squeezing blood from stone........ hakka way
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Going completely overboard in “honouring” lky
- Thread starter rover2sg
- Start date
don't give such ideas. PA may get serious and work on it.
I am politically aware during his time and do have few contacts (minor) with old man. I am certain he is not the type to want such adoration. I doubt his daughter too cherish such "admirations" for her father!
LKY liked to kick ass; he never wanted self glorification. Only porlumpars wanted to show off how much they loved him. The man is dead and gone. Remember him for the good done to the country and curse him for the mess he created.
LKY would never have wanted it this way, unlike Marcos in pinoy land, Mao in tiong land and that fat man's grandfather and father in kimchi land.
Porlumpars are usually the useless and hopeless lot. They know nothing else except to carry balls, the balls of a dead man.
The Indians had already named an ah neh kid after him. It would be real hilarious if that boy grew up to become a thief or a rapist.
if so, it will not be reported in the ST.
who gives a flying fuck what LKY want, we are alive and he's toast. I say we build one today with a 100m high statue of LKY
Too revisionist for some - I've yet to come across any official rebuttals to TPT, in particular from his very own alumni or those who always know better:
COMMENT: Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore history
Dr. Thum Ping Tjin is Coordinator of Project Southeast Asia and a Research Associate at the Centre for Global History, University of Oxford. The views expressed here are his own.
Lee Kuan Yew was a quintessential, and perhaps the ultimate, product of a massive confluence of historical forces that defined Singapore in the twentieth century. But his legacy also represents a fundamental disruption to the broad sweep of Singapore history. This contradiction is central to understanding Lee’s place in the history of Singapore.
Innovation is a fundamental theme of Singapore. Even before there was a Singapore (and likely long after), pirates, traders, and entrepreneurs were establishing a tradition of independent thinking and action on the island. Their descendants have followed.
Singapore’s success is built upon the spontaneous creation of economic institutions like clans and guild associations and Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce; educational institutions, cultural and charitable organisations; activism, and political parties, from the first political party in Singapore, the Kesatuan Melayu Singapura (KMS), to the ruling People’s Action Party.
Sitting at the nexus of many great local and regional trading and intellectual networks, Singapore has always been cosmopolitan, deeply politicised, and constantly awash with new ideas. Singapore was a centre for pan-Islam, for overseas Chinese networks, for Malay culture and literature. Singapore has long been a public sphere where these ideas have met and found new forms of expression.
Lee, born in 1923, was a product of these innovative forms of thought and action. He was perfectly positioned to arbitrage between the ideas of nationalism and self-determination which were sweeping through Singapore, and the fading but still powerful forces of colonialism and imperialism. Taking advantage of the expansion of the Anglophone colonial educational system to rise all the way to Cambridge, he returned to Singapore in 1950 and quickly realised where the future lay. Singapore’s economic success had been built by the dynamism and vitality of Singapore’s economic innovators and entrepreneurs. Singapore’s political future would be built by the dynamism and vitality of Singapore’s political innovators and entrepreneurs – Chinese, Malay, and Tamil-speaking trade unionists, intellectuals, and community organisers. He allied himself with them and rode them all the way to the Prime Ministership in 1959.
To understand his achievements, it is necessary to dispel some of the myths which obscure Lee Kuan Yew. Lee’s government did not make Singapore rich – As Lee himself noted in 1960 in a Straits Times report, Singapore had the “highest average income in Asia - $1,200 per capita per annum”. His government’s great legacy was to make Singapore fairer. Singaporeans in the 1950s faced systemic colonial discrimination. Singapore was plagued by massive inequality; high property prices; high cost of living; congestion, overcrowding, and unemployment; and systemic colonial discrimination which privileged Europeans and English-speakers. The PAP’s systemic reforms reduced inequality, empowering Singaporeans to take advantage of opportunities that were at that point of time beyond their grasp.
However, Lee’s government did not originate many of the ideas on which Singapore’s prosperity is based. The period of 1955 – 1963 was also a time of great political upheaval, with eight elections and one referendum – an average of one vote a year. Political parties cleaved and coalesced as circumstances and issues changed. In this creative destruction lay Singapore’s future prosperity. Political parties, facing the discipline of the ballot box, fought by innovating on policy. From this arose the great ideas which would lay the foundation for Singapore’s success: The Central Provident Fund; the Housing Development Board; a flexible multilingual educational system; heavily reducing systemic class, gender, ethnic, and linguistic discrimination; industrialisation and economic development.
‘An unparalleled understanding of power’
But implementation is every bit, if not more, important than the idea itself. And it was here that Lee shone. Lee’s political acumen delivered the stability that Singapore sorely needed to implement reforms. His leadership and support enabled his allies – first Lim Chin Siong, then Goh Keng Swee, Yong Nyuk Lin, and Lim Kim San, among others – to make the vast strides in labour, economic, education, and housing policy. Lee was the great enabler, making it all possible.
