Our chief diplomat to the world
By Tommy Koh, Published The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
MR LEE Kuan Yew was the most famous Singaporean in the world. For nearly half a century, he personified Singapore to the world. During his long tenure as Prime Minister (of independent Singapore), from 1965 to 1990, he was the principal architect of Singapore's foreign policy.Later, as senior minister and minister mentor, he continued to give his successors valuable advice on our external relations. It would not be wrong to say that he served as our chief diplomat to the world.
Singapore is a very small country. However, it enjoys a role and influence in the world not enjoyed by other countries of similar size. A British newspaper once wrote that Singapore punches above its weight. This is due to three factors: our record of domestic achievements, our skilful diplomacy and the Lee Kuan Yew factor.
Why was Mr Lee so greatly admired by foreign leaders? Because of his intellectual brilliance, his power of analysis and judgment, his eloquence and charisma, and his willingness to share his candid and disinterested views. His longevity also gave him an advantage as he evolved from being the brilliant Prime Minister of Singapore to being a wise elder statesman.
Mr Lee travelled extensively on behalf of Singapore. He befriended and earned the respect of many foreign leaders, in government, business and academia. He had an impressive global network. For example, he was respected by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, German leader Helmut Schmidt, French leader Jacques Chirac and Japanese leader Kiichi Miyazawa. He knew and was respected by every American president, from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama. Two of America's thought leaders, Dr Henry Kissinger and Dr George Shultz, are among his many admirers.
One of the greatest honours the United States can confer on a foreign leader is an invitation to address a joint session of the US Congress. I will never forget Oct 9, 1985. On that beautiful autumn day, Mr Lee addressed a packed joint session of Congress. At that time, the protectionist tide was running strong in the US body politic. In his speech, which received several standing ovations, he explained why it was in the strategic interest of the US to continue to support free trade and open economies. The senator sitting next to me, Mr Edward Kennedy, confided in me afterwards that he was not previously aware of the linkage between free trade and US strategic interests in the world. The speech did help to stem the tide of protectionism in the US Congress.
Mr Lee's enduring contribution to Singapore's foreign policy can be summed up in the following seven principles.
1 PRAGMATISMFirst, our foreign policy is based on pragmatism and not on any doctrine or ideology. The scholars who have written that Singapore's foreign policy is based on realism are mistaken. If it were based on realism, we would not have attached so much importance to international law or to the United Nations. Our constant lodestar is to promote the security and prosperity of Singapore.
2 SELF-RELIANCE
Second, we rely, first and foremost, on ourselves. Believing that the world does not owe us a living, Singapore did not seek foreign aid from the developed countries. We did not want to develop a dependency mentality. Instead, we concentrated our energies on attracting foreign investment and creating jobs for our people. We started building up our armed forces and introduced national service in order to develop a capacity to deter aggression.
3 ACCEPT REALITIES
Third, we accept the world as it is and not as we would like it to be. We have no illusions about the world. We take a clinical attitude towards facts and realities. This does not mean that we are passive and fatalistic. Not at all. We have been extremely proactive in taking the leadership to form such groupings as the Forum of Small States and the Global Governance Group. We know that we live in an unfair and dangerous world. We know that small countries will always be vulnerable to the pressures of bigger countries.
4 ASEAN'S CENTRALITY
Fourth, Singapore has a fundamental commitment to Asean and to making South-east Asia a region of peace and prosperity. Singapore is a strong supporter of Asean integration and is working closely with our partners to ensure the success of Asean's transition from an association to a community by this year. We took an active part in drafting the Asean Charter and support Asean's ambition to become a more rules-based institution. Singapore strongly supports the central role which Asean plays in the regional architecture. We will do everything within our power to ensure that Asean remains united, independent and neutral.
5 ASIA-PACIFIC COMMUNITY
Fifth, Singapore is committed to the vision of building an Asia-Pacific community. Singapore wants a balance of power in the region and welcomes the positive roles which the US, China, Japan, India, the European Union and Russia play in the political, economic and cultural lives of the region.
Singapore supports trade liberalisation and regional economic integration through both the Trans-Pacific Partnership, under the aegis of Apec, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Singapore supports dialogue, confidence-building and cooperation via institutions such as the Asean Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit.
