top, with proven track records�not just in ability, but in character, determination, commitment�will not be more than 2,000. You can put their biodata in a thumbdrive.
We also have a different culture, a different way of doing things. The individual is not the building block. It's the family, the extended family, the clan and the state. The five crucial relationships are: you and the prince or the ruler, you and your wife, you and your children, you and your parents, you and your friends. If those relationships are right, everything will work out well in society.
TIME: You have said that the people of Singapore are overly reliant on the government to solve their problems, but isn't the government partly to blame?
LEE: Should I have fostered more free enterprise, more do-it-yourself? Yes. But free enterprise was not working [for us] because we did not have enough entrepreneurs.
Hong Kong started with successful businessmen from mainland China, after '49. They were the business �lite of the coastal regions. They were not just merchants. They knew how to run a shipping line, how to start a textile factory, run a bank and so on. We had traders, not manufacturers. Why did we [the government] start a shipping line? Because we didn't have a Y.K. Pao or a C.Y. Tung as in Hong Kong. The same with Singapore Airlines, and so with an iron and steel mill. How do we get out of these companies now? To get out, we've got to find a buyer who can provide the management to take over. We produced the bright officers who are good at numbers and who learned on the job. They did a great job. We don't want to do that anymore. If SIA can be run by some corporate group, we want to get out of it. But who in Singapore? Have we got a Li Ka-shing?
TIME: Are you disappointed that it is so hard to find that kind of animal spirit?
LEE: We did the best we could with the material we then had. Now we are switching to a new mode. The other day I attended the wake of the former chief justice. I was talking to the son, and I said, what are you doing? He's a lawyer, but he's given up law; he's now running a yoga club. He's got one in Hong Kong, he's got one here. I said, oh that's good. Where did you get the yoga teachers from? He said he got them from India. He says many people feel stressed, and so a yoga club. I think the spirit of enterprise is taking hold. They are trying out new businesses. You can have an office in your home, so long as the neighbors don't complain. You can start a boutique or a restaurant in a residential neighborhood if it is not a nuisance. And if there are three or four more of them, we'll change it from a residential to commercial area. But it's not going to happen overnight.
TIME: A documentary film was made locally about a Singapore opposition politician, and it was banned.
LEE: Well, if you had asked me, I would have said, to hell with it. But the censor, the enforcer, he will continue until he is told the law has changed. And it will change ...
[But] I'm not guided by what Human Rights Watch says. I am not interested in ratings by Freedom House or whatever. At the end of the day, is Singapore society better or worse off? That's the test. What are the indicators of a well-governed society? Look at the humanities index in last week's Economist, we're right on top. You look at the savings index, World Bank, we're right on top. Economic freedoms, we're on top. What is it we lack? Reporters Without Borders put Malaysia's newspapers ahead of us. In Malaysia the ruling coalition parties own the major newspapers. In Singapore the major banks are in control of the company that runs our newspapers. There is no information that Singaporeans want that they cannot get. All major foreign newspapers and magazines are sold here. We demand a right of reply, that's all. And if you go over the line, if you defame us, we're prepared to sue you, go into the witness box and be cross-examined. You can brief the best lawyers and demolish us. If I'm involved, I go to the witness box. And you can question me, not only on the particular defamatory issue, but all issues in my life.
TIME: Couldn't you have been lighter on the opposition�not sue?
LEE: No. If you don't sue, repetition of the lie [makes it credible]. It will be believed ... [Former U.S. Secretary of State] George Shultz once wrote to me about why I insist on this right of reply. I said to him, "We believe in the marketplace of ideas. Let the ideas contend, and the best ideas the public will buy." But I also said, "That assumes a large well-educated group of people as readers. Look at the marketplace of ideas in the Philippines, and see the chaos." Americans can have a marketplace of ideas. For example, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was a box-office hit. Americans enjoyed their President being mocked and satirized. But the majority voted for Bush in November 2004. When we have a large enough educated population like America, able to make independent judgments, we will loosen up. But even without the cacophony, all ideas are accessible in the media and the Internet.
TIME: You have strong views about a political culture of noise and discordancy. Yet at the same time you want Singapore to move a little bit more in that direction.
LEE: Surely. It is in the interests of my son and his team to encourage Singaporeans to be more self-reliant, willing to take charge of their lives, and less dependent on looking to the government for solutions. In other words, become more like Americans. Gradually over the years, I have seen the value of the American can-do spirit.
TIME: Singapore is a more modern, more sophisticated, better educated society than the U.K. Young Singaporeans are bright, smart, lively. They can take it, they can take a noisy marketplace of ideas.