Lee achieved this via an unparalleled understanding of power: how it works, how it is perceived, how to win it and keep it. “The only subject which I have ever heard Lee Kuan Yew talk about with any sense of feeling is the subject of power,” British Commissioner Selkirk marvelled in 1960, “Political power is, I believe, almost an obsession to him.” But his intuitive understanding of power was accompanied by an unshakeable conviction that he alone had to control it.
In 1961, his unwillingness to compromise on power led him to cast aside the trade unionists and activists who connected his party to the people. His popularity plummeted. To keep himself in power, he embarked on a crash course for Malayan reunification, with the aim of winning the 1963 elections on the back of a successful merger. To achieve this, he sacrificed the principle of Malayan unity for the expedience of merger. By provoking the spectres of racial fear and socialist takeover, he convinced the leadership of the Federation of Malaya that Singapore’s Chinese were racially and ideologically hostile and needed to be controlled via a constitutional and security structure. This structure would be Malaysia. After its formation, Lee then turned around and attempted to overthrow the yoke he himself had placed on Singapore. This reinforced the racial suspicion that Lee had bred, hardening attitudes on racial lines. Drastically elevated racial antipathy would be Lee’s lasting legacy in Malaysia.
Greatest failure?
Faced with a choice of stepping down from power or taking Singapore out of Malaysia, he chose the latter. This proved to be Lee’s greatest failure. After the Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, he returned to the British colonial model of using legislation, repression, and social control to enforce his will upon Singapore’s electorate. Stability was achieved. Under his leadership, Singapore progressed rapidly. From his greatest failure would be born his greatest success.
However, the inadequacies of his system became evident by the late 1970s, when new ideas were needed to meet new challenges. The PAP government was bereft. Its new policies on family planning, industrialisation, education, and housing were disasters. Lee wisely set about renewing Singapore’s government. But he accompanied this with a severe increase of government control. Most importantly, he was unable to take the most important step of renewal – removing himself.
Lee emphasised the importance of stability and firm governance in delivering Singaporean success. But his view of history was based on a narrow reading of Singaporean culture and history that privileged his own personal perspective. Lee had enabled success by yoking explosive creativity and innovation to stability and discipline. This succeeded because innovation had already thrown up ideas to implement. Lee now remained the font of all authority and the final guarantor of stability, but also the block on innovation.
History shows us that culture persists. Singapore remained a volatile, politically aware, innovative society throughout Lee’s political career. It constantly threw up new challenges to the PAP. A man with Lee’s formidable talents could deal with those challenges. But the system which Lee leaves behind, by definition, cannot because it is predicated on stability at the cost of innovation.
Today, many of the issues his government addressed have returned. As in 1950, it is very rich, but struggles with many of the same issues that motivated Lee’s rise to power: massive inequality; high property prices; high cost of living; and systemic discrimination along racial, class, and linguistic lines.
Lee, tragically, stayed in power long enough to see himself and his party become the enemy he had fought so hard against, and the system he created become the system he had fought so hard to overthrow. In the longue durée of Singapore history, the first third of Lee’s political career will be seen as a shining light of progress – but as a whole, it will be remembered as transitional period, an exception to the fundamentally innovative and chaotic nature of Singapore.
http://news.yahoo.com/comment-lee-kuan-yew-in-singapore-history-041036732.html
Interestingly Bilahari Kausikan, enfant terrible of the MFA has gone very quiet on social media - he was typically spewing his views on many times on a daily basis and sometime in late Jan suddenly just stopped posting personal comments/opinions - and then this appeared yesterday (what a terribly constructed headline though)
From abroad, tests for a nation as others try their luck http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/abroad-tests-nation-others-try-their-luck
He did not specify the countries or elaborate on what they did, but the famously frank diplomat said: “There will be some countries that certainly will probe and test us to see if there are things they can get away with now that Mr Lee is no longer with us, and some such probes have already begun.
“Please don’t ask me which countries. All I will say is that if they persist, they will be in for a rude surprise.”
When asked to elaborate, he candidly added: “They think our ability to stand firm only depends on Lee Kuan Yew — that’s rubbish. Or if they think that now he’s not around you can redo things, no, sorry…”
Mr Kausikan was replying to a question on whether a post-Lee Kuan Yew Singapore is regarded differently by other countries, especially those in the region.
It is a valid concern, one that many observers and diplomats interviewed believe is something to reflect on. “Yes, there is some degree of shift in other countries’ perceptions of Singapore,” said Mr Ong Keng Yong, executive deputy chairman of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).