6 BE A CONTRARIAN
Sixth, Singapore should not be afraid to defy conventional wisdom. During the 1960s, Singapore welcomed foreign investment by multinational corporations when the rest of the Third World viewed them as the purveyors of evil. Singapore was not afraid to be criticised by its Asean partners when it decided to negotiate a free trade agreement with the US. Singapore was willing to welcome the US military presence in the region when it was forced to leave the Philippines.
7 BE A GOOD GLOBAL CITIZEN
Seventh, Singapore should try to be a good global citizen. Within Asean, Singapore has played a leading role in trying to narrow the gap between the old and new members. Singapore maintains training centres in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to train the government officials of those countries. Under the Singapore Cooperation Programme, run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore trains 7,000 government officials from other countries annually. To date, Singapore has trained 80,000 government officials from 170 countries.
Ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh, 77, is an international lawyer, a diplomat and a former law faculty dean
The world will miss Lee Kuan Yew
By Henry Kissinger, Published The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
LEE Kuan Yew was a great man. And he was a close personal friend, a fact that I consider one of the great blessings of my life. A world needing to distil order from incipient chaos will miss his leadership.Lee emerged onto the international stage as the founding father of the state of Singapore, then a city of about one million. He developed into a world statesman who acted as a kind of conscience to leaders around the globe.
Fate initially seemed not to have provided him a canvas on which to achieve more than modest local success.
In the first phase of decolonisation, Singapore emerged as a part of Malaysia. It was cut loose because of tensions between Singapore's largely Chinese population and the Malay majority and, above all, to teach the fractious city a lesson of dependency. Malaysia undoubtedly expected that reality would cure Singapore of its independent spirit.
But great men become such through visions beyond material calculations. Lee defied conventional wisdom by opting for statehood. The choice reflected a deep faith in the virtues of his people.
He asserted that a city located on a sandbar with nary an economic resource to draw upon, and whose major industry as a colonial naval base had disappeared, could nevertheless thrive and achieve international stature by building on its principal asset: the intelligence, industry and dedication of its people.
A great leader takes his or her society from where it is to where it has never been - indeed, where it as yet cannot imagine being. By insisting on quality education, by suppressing corruption and by basing governance on merit, Lee and his colleagues raised the annual per capita income of their population from US$500 at the time of independence in 1965 to roughly US$55,000 today.
In a generation, Singapore became an international financial centre, the leading intellectual metropolis of South-east Asia, the location of the region's major hospitals and a favoured site for conferences on international affairs.
It did so by adhering to an extraordinary pragmatism: by opening careers to the best talents and encouraging them to adopt the best practices from all over the world.
Superior performance was one component of that achievement. Superior leadership was even more important. As the decades went by, it was moving - and inspirational - to see Lee, in material terms the mayor of a medium-sized city, bestride the international scene as a mentor of global strategic order.
A visit by Lee to Washington was a kind of national event. A presidential conversation was nearly automatic; eminent members of the Cabinet and Congress would seek meetings. They did so not to hear of Singapore's national problems; Lee rarely, if ever, lobbied policymakers for assistance. His theme was the indispensable US contribution to the defence and growth of a peaceful world. His interlocutors attended not to be petitioned but to learn from one of the truly profound global thinkers of our time.
This process started for me when Lee visited Harvard in 1967 shortly after becoming Prime Minister of an independent Singapore. Lee began a meeting with the senior faculty of the School of Public Administration (now the Kennedy School) by inviting comments on the Vietnam War.
The faculty, of which I was one dissenting member, was divided primarily on the question of whether President Lyndon Johnson was a war criminal or a psychopath.
Lee responded: "You make me sick" - not because he embraced war in a personal sense but because the independence and prosperity of his country depended on the fortitude, unity and resolve of the United States.
Singapore was not asking the United States to do something that Singapore would not undertake to the maximum of its ability. But US leadership was needed to supplement and create a framework for order in the world.
Lee elaborated on these themes in the hundreds of encounters I had with him during international conferences, study groups, board meetings, face-to-face discussions and visits at each other's homes over 45 years.
He did not exhort; he was never emotional; he was not a Cold Warrior; he was a pilgrim in quest of world order and responsible leadership. He understood the relevance of China and its looming potential and often contributed to the enlightenment of the world on this subject. But in the end, he insisted that without the United States, there could be no stability.
