Don’t let 38 Oxley Road become a story of monumental regret

In his own words: English for trade; mother tongue to preserve identity

This speech in its entirety, made in support of a revised, more flexible Chinese-language curriculum while he was Minister Mentor, is one of the most complete statements of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's views on bilingualism and language policy.

MAR 30, 2016 (Updated)

NOV 24, 2004

How Deng and his heirs misunderstood Singapore

MARK R THOMPSON 

01 FEB, 2019



As official China celebrates the four decades of “reform and opening” that began in late 1978 to early 1979, it is instructive to recall the role Singapore played in this process. The fulsome eulogies for Lee Kuan Yew offered by Chinese officials in 2015, beginning with Xi Jinping himself (who has been noticeably less enthusiastic in his praise for Deng Xiaoping given China’s top leader’s “family feud” over who deserves the most credit for the reforms), are just the most obvious indication that Lee and the “Singapore model” more generally have played (quite literally) an oversized role in China’s rapid transition from Maoism to “Market-Leninism”. Appropriately, Lee was honoured late last year as one of the foreigners who helped China most in its reform process.

Why Mahathir is antagonistic towards S’pore

Residual issues from his first stint as Malaysia prime minister from 1981 to 2003.
Belmont Lay

February 10, 2019


Nikkei Asian Review, a venerable weekly business journal in Japan, on Feb. 6 attempted to explain Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad’s antagonism towards Singapore.

Behind a tall order: Goh Chok Tong reflects on succession and politics past and present

By Jaime Ho

Chief Editor, Digital News

ChannelNewsAsia

02 Dec 2018



SINGAPORE: My interview with Emeritus Senior Minister Mr Goh Chok Tong following the publication of his authorised biography, Tall Order,happens at a fortuitous time.

We speak three days after the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) announcement on Nov 23 that Mr Heng Swee Keat had been chosenas the party’s presumptive next-generation leader.

Political succession within the PAP today and Mr Goh’s story of his own ascension within the party as told in the book are natural parallels. We therefore start by discussing Mr Heng’s appointment.

The former prime minister gives a solid endorsement– not only of the finance minister’s capabilities and experience – but also of the team that has emerged, with Mr Heng having chosen Mr Chan Chun Sing as his deputy in eventually leading the party.

He agrees with the notion that had it not been for the stroke that Mr Heng suffered in May 2016, the fourth generation of PAP leaders might have come to the decision on their leader earlier.

US-China Trade War - China's Missteps

[China response to Trump - their "misunderestimation" of Trump's... stupidity.]

China’s two big mistakes in trade war may lead the country into middle-income trap

After misjudging Donald Trump and misjudging the alliance between Washington and Brussels, Beijing needs to act fast, writes Zhang Lin

Monday, 30 July, 2018

South China Morning Post


Beijing has made two mistakes in the trade war with Washington, for which China will pay a heavy price.

The first is that the Chinese leadership misjudged US President Donald Trump. Beijing wrongly thought that Trump was just a businessman, regarding his trade war threats as bluffing ahead of the midterm elections. But in fact, Washington had already made clear in its National Defence Strategy report – released months before the dispute escalated – that the US would no longer tolerate Beijing’s trade and economic practices. The message was that Beijing could not earn money from the United States while at the same time posing a challenge to it.

Beijing’s second mistake was that it misjudged the alliance between the US and the European Union, and had hoped, unrealistically, to form a united trade front with Brussels against Washington.

Singapore would have turned out differently if Othman Wok had wavered on multi-culturalism: PM Lee

April 19, 2017


Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong led the eulogies for the late Othman Wok at a memorial service on Wednesday night (April 19). He paid tribute to "one of Singapore’s greatest sons", and thanked the former Old Guard Cabinet minister for the pivotal role he played in helping to forge a multi-racial, multi-cultural Singapore.

PM Lee sends condolences to PAP founding member Fong Swee Suan's wife

FEBRUARY 6, 2017
TODAY ONLINE

SINGAPORE — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has written to Mdm Chen Poh Cheng, the wife of People's Action Party (PAP) founding member Fong Swee Suan, to express his condolences on Mr Fong's death on Sunday (Feb 5).

Mr Fong died on Saturday aged 85. The former Barisan Sosialis leader and leftist trade unionist left the PAP in 1961 owing to differences in opinion about Singapore's merger with Malaysia.

Mr Lee's letter is reproduced in full below:

Donald Trump’s Peace Through Strength Vision for the Asia-Pacific

[Was the faux pas of speaking directly to Taiwan's President intentional and strategic? Note: this is partial to Trump.]