“The fact is different leaders have different styles and personal chemistry among leaders works in mysterious ways in international encounters and meetings. Also, the regional and global situations have undergone rapid changes. Technological advancement has compressed the space and time for information exchange between countries and events, resulting in leaders in different parts of the world operating quite differently these days in connecting with their counterparts elsewhere.”
But like Mr Kausikan and Mr Ong, observers are optimistic that Singapore’s fundamentals in foreign policy — laid down by Mr Lee — have survived the founding Prime Minister. He stepped down in 1990 but continued to keep a close watch on global and regional affairs even as his health deteriorated in recent years.
“I think the system can endure. Put it this way, it is for us to screw it up — not that it cannot work without him,” said Mr Kausikan, who was permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Retired diplomat K Kesavapany noted that Mr Lee was able to bring up a core group of leaders who shared his ideals.
“Mr Lee took pains to make sure that after he’s gone the system will still run, (that) Singapore is still (well) regarded … So long as we remain true to what he has taught us and left behind, then Singapore should be okay,” he said.
Retired diplomat Tan Seng Chye said Mr Lee has set the tone for Singapore’s foreign policy and put in place a system that his successors have further established.
“No country can have just one leader and only that leader can do things, but he must put in place a system, a succession of leaders that can continue to build the country,” said Mr Tan, who stepped down as Singapore’s ambassador to Vietnam in 2005 after a diplomatic career spanning almost four decades, including stints as the Republic’s envoy to four other South-east Asian nations.
Some of Mr Lee’s ideas and values that have lived on in Singapore’s foreign policy include putting Singapore’s interests first, being principled and neutral and making as many friends as possible, said Mr Ho Meng Kit, his former Principal Private Secretary.
“These values are deeply ingrained in the psyche and culture of our leaders and officials,” he added.
Mr Ong noted that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his senior Cabinet ministers have been working with their counterparts in other countries for many years.
“From various international conferences and events, notably the recent climate change negotiations in Paris, the other countries have seen the leadership capability and effective diplomacy of Singapore. In general, they see a Singapore leadership which is worldly and task-oriented. This leadership exudes Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s visionary intellect, practical approach and focus on the future.”
While Mr Lee had bequeathed enduring systems and institutions to the country, his lasting legacy is building up the Singapore brand name, said experts interviewed by TODAY.
MR LEE’S LEGACY
As an influential interlocutor on the global stage, Mr Lee had advised every United States President from Mr Richard Nixon to Mr Barack Obama, and across the Pacific, he met and counselled every Chinese leader from Mr Mao Zedong to Mr Xi Jinping.
His insightful and incisive views are also valued by leaders in the region, as one of the founding fathers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) who brought together a disparate regional bloc.
On why his views were sought after, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Kishore Mahbubani explained that Mr Lee had incredible experience, gave wise advice - including on prickly cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan - and was “remarkably blunt” in offering his views.
Mr Kesavapany added: “He told things as they were and he didn’t try to play games with any of the leaders”. Mr Lee would say things that “they themselves would not say,” he noted.
“It’s his indescribable sense of charismatic personality plus an intelligent mind and he was also a realist who accepted the world as it was and not as he wanted it to be.”
All this made Mr Lee and by extension, Singapore, relevant to the world. This is his legacy that he left behind for Singapore, that observers say current leaders are building on to ensure the little red dot continues its outsized role in the global arena.
Indeed, Mr Lee’s contributions go beyond transforming the country from mudflat to metropolis but also turning vulnerability into invincibility, ensuring that a small island state will not be trampled on or sidelined by bigger powers.
He also elevated the island state’s status to a role model for other developing economies in search of similar success.
“As a small country, we are not a threat. Many regard his advice as neutral and objective. We do not have our own agenda,” said Mr Ho, his former aide and now chief executive officer of Singapore Business Federation.
At the heart of Mr Lee’s overseas overtures was Singapore’s security and survival. To this end, he has been described as a pragmatic realist, hard-nosed and even unsentimental in his approach. Yet he was prepared to change his views as the world changed.
Veteran diplomat and former top civil servant Barry Desker said: “As a realist, he appreciated the need to maintain good links with the West to promote trade and investment at a time when leaders of many newly independent countries believed their own rhetoric and thought that they could adopt autarkic policies.”
In 1967, two years after Singapore gained independence, Mr Lee started making trips to the US to woo American investors.
“Lee did not wait for US investors to serendipitously discover Singapore as a perfect destination for capital. He seized every opportunity to promote Singapore and stressed the efficiency and quality of the labour force in the country,” wrote Dr Daniel Chua, research fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at RSIS.
Political leaders in US also started to pay attention to this young Asian leader. Mr Francis Galbraith, the first US Ambassador to Singapore, wrote a 16-page report recommending the US government to engage closely with Mr Lee and Singapore in 1967.
As Mr Lee built a firm friendship with the US and Europe, he also expanded networks in Asia, such as with growing giants India and China.