LEE: Look, I don't meet them so often now. My son does. Let him decide. It's his call.
THE PERSONAL LEE
TIME: Speaking of your son, the Lee family is in such positions of power in Singapore that there has to be some resentment.
LEE: In 1984 [then Defense Minister] Goh Chok Tong was looking for potential ministers to be M.P.s. He persuaded [Lee Hsien Loong], then a brigadier-general, to stand for elections. I said to [Hsien Loong]: You need to remarry�his first wife had died in '82�going into politics will make it more difficult. He decided to go into politics in 1984, and he remarried in 1985. In 1992 he had leukemia. His world crashed. These things are beyond anyone's control. Did I plan for him to be Prime Minister? Not possible. It worked out that way, but what I determined was that he would not succeed me, that there should be a clear interregnum between him and me. I said it openly, I said at a party conference that I would not have him succeed me because it would be bad for him, bad for the country, and bad for me. He would be seen to have got there by my influence. That would diminish him, reduce his ability to govern. In several elections we won by the largest majority of votes. I have lived a full life and do not need to live vicariously.
TIME: Who's the most impressive person you've met in your public life?
LEE: Deng Xiaoping.
TIME: We knew you'd say that. But tell us why.
LEE: I met this small man when he came to Singapore in November 1978. This small four-foot-eleven man, but a giant of a leader. He gave me a long spiel�the Russian bear, Vietnam was his Cuba in the Far East, danger for you. I had provided him with a Ming vase spittoon, and I put an ashtray in front of him. He neither smoked nor used the spittoon. The same arrangements at dinner. He did not use either. At dinner he said, "I must congratulate you, you've done a good job in Singapore." I said, "Oh, how's that?" He says, "I came to Singapore on my way to Marseilles in 1920. It was a lousy place. You have made it a different place." I said, "Thank you. Whatever we can do, you can do better. We are the descendants of the landless peasants of south China. You have the mandarins, the writers, the thinkers and all the bright people. You can do better." He looked at me, but said nothing. In November 1992, during his famous tour of the southern provinces, he said, "Learn from Singapore," and "Do better than them." I thought, oh, he never forgot what I said to him.
But what impressed me was, the next day in our talks in Singapore, I said, "You spent all this time to convince me why we should fight the Russian bear. Let me tell you that my neighbors want me to join them to fight you, you're the man who's giving us trouble. All this communist insurgency and your broadcasts urging them on and so on." He screwed up his eyes, peered at me, and asked, "What do you want me to do?" I said, "Stop it." One young man telling one old grizzly, guerrilla fighter: "Stop it." He said, "Give me time." Eighteen months later he stopped it. That man faced reality. I'm convinced that his visit to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, that journey, in November '78, was a shock to him. He expected three third-world cities; he saw three second-world cities, better than Shanghai or Beijing. As his aircraft door closed, I turned around to my colleagues, I said, [his aides] are getting a shellacking. They gave him the wrong brief. Within weeks, the People's Daily switched lines, that Singapore is no longer a running dog of the Americans, it's a very nice city, a garden city, good public housing, very clean place. They changed their line. And he changed to the "open door" policy. After a lifetime as a communist, at the age of 74, he persuaded his Long March contemporaries to return to a market economy.
TIME: Do you think of yourself as a religious man? Do you have a religious faith that keeps you going, sustains you?
LEE: We do psychometric tests on our candidates for important jobs. There is a scale of values: social, aesthetic, economic, religious, etc., six values. I cannot judge myself, but I believe I would not score very highly on religious value. I do not believe that prayer can cure, but that prayer may comfort and help. At the same time, I've seen my closest friend [former Finance Minister] Hon Sui Sen on his deathbed; he had had a heart attack and was fighting for his life, doctors were there, the priest was there, but there was no fear in his eyes. He and his wife were devout Catholics. They were both convinced they would meet again in the hereafter. I believe a man or a woman who has deep faith in God has an enormous strength facing crises, an advantage in life.
Many years ago I read a book�The Real Enemy by Pierre d'Harcourt, a French Catholic. He recounted his experience in a Nazi concentration camp. There were two groups of people in his camp. Those with convictions survived, and those who had no deep convictions died. The two groups who had convictions were the deeply religious�of whom he, a Catholic, was one�and the communists. They had the same unshakeable conviction that they would triumph. The others�famous doctors, talented musicians and so on�they would trade their food for cigarettes, knowing that if they did that, one morning they would not be able to go out into the cold for the roll call. But they had given up. The communists and the deeply religious fought on and survived. There are some things in the human spirit that are beyond reason.
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