How the Republican nominee will rewrite America’s relationship with Asia.

ALEXANDER GRAY, PETER NAVARRO
NOVEMBER 7, 2016f

In 2011, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced with great fanfare in Foreign Policy that the United States would begin a military “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific. This beating of the American chest was done against the backdrop of China’s increasing assertiveness in the region and the sense among many longtime American allies that the United States had lost sight of Asia’s strategic importance during 10 years of Middle Eastern wars.

President Barack Obama’s administration was right to signal reassurance to our Asian allies and partners. However, this pivot (and later “rebalance”) failed to capture the reality that the United States, particularly in the military sphere, had remained deeply committed to the region. This pivot has also turned out to be an imprudent case of talking loudly but carrying a small stick, one that has led to more, not less, aggression and instability in the region.

Initially, Clinton’s pivot and the Obama administration’s stated interest in countering China’s rising clout were met with general bipartisan agreement in Congress. Inside the Beltway, the analyst community also appeared to share a similar consensus that the global financial crisis had emboldened China. As one of Washington’s leading experts on Chinese foreign and security policy, Bonnie Glaser, told one of the authors in an on-camera interview: “The Chinese saw the United States as weakened by the financial crisis; and it created opportunities for China to test the United States and to try and promote its interests in its periphery in the hopes that the United States would not respond forcefully.”

Singapore’s economic miracle uncovered

Ferdinando Giugliano

Mar 24 2015

FT The World

The death of Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore, has focused attention on the economic miracle he helped to create.

In the three decades since Lee first became prime minister in 1959 until he stepped aside in 1990, per capita income in the city-state rose by a factor of 29, jumping from around $435 to more than $12,700. Nearby Malaysia only managed a ten-fold increase, from $230 to around $2400.

Yet economists remain divided over the causes behind this remarkable take-off.

For some it was the result of inspiration – the ability to import the best technologies from around the world thanks to an enlightened economic model. For others, it was the consequence of perspiration – the sheer accumulation of factors of production such as labour and capital, accompanied by little technological growth.

Why ST did not publish Dr Lee Wei Ling's column

Ivan Fernandez

Associate Editor

Apr 9, 2016

The editor who worked on Dr Lee Wei Ling's columns responds to her Facebook post alleging censorship of her articles

Several issues of serious journalistic concern arose from recent allegations by Dr Lee Wei Ling, a former columnist of The Sunday Times, after she blogged about events last month to commemorate the death of her father, Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

In a Facebook post on April 1, Dr Lee wrote: "i will no longer write for SPH as the editors there do not allow me freedom of speech. in fact, that was the reason why i posted the article on LKY would not want to be hero-worshipped."

I had been editing Dr Lee's columns since last November. So it pained me when she also alleged that those who edited her columns had been "commanded to edit certain issues out, and they are to (sic) timid to disobey, and too embarrassed by their timidness to tell me the truth".

In another posting, Dr Lee alleged that her article, which had earlier been sent to me for publication in The Sunday Times, was rejected because I had deemed certain parts as "irrelevant", while she thought them crucial.

I need to set the record straight on this. I did not say they were "irrelevant", although I did have serious concerns about her latest draft, which I shall come to shortly.

Singapore's future according to Lee Kuan Yew

Han Fook Kwang
Editor At Large

MAR 27, 2016

When Mr Lee Kuan Yew was asked how he wanted to be judged by history, he replied: "Ah, history... I'm dead by then."

That was during an interview in 2009 with the authors of the book Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going.

I remembered thinking at the time that it was so like him: unsentimental to the end, and dead right.

But though he didn't want to dwell on what that judgment might be, he had plenty to say about the future of this place after his death.

And we the authors were very keen at the time to get him to talk about it, pressing him about this scenario and that.

How did he see Singapore's politics changing? How long would the People's Action Party be able to remain in power? How might its demise occur? What will happen in 10, 20 or 50 years from now?

He had agreed to do the book with us because he wanted his views to reach as many people as possible, but especially younger Singaporeans, never mind if they agreed with him or not.

So, on the first anniversary of his death, I thought it fitting to put together those views, not about what he had achieved, but the future which he was so concerned with in his later years.

Some of the following extracts were said in different parts of the year-long interviews we had with him, but for the purpose of this piece, I have edited and put them together.

I think he would have wanted Singaporeans to reflect on what he had to say.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew's 1984 speech on how mode of governance must suit needs of its people

January 27, 2016

SINGAPORE — In outlining proposed changes to Singapore’s political system in Parliament today, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urged MPs to re-read a memorable speech by the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew more than 30 years ago. In that speech in July 1984, the late Mr Lee and then-PM, outlined how a country’s mode of government must suit the needs of its people.