His foresight in engaging China early in the 1970s, despite its communist links and even before its opening up and economic reform, was a game changer. He had astutely recognised its potential to be an economic powerhouse that would rival the US.
“Who else had the foresight to engage China just at the right time when China was amenable to adjustments in an evolving world stage,” said Mr Sajjad Ashraf, Pakistan’s high commissioner to Singapore from 2004 to 2008.
“Mr Lee foresaw changing global power equation. In addition to private advice to the American leadership, he said it publicly that with growing economic and political clout that ‘China will want to sit as an equal at the top table’.”
From his vantage point in the early years of being close to leaders in both US and China, and coming from a “non-threatening” position, he was then able to act as a trusted contact to help both sides understand each other better, noted Dr Lam Peng Er, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.
Added Mr Ho: “This role as link between US and China crafted a niche for Singapore and enhanced our own relationship with these two countries.”
This philosophy of being friendly to all countries and not making enemies is critical, said Associate Professor Alan Chong from RSIS, adding that the Republic was flexible in its foreign policy and did not see anyone as a permanent enemy.
“While Mr Lee appreciated the fact that we needed to deter certain unfriendly countries within Asia, he did not close the door to sincere forms of cooperation,” he said.
“I can also bet that Singapore would be the first to invest in North Korea if and when that country opens up - this is the extent of our flexibility. Because why should we make other people’s mortal enemies our mortal enemies?”
Such pragmatism also shaped Singapore’s views on geopolitical shifts and stability.
“Mr Lee Kuan Yew was a master of geo-strategic realism and planning for the future. He believed that some issues in international relations would never be resolved. The best way to deal with these challenges would be to manage them coherently, keeping in mind the big picture and looking for the balance needed to prevent upheaval,” said RSIS’ Mr Ong, who’s also an Ambassador-at-Large at MFA.
“This would require longer-term thinking and decisive leadership at the key levels of government. The problem today is often short-term political expediency and inconsistent management of the complexities involved.”
Mr Ong added that Mr Lee’s mindset was all the more relevant today given the tensions over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea and debate about how to reshape security architecture in the Asia Pacific.
“Recently, I attended a conference in China where a prominent Chinese scholar of international studies openly yearned for Mr Lee’s exceptional principled approach in managing the competition and rivalry of big powers in our region.”
BALANCE OF POWER
Mr Kesavapany, who stepped down as Singapore’s High Commissioner to Malaysia in 2002 after spending three decades in the Foreign Service, shared an example of how Mr Lee’s belief in continued American presence in Asia has led to stability in this region.
“Twenty years ago, there was a feeling that after the Vietnam War, American presence should go away. The Philippines asked them to leave Subic Bay and Clark Air Base in a fit of nationalism, but it was Mr Lee who saw above the horizon and saw the necessity of US continued presence in the region,” he said.
“He felt that only the US could counterbalance any attempt by an emerging power to dominate the region. It was this reasoning that led Singapore to establish its naval base and made it clear that the US Navy could make use of the base.”
Mr Lee reiterated his position several times. In his keynote address after receiving a lifetime achievement award from the US-ASEAN Business Council in Washington, DC, in 2009, Mr Lee said: “The size of China makes it impossible for the rest of Asia, including Japan and India, to match it in weight and capacity in about 20 to 30 years. So we need America to strike a balance.”
His comments drew the ire of Chinese netizens and media commentators then, but Chinese leaders continued to welcome him as they understood his position of seeking stability in the region which was also in China’s interest.
Mr Lee’s neutrality was also appreciated, said Dr Paul Evans, visiting professor in International and Asian Studies at the Singapore Management University.
“He steadfastly emphasised that Singapore was independent of both China and US. The ability to have a strong economic and political relationship with China…and to do that while also speaking to Americans bluntly about their strengths and limitations, those were defining features of Mr Lee,” said Prof Evans.
For all his deft diplomacy, Mr Lee did not fancy himself as a statesman.
In an interview, when asked how he wished to be remembered, he said: “I do not want to be remembered as a statesman ... I do not classify myself as a statesman. I put myself down as determined, consistent, persistent. I set out to do something, I keep on chasing it until it succeeds. That is all ... Anybody who thinks he is a statesman ought to see a psychiatrist.”
No matter how Mr Lee viewed his contributions, his pragmatic and prescient advice was clearly valued.
Will his legacy and values that have shaped Singapore linger on without him?
“Obviously, there won’t be another Mr Lee...but there is certainly a need for the clinical, cold-blooded analysis that was his style,” said Mr Kausikan.
Will his legacy and values that have shaped Singapore linger on without him?