Lee's domestic methods fell short of the prescriptions of current US constitutional theory. But so, in fairness, did the democracy of Thomas Jefferson's time, with its limited franchise, property qualifications for voting and slavery.
This is not the occasion to debate what other options were available. Had Singapore chosen the road of its critics, it might well have collapsed among its ethnic groups, as the example of Syria teaches today. Whether the structures essential for the early decades of Singapore's independent existence were unnecessarily prolonged can be the subject of another discussion.
I began this eulogy by mentioning my friendship with Lee. He was not a man of many sentimental words. And he nearly always spoke of substantive matters. But one could sense his attachment.
A conversation with Lee, whose life was devoted to service and who spent so much of his time on joint explorations, was a vote of confidence that sustained one's sense of purpose.
The great tragedy of Lee's life was that his beloved wife was felled by a stroke that left her a prisoner in her body, unable to communicate or receive communication. Through all that time, Lee sat by her bedside in the evening reading to her. He had faith that she understood despite the evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps this was Lee Kuan Yew's role in his era. He had the same hope for our world. He fought for its better instincts even when the evidence was ambiguous. But many of us heard him and will never forget him.
WASHINGTON POST
Dr Henry Kissinger is a former American politician who has served as national security adviser and secretary of state under several US administrations.
A man of exceptional intellect and perception
Mr Lee had strong views but could be persuaded to change his mind
Richard Hu, 88, served as Finance Minister from 1985 to 2001
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
IN THE lead-up to the 1984 General Election, after I finally agreed to enter politics, Kuan Yew invited me to his office at the Istana.It was a spartan room, which reflected the character of the man. He did not believe in spending money unless it was absolutely necessary. The room was just plain, except for some books.
In the Cabinet room, one floor below his office, the table has been there for as long as I remember. The cloth covers of the armchairs were finally changed three or four years before he retired. He had previously refused to.
It got to a point where his colleagues were embarrassed that visitors might think the Singapore Government had no money. But to him, these things mattered little.
His primary interest was in making sure the economy grew and the people benefited.
Kuan Yew was relaxed in that first meeting. He wanted to allay any lingering concerns I had about entering politics and to make me feel comfortable about taking the leap. That meeting marked the beginning of a friendship that lasted three decades, including 17 years as Cabinet colleagues.
I had heard a lot about Kuan Yew before that, of course, but from actually interacting with him, I found him to be a man of exceptional intellect and perception.
He had what I would call helicopter qualities - the ability to rise above the masses and look at things from a higher perspective, to not get confused by the forest.
As a lawyer, he had not received formal training in economic and financial matters. But he more than made up for it with an acute mind with the ability to calculate implications, as well as by reading widely.
He also had a strong intuitive sense on the principles of ma-croeconomics and how nations moved up. He agreed with Dr Goh Keng Swee early on that it was important to have an open economy that attracted the investments of multinational corporations. Later on, he could see that low-cost countries were moving up, and I consequently worked with him to grow our services sector in order to stay competitive - financial, legal, business services and so on.
He had a vision of how Singapore was going to create jobs and stay one step ahead of other developing countries and he was not afraid to try different strategies. They turned out to be extremely successful.
After I entered politics, Kuan Yew and I would meet regularly for one-on-one lunches. He had simple eating habits. There would be soup - usually vegetable soup - followed by fish or steak. He loved a good steak - about 120g, lean with all the fat cut out. Finally, there would be fruit. He was convinced about the benefits of antioxidants in fruit.
His favourite fruit was pomelo and he would say to me: "You eat it too. It's good for you."
He was a health nut. He would swim or cycle daily and kept telling me during our lunches that I should be exercising to keep fit, so I would last longer.
In this environment, he was quite friendly. We would discuss the issues of the day: policy matters, primarily financial ones, as well as international developments. One thing he did not discuss with me, though, was domestic or electoral politics.
He discussed this with other ministers because he knew this is not my area. I was never much interested in politics in the partisan or electoral sense. He understood that and kept me out of it.
Other than these one-on-one lunch meetings, our discussions mainly took place during Cabinet meetings and during the annual Budget meeting between the Finance Minister (after I took up this portfolio in 1985) and the Prime Minister.
I would prepare a paper laying out the important tax changes in the Budget. Because tax issues were very sensitive, we did not want to discuss them openly, even at the Cabinet level. For example, if we were going to increase petrol or tobacco taxes, any leak would be very problematic.