Here is an edited excerpt of his remarks:
[This was the debate on the creation of Non-Constituency MPs.]

Singapore-China ties: 7 things to know about 25 years of diplomatic relations

4 Nov 2015

Chew Hui Min

SINGAPORE - Singapore and China mark 25 years of diplomatic relations this year.

On Friday (Nov 6), President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan will make their first state visit to Singapore.

In many ways, the ties between Singapore, a city-state of 5.6 million, and China, a behemoth with 1.3 billion people, have been unique.

Here are seven things about the two countries' relationship.

The legacy of Mr Lee, Dr Goh and Mr Rajaratnam

3 Nov 2015

The idealism of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his comrades Goh Keng Swee and S. Rajaratnam was rooted in hard-headed understanding of power, Ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan said at a conference on The Legacy of Lee Kuan Yew and the Future of Singapore, organised by Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge.

The most valuable thing they imparted to us was a cast of mind.

Lee Kuan Yew: Why Singapore's Extraordinary Leader Will Be Missed

MAR 23, 2015

Steve Forbes
FORBES STAFF

LEE KUAN YEW was one of the great statesmen of the post-WWII era. He made Singapore an economic powerhouse, demonstrating that so-called natural resources aren’t necessary for prosperity, that the key is creating an environment in which human ingenuity can thrive. He didn’t tolerate corruption; to eliminate the temptation and attract capable people, Lee paid government officials high salaries. He kept a tight grip on spending and pushed down taxes; the top rate on personal incomes is all of 20%. He knew the folly of weak money; the Singapore dollar looks like the Rock of Gibraltar compared with most currencies—including the U.S. dollar, most of the time.

Lee simultaneously demonstrated that sound finance can coexist with soundly thought out social programs. He pursued a vigorous housing program that enabled people who didn’t earn high incomes to buy their homes; his was a model for how subsidies need not lead to the housing-related disasters that have plagued the U.S. Singapore’s health care system has provided comprehensive coverage to its people without the rationing, high costs and dicey care that characterize so many others. Singapore’s pension system avoided the pay-as-you-go trap that is hurtling those in other countries toward insolvency.

First National Day Rally

The impact of our multiracial experiment

SEP 20, 2015


In election campaigns, in Parliament, and in National Day Rally speeches, first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew thrived on the challenge of winning people over on hard policies. One such policy was the decision to build a future for newly independent Singapore that involved an integrated society. This, and facing the reality of the sudden expulsion from Malaysia the year before, were the themes of the late Mr Lee's first-ever National Day Rally speech at the National Theatre on Aug 8, 1966. The speech is reprinted below from a new book, Vintage Lee: Landmark Speeches Since 1955, published by Straits Times Press. Vintage Lee consists of 33 hard-hitting speeches from thousands given by Singapore's founding father. The 33 were selected by the book's editor, Lydia Lim, who is The Straits Times' Associate Opinion Editor, in consultation with Singapore Press Holdings editors past and present.

Private Memorial for LKY at NYC - two Speeches

Two speeches on Lee Kuan Yew at the private memorial held for him at New York City, held in late Sept 2015

Separation 1965: The Tunku's 'agonised decision'

Mushahid Ali

21 Aug 2015

Was Singapore's exit from Malaysia in 1965 a 'coup' by Singapore leaders, or an eviction imposed on it by Malaysian leaders? It was the latter, says this writer, citing records that show it was then Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman who made the tough decision that the two go their separate ways.

Behind the scenes: What led to separation in 1965

Edmund Lim

AUG 5, 2015,

Was Singapore expelled from the Malaysia federation or was the split based on mutual consent? A PhD student pieces together a behind-the-scenes version of events to suggest it was the latter.

On Aug 9, 1965, towards the end of a press conference after Singapore became independent, Mr Lee Kuan Yew said: "There is nothing to be worried about. Many things will go on just as usual. But be firm, be calm. We are going to have a multiracial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Malay nation, this is not a Chinese nation, this is not an Indian nation. Everybody will have his place: equal; language, culture, religion."

Mr Lee's call for unity amid diversity in our multiracial society remains relevant half a century later. Fifty years on, as we near the jubilee year of Independence, it's timely to look back at events leading to the Aug 9 separation.

What were the events and the plans that led to that pivotal break?

What happened behind the scenes? Was Singapore "booted out" by Malaysia or was it a mutually agreed decision?