“Obviously, there won’t be another Mr Lee...but there is certainly a need for the clinical, cold-blooded analysis that was his style,” said Mr Kausikan
“Actually it is one of the things he bequeathed to Singapore that this is the way we look at the world – at least most of us (in government). So it’s not that we need somebody like Mr Lee, but we need the kind of cast of mind that was, I think, his most valuable legacy, at least in the foreign affairs field.”
Mr Kausikan noted that while no system can last forever as every system is prone to error or sheer bad luck, Singapore has an adaptable and resilient system.
“You can still screw it up completely—the factor that can screw it up completely is politics, if the politics goes wrong or if we all becomes soft-headed… But it does not need him (Mr Lee) to work.”
COMMENT: Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore history
Dr. Thum Ping Tjin is Coordinator of Project Southeast Asia and a Research Associate at the Centre for Global History, University of Oxford. The views expressed here are his own.
Lee Kuan Yew was a quintessential, and perhaps the ultimate, product of a massive confluence of historical forces that defined Singapore in the twentieth century. But his legacy also represents a fundamental disruption to the broad sweep of Singapore history. This contradiction is central to understanding Lee’s place in the history of Singapore.
Innovation is a fundamental theme of Singapore. Even before there was a Singapore (and likely long after), pirates, traders, and entrepreneurs were establishing a tradition of independent thinking and action on the island. Their descendants have followed.
Singapore’s success is built upon the spontaneous creation of economic institutions like clans and guild associations and Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce; educational institutions, cultural and charitable organisations; activism, and political parties, from the first political party in Singapore, the Kesatuan Melayu Singapura (KMS), to the ruling People’s Action Party.
Sitting at the nexus of many great local and regional trading and intellectual networks, Singapore has always been cosmopolitan, deeply politicised, and constantly awash with new ideas. Singapore was a centre for pan-Islam, for overseas Chinese networks, for Malay culture and literature. Singapore has long been a public sphere where these ideas have met and found new forms of expression.
Lee, born in 1923, was a product of these innovative forms of thought and action. He was perfectly positioned to arbitrage between the ideas of nationalism and self-determination which were sweeping through Singapore, and the fading but still powerful forces of colonialism and imperialism. Taking advantage of the expansion of the Anglophone colonial educational system to rise all the way to Cambridge, he returned to Singapore in 1950 and quickly realised where the future lay. Singapore’s economic success had been built by the dynamism and vitality of Singapore’s economic innovators and entrepreneurs. Singapore’s political future would be built by the dynamism and vitality of Singapore’s political innovators and entrepreneurs – Chinese, Malay, and Tamil-speaking trade unionists, intellectuals, and community organisers. He allied himself with them and rode them all the way to the Prime Ministership in 1959.
To understand his achievements, it is necessary to dispel some of the myths which obscure Lee Kuan Yew. Lee’s government did not make Singapore rich – As Lee himself noted in 1960 in a Straits Times report, Singapore had the “highest average income in Asia - $1,200 per capita per annum”. His government’s great legacy was to make Singapore fairer. Singaporeans in the 1950s faced systemic colonial discrimination. Singapore was plagued by massive inequality; high property prices; high cost of living; congestion, overcrowding, and unemployment; and systemic colonial discrimination which privileged Europeans and English-speakers. The PAP’s systemic reforms reduced inequality, empowering Singaporeans to take advantage of opportunities that were at that point of time beyond their grasp.
However, Lee’s government did not originate many of the ideas on which Singapore’s prosperity is based. The period of 1955 – 1963 was also a time of great political upheaval, with eight elections and one referendum – an average of one vote a year. Political parties cleaved and coalesced as circumstances and issues changed. In this creative destruction lay Singapore’s future prosperity. Political parties, facing the discipline of the ballot box, fought by innovating on policy. From this arose the great ideas which would lay the foundation for Singapore’s success: The Central Provident Fund; the Housing Development Board; a flexible multilingual educational system; heavily reducing systemic class, gender, ethnic, and linguistic discrimination; industrialisation and economic development.
‘An unparalleled understanding of power’
But implementation is every bit, if not more, important than the idea itself. And it was here that Lee shone. Lee’s political acumen delivered the stability that Singapore sorely needed to implement reforms. His leadership and support enabled his allies – first Lim Chin Siong, then Goh Keng Swee, Yong Nyuk Lin, and Lim Kim San, among others – to make the vast strides in labour, economic, education, and housing policy. Lee was the great enabler, making it all possible.
Lee achieved this via an unparalleled understanding of power: how it works, how it is perceived, how to win it and keep it. “The only subject which I have ever heard Lee Kuan Yew talk about with any sense of feeling is the subject of power,” British Commissioner Selkirk marvelled in 1960, “Political power is, I believe, almost an obsession to him.” But his intuitive understanding of power was accompanied by an unshakeable conviction that he alone had to control it.