The role of Finance Minister in Singapore is relatively straightforward, unlike in other countries where finance ministers have to fight with central bankers because one side wants to spend and the other side wants to control.
Because the issues were less complicated, Kuan Yew and I rarely found ourselves in disagreement or having to debate an issue very vigorously, except on one issue: whether we should internationalise the Singapore dollar.
This debate happened in the 1980s. The big international banks at the time wanted greater access to the Singapore dollar, which they saw as a strong and stable currency - almost as strong as the US dollar and more familiar to people in this region. They proposed to Kuan Yew to allow the Singapore dollar to be borrowed for use in large amounts outside Singapore - say, to fund Indonesian development projects.
A few years before this, these banks proposed that a US-dollar offshore market be established in Singapore. We allowed this and it worked very well. It was the first step in our move towards developing Singapore as a financial centre. Those banks saw the internationalisation of the Singapore dollar as the logical next step.
As chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, I, together with the MAS leadership, was totally opposed to this proposal. We felt that once borrowing outside Singapore was allowed, there would be pressure on the mint to print more money, in excess to the GDP requirements in Singapore. Over time, if more and more foreign entities held large quantities of Singapore dollars offshore, a mischievous speculator with enough resources would, in theory, be able to undermine your currency by selling down and then buying back.
This was in fact what happened to the British pound at one point and, later, to the Thai baht during the 1997 financial crisis.
Keng Swee, who had retired, supported my view on this issue. But it took a lot to bring Kuan Yew round. He asked if we could allow some internationalisation to happen initially, and then to gradually build up. I maintained that once you opened the door, it was difficult to stop it.
There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the two of us. He was a night burner who worked into the wee hours of the morning. Often, he would think nothing of calling me up at midnight to ask me about a particular detail or to get me to elaborate on a certain point.
In the end, we were able to convince him that Singapore could become a financial centre without internationalising our currency - by developing other financial services in parallel that could provide just as good benefits, if not better.
What I learnt from this exchange about Kuan Yew was that he could be persuaded. On many issues, he had strong views and would try to dominate. Often, I saw him challenge proposals put forward by ministers at Cabinet meetings. But he was never so locked in to a particular view that he could not change his mind.
Multiracial S'pore on the world stage
S. Jayakumar, 75, consultant, Drew & Napier, was an MP from 1980 to 2011, a Cabinet minister from 1984 to 2011, including Deputy PM from 2004 to 2009 and Senior Minister from 2009 to 2011
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
MR LEE Kuan Yew had a strong view on how we should conduct ourselves on the international stage and how we wanted others to perceive Singapore.He had many views in this regard, but let me single out one aspect which made a great impression on me - that we should always get others to view us as a multiracial country.
Once, after he came back from an overseas visit, he asked at a Cabinet meeting who was the Transport Minister. Turning to him, he said he had just come back after a long flight on Singapore Airlines (SIA), and among the in-flight service crew, there were no Malays, Indians or Eurasians.
He asked the minister to convey feedback to SIA that foreigners travelling on the national carrier would form an impression of Singapore. It was not good that the in-flight crew were all ethnic Chinese. He said SIA should do its best to have Malays, Indians and Eurasians.
In a similar vein, he would from time to time comment on Cabinet memoranda from ministers seeking approval to send delegations to represent Singapore at important international conferences. He would turn to the minister who put up the Cabinet paper and ask about the list of officials proposed for the delegation. He would say: "Look, they are going to represent Singapore, right? Surely your ministry can find a good Malay or Indian officer to be included?"
Often, the minister would withdraw the memorandum and resubmit later an amended delegation list. His determination to portray abroad Singapore's multiracial aspect had a profound impact on me.
'The greatest Chinese outside mainland China'
Robert Kuok, 91, is chairman of the Kerry Group, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate with varied interests ranging from property to palm oil
By Li Xueying, Hong Kong Correspondent, In Hong Kong, The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
ON HIS regular visits to Hong Kong, Mr Lee Kuan Yew observed that when people there failed in business, they blamed themselves or bad luck, picked themselves up and tried again.He wondered how to encourage that entrepreneurial spirit among Singaporeans, and would put the question to powerful businessmen he met there. South-east Asia's richest man, Mr Robert Kuok, remembers how he responded to Mr Lee: "I told him, you have governed Singapore too strictly, you have put a straitjacket on Singapore. Now, you need to take a pair of scissors and cut it."