In 1961, his unwillingness to compromise on power led him to cast aside the trade unionists and activists who connected his party to the people. His popularity plummeted. To keep himself in power, he embarked on a crash course for Malayan reunification, with the aim of winning the 1963 elections on the back of a successful merger. To achieve this, he sacrificed the principle of Malayan unity for the expedience of merger. By provoking the spectres of racial fear and socialist takeover, he convinced the leadership of the Federation of Malaya that Singapore’s Chinese were racially and ideologically hostile and needed to be controlled via a constitutional and security structure. This structure would be Malaysia. After its formation, Lee then turned around and attempted to overthrow the yoke he himself had placed on Singapore. This reinforced the racial suspicion that Lee had bred, hardening attitudes on racial lines. Drastically elevated racial antipathy would be Lee’s lasting legacy in Malaysia.
Greatest failure?
Faced with a choice of stepping down from power or taking Singapore out of Malaysia, he chose the latter. This proved to be Lee’s greatest failure. After the Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, he returned to the British colonial model of using legislation, repression, and social control to enforce his will upon Singapore’s electorate. Stability was achieved. Under his leadership, Singapore progressed rapidly. From his greatest failure would be born his greatest success.
However, the inadequacies of his system became evident by the late 1970s, when new ideas were needed to meet new challenges. The PAP government was bereft. Its new policies on family planning, industrialisation, education, and housing were disasters. Lee wisely set about renewing Singapore’s government. But he accompanied this with a severe increase of government control. Most importantly, he was unable to take the most important step of renewal – removing himself.
Lee emphasised the importance of stability and firm governance in delivering Singaporean success. But his view of history was based on a narrow reading of Singaporean culture and history that privileged his own personal perspective. Lee had enabled success by yoking explosive creativity and innovation to stability and discipline. This succeeded because innovation had already thrown up ideas to implement. Lee now remained the font of all authority and the final guarantor of stability, but also the block on innovation.
History shows us that culture persists. Singapore remained a volatile, politically aware, innovative society throughout Lee’s political career. It constantly threw up new challenges to the PAP. A man with Lee’s formidable talents could deal with those challenges. But the system which Lee leaves behind, by definition, cannot because it is predicated on stability at the cost of innovation.
Today, many of the issues his government addressed have returned. As in 1950, it is very rich, but struggles with many of the same issues that motivated Lee’s rise to power: massive inequality; high property prices; high cost of living; and systemic discrimination along racial, class, and linguistic lines.
Lee, tragically, stayed in power long enough to see himself and his party become the enemy he had fought so hard against, and the system he created become the system he had fought so hard to overthrow. In the longue durée of Singapore history, the first third of Lee’s political career will be seen as a shining light of progress – but as a whole, it will be remembered as transitional period, an exception to the fundamentally innovative and chaotic nature of Singapore.
http://news.yahoo.com/comment-lee-kuan-yew-in-singapore-history-041036732.html
Interestingly Bilahari Kausikan, enfant terrible of the MFA has gone very quiet on social media - he was typically spewing his views on many times on a daily basis and sometime in late Jan suddenly just stopped posting personal comments/opinions - and then this appeared yesterday (what a terribly constructed headline though)
From abroad, tests for a nation as others try their luck http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/abroad-tests-nation-others-try-their-luck
He did not specify the countries or elaborate on what they did, but the famously frank diplomat said: “There will be some countries that certainly will probe and test us to see if there are things they can get away with now that Mr Lee is no longer with us, and some such probes have already begun.
“Please don’t ask me which countries. All I will say is that if they persist, they will be in for a rude surprise.”
When asked to elaborate, he candidly added: “They think our ability to stand firm only depends on Lee Kuan Yew — that’s rubbish. Or if they think that now he’s not around you can redo things, no, sorry…”
Mr Kausikan was replying to a question on whether a post-Lee Kuan Yew Singapore is regarded differently by other countries, especially those in the region.
It is a valid concern, one that many observers and diplomats interviewed believe is something to reflect on. “Yes, there is some degree of shift in other countries’ perceptions of Singapore,” said Mr Ong Keng Yong, executive deputy chairman of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).
“The fact is different leaders have different styles and personal chemistry among leaders works in mysterious ways in international encounters and meetings. Also, the regional and global situations have undergone rapid changes. Technological advancement has compressed the space and time for information exchange between countries and events, resulting in leaders in different parts of the world operating quite differently these days in connecting with their counterparts elsewhere.”
But like Mr Kausikan and Mr Ong, observers are optimistic that Singapore’s fundamentals in foreign policy — laid down by Mr Lee — have survived the founding Prime Minister. He stepped down in 1990 but continued to keep a close watch on global and regional affairs even as his health deteriorated in recent years.
“I think the system can endure. Put it this way, it is for us to screw it up — not that it cannot work without him,” said Mr Kausikan, who was permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Retired diplomat K Kesavapany noted that Mr Lee was able to bring up a core group of leaders who shared his ideals.
“Mr Lee took pains to make sure that after he’s gone the system will still run, (that) Singapore is still (well) regarded … So long as we remain true to what he has taught us and left behind, then Singapore should be okay,” he said.
Retired diplomat Tan Seng Chye said Mr Lee has set the tone for Singapore’s foreign policy and put in place a system that his successors have further established.
“No country can have just one leader and only that leader can do things, but he must put in place a system, a succession of leaders that can continue to build the country,” said Mr Tan, who stepped down as Singapore’s ambassador to Vietnam in 2005 after a diplomatic career spanning almost four decades, including stints as the Republic’s envoy to four other South-east Asian nations.
Some of Mr Lee’s ideas and values that have lived on in Singapore’s foreign policy include putting Singapore’s interests first, being principled and neutral and making as many friends as possible, said Mr Ho Meng Kit, his former Principal Private Secretary.
“These values are deeply ingrained in the psyche and culture of our leaders and officials,” he added.
Mr Ong noted that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his senior Cabinet ministers have been working with their counterparts in other countries for many years.
“From various international conferences and events, notably the recent climate change negotiations in Paris, the other countries have seen the leadership capability and effective diplomacy of Singapore. In general, they see a Singapore leadership which is worldly and task-oriented. This leadership exudes Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s visionary intellect, practical approach and focus on the future.”
While Mr Lee had bequeathed enduring systems and institutions to the country, his lasting legacy is building up the Singapore brand name, said experts interviewed by TODAY.
MR LEE’S LEGACY
As an influential interlocutor on the global stage, Mr Lee had advised every United States President from Mr Richard Nixon to Mr Barack Obama, and across the Pacific, he met and counselled every Chinese leader from Mr Mao Zedong to Mr Xi Jinping.
His insightful and incisive views are also valued by leaders in the region, as one of the founding fathers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) who brought together a disparate regional bloc.
On why his views were sought after, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Kishore Mahbubani explained that Mr Lee had incredible experience, gave wise advice - including on prickly cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan - and was “remarkably blunt” in offering his views.
Mr Kesavapany added: “He told things as they were and he didn’t try to play games with any of the leaders”. Mr Lee would say things that “they themselves would not say,” he noted.
“It’s his indescribable sense of charismatic personality plus an intelligent mind and he was also a realist who accepted the world as it was and not as he wanted it to be.”
All this made Mr Lee and by extension, Singapore, relevant to the world. This is his legacy that he left behind for Singapore, that observers say current leaders are building on to ensure the little red dot continues its outsized role in the global arena.
Indeed, Mr Lee’s contributions go beyond transforming the country from mudflat to metropolis but also turning vulnerability into invincibility, ensuring that a small island state will not be trampled on or sidelined by bigger powers.
He also elevated the island state’s status to a role model for other developing economies in search of similar success.
“As a small country, we are not a threat. Many regard his advice as neutral and objective. We do not have our own agenda,” said Mr Ho, his former aide and now chief executive officer of Singapore Business Federation.
At the heart of Mr Lee’s overseas overtures was Singapore’s security and survival. To this end, he has been described as a pragmatic realist, hard-nosed and even unsentimental in his approach. Yet he was prepared to change his views as the world changed.
Veteran diplomat and former top civil servant Barry Desker said: “As a realist, he appreciated the need to maintain good links with the West to promote trade and investment at a time when leaders of many newly independent countries believed their own rhetoric and thought that they could adopt autarkic policies.”
In 1967, two years after Singapore gained independence, Mr Lee started making trips to the US to woo American investors.
“Lee did not wait for US investors to serendipitously discover Singapore as a perfect destination for capital. He seized every opportunity to promote Singapore and stressed the efficiency and quality of the labour force in the country,” wrote Dr Daniel Chua, research fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at RSIS.
Political leaders in US also started to pay attention to this young Asian leader. Mr Francis Galbraith, the first US Ambassador to Singapore, wrote a 16-page report recommending the US government to engage closely with Mr Lee and Singapore in 1967.
As Mr Lee built a firm friendship with the US and Europe, he also expanded networks in Asia, such as with growing giants India and China.
His foresight in engaging China early in the 1970s, despite its communist links and even before its opening up and economic reform, was a game changer. He had astutely recognised its potential to be an economic powerhouse that would rival the US.
“Who else had the foresight to engage China just at the right time when China was amenable to adjustments in an evolving world stage,” said Mr Sajjad Ashraf, Pakistan’s high commissioner to Singapore from 2004 to 2008.
“Mr Lee foresaw changing global power equation. In addition to private advice to the American leadership, he said it publicly that with growing economic and political clout that ‘China will want to sit as an equal at the top table’.”
From his vantage point in the early years of being close to leaders in both US and China, and coming from a “non-threatening” position, he was then able to act as a trusted contact to help both sides understand each other better, noted Dr Lam Peng Er, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.
Added Mr Ho: “This role as link between US and China crafted a niche for Singapore and enhanced our own relationship with these two countries.”
This philosophy of being friendly to all countries and not making enemies is critical, said Associate Professor Alan Chong from RSIS, adding that the Republic was flexible in its foreign policy and did not see anyone as a permanent enemy.
“While Mr Lee appreciated the fact that we needed to deter certain unfriendly countries within Asia, he did not close the door to sincere forms of cooperation,” he said.
“I can also bet that Singapore would be the first to invest in North Korea if and when that country opens up - this is the extent of our flexibility. Because why should we make other people’s mortal enemies our mortal enemies?”
Such pragmatism also shaped Singapore’s views on geopolitical shifts and stability.
“Mr Lee Kuan Yew was a master of geo-strategic realism and planning for the future. He believed that some issues in international relations would never be resolved. The best way to deal with these challenges would be to manage them coherently, keeping in mind the big picture and looking for the balance needed to prevent upheaval,” said RSIS’ Mr Ong, who’s also an Ambassador-at-Large at MFA.
“This would require longer-term thinking and decisive leadership at the key levels of government. The problem today is often short-term political expediency and inconsistent management of the complexities involved.”
Mr Ong added that Mr Lee’s mindset was all the more relevant today given the tensions over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea and debate about how to reshape security architecture in the Asia Pacific.
“Recently, I attended a conference in China where a prominent Chinese scholar of international studies openly yearned for Mr Lee’s exceptional principled approach in managing the competition and rivalry of big powers in our region.”
BALANCE OF POWER
Mr Kesavapany, who stepped down as Singapore’s High Commissioner to Malaysia in 2002 after spending three decades in the Foreign Service, shared an example of how Mr Lee’s belief in continued American presence in Asia has led to stability in this region.
“Twenty years ago, there was a feeling that after the Vietnam War, American presence should go away. The Philippines asked them to leave Subic Bay and Clark Air Base in a fit of nationalism, but it was Mr Lee who saw above the horizon and saw the necessity of US continued presence in the region,” he said.
“He felt that only the US could counterbalance any attempt by an emerging power to dominate the region. It was this reasoning that led Singapore to establish its naval base and made it clear that the US Navy could make use of the base.”
Mr Lee reiterated his position several times. In his keynote address after receiving a lifetime achievement award from the US-ASEAN Business Council in Washington, DC, in 2009, Mr Lee said: “The size of China makes it impossible for the rest of Asia, including Japan and India, to match it in weight and capacity in about 20 to 30 years. So we need America to strike a balance.”
His comments drew the ire of Chinese netizens and media commentators then, but Chinese leaders continued to welcome him as they understood his position of seeking stability in the region which was also in China’s interest.
Mr Lee’s neutrality was also appreciated, said Dr Paul Evans, visiting professor in International and Asian Studies at the Singapore Management University.
“He steadfastly emphasised that Singapore was independent of both China and US. The ability to have a strong economic and political relationship with China…and to do that while also speaking to Americans bluntly about their strengths and limitations, those were defining features of Mr Lee,” said Prof Evans.
For all his deft diplomacy, Mr Lee did not fancy himself as a statesman.
In an interview, when asked how he wished to be remembered, he said: “I do not want to be remembered as a statesman ... I do not classify myself as a statesman. I put myself down as determined, consistent, persistent. I set out to do something, I keep on chasing it until it succeeds. That is all ... Anybody who thinks he is a statesman ought to see a psychiatrist.”
No matter how Mr Lee viewed his contributions, his pragmatic and prescient advice was clearly valued.
Will his legacy and values that have shaped Singapore linger on without him?
“Obviously, there won’t be another Mr Lee...but there is certainly a need for the clinical, cold-blooded analysis that was his style,” said Mr Kausikan.
Will his legacy and values that have shaped Singapore linger on without him?
“Obviously, there won’t be another Mr Lee...but there is certainly a need for the clinical, cold-blooded analysis that was his style,” said Mr Kausikan
“Actually it is one of the things he bequeathed to Singapore that this is the way we look at the world – at least most of us (in government). So it’s not that we need somebody like Mr Lee, but we need the kind of cast of mind that was, I think, his most valuable legacy, at least in the foreign affairs field.”
Mr Kausikan noted that while no system can last forever as every system is prone to error or sheer bad luck, Singapore has an adaptable and resilient system.
“You can still screw it up completely—the factor that can screw it up completely is politics, if the politics goes wrong or if we all becomes soft-headed… But it does not need him (Mr Lee) to work.”
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