The Malaysian tycoon would sometimes invite other Hong Kong businessmen to meet Mr Lee, who was always ready to talk politics.
But on his last trip, in May 2012, Mr Lee was more subdued. His wife had died, and he visited another old friend, media mogul Run Run Shaw, who was ill. Mr Lee sat quietly by Sir Run Run's wheelchair, saying little but patting the centenarian's knee from time to time.
"He had grown far more mellow," recalled Mr Kuok in an interview at his Deep Water Bay home in March 2013. It was a different side of a man he had known for seven decades.
They were born 20 days apart - Mr Lee on Sept 16 and Mr Kuok on Oct 6, 1923 - and met in 1941 as students at Raffles College in pre-war Singapore. "We're both pigs, born in the Year of the Pig," Mr Kuok said with a laugh, referring to the Chinese zodiac sign.
Did that make them stubborn? No, he said. "Greedy. See food, eat. See power, grab." From Hong Kong, Mr Kuok presides over an US$11.4 billion (S$15.4 billion) family business empire that spans the Shangri-La hotel chain to logistics to being the world's biggest processor of palm oil.
He said they were not especially close in school. Harry, as the young Mr Lee was known then, already had a reputation for pugnacity. "He was combative, wanting to win every argument. Not someone you would take an immediate great warmth and liking to," said Mr Kuok. And because Harry was "intellectually a cut above the average", there was "a slight feeling of superiority" about him. He did not mix much, though he did attend the college's annual fancy dress ball in 1941 in Malay garb complete with a songkok. Mr Kuok went as a Mandarin.
On Dec 8 that year, their lives were disrupted when the first Japanese bomb landed, bringing World War II to Singapore.
Mr Kuok returned to Johor Baru, where his parents ran a shop selling rice, sugar and flour. By the time he returned to Singapore in 1955, he had established a sugar refining business that would be the foundation of his fortune and earned him the title of Malaysia's Sugar King.
Mr Lee was a lawyer and rising politician, and a founder of the People's Action Party.
They would meet occasionally and Mr Kuok found Mr Lee "still pretty curt", but now he was obsessed with Singapore. In 1970, Mr Kuok received a call from the Istana inviting him to the Prime Minister's Office. Mr Lee wanted his views on Malaysia, saying his analyses were more down-to-earth than the official briefings he received. These meetings occurred regularly till 1973 when Mr Kuok moved to Hong Kong. After that, they met mostly when Mr Lee visited Hong Kong.
"Over the years, he shed a lot of his stiffness," he said, though they did not agree on everything.
"Politically, I did not share all his views," revealed Mr Kuok, citing as an example the benchmarking of ministerial pay to the private sector.
He thought Mr Lee was too obsessed about Singapore. "He wanted to talk about politics all the time. There is more to life than politics. To me, there is more to life than business."
Yet it was Mr Lee's single-mindedness that made Singapore thrive, Mr Kuok acknowledged, and it helped that he possessed "all these strong leadership traits - an intimidating attitude, presence of face and body".
"He was very sure of himself, resolute, even ruthless. But he turned Singapore into a model nation, put in place a government that cared for its people, and made sure that others would not bully Singapore," he said. "The greatest Chinese outside the mainland is Lee Kuan Yew."
To his Chinese tutor, he was a 'gentle lion'
Koh Hock Kiat, 54, is the former director of the Confucius Institute at the Nanyang Technological University
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
I STILL remember clearly the first Chinese lesson I conducted for Mr Lee Kuan Yew.It was a rainy day in 2006. Even though I was well-prepared, I was slightly nervous as I stepped into the Istana to make my way to his office, where the lesson was to be held.
Mr Lee, after all, was Singapore's founding father. Many viewed him as a stern man, not to be crossed, a "shi zi" (lion), as some would say in Chinese.
My nervousness was very quickly dispelled. As a student, he was humble and easy-going. He never hesitated to ask questions, and these were not just about Chinese language and culture.
He wanted to know too what I thought about issues like China and its rapid rise.
He also never stood on ceremony. Once, we did a lesson at the Singapore General Hospital because he was hospitalised there. He was in good spirits and appeared in a shirt and shorts.
I always began lessons by asking him how he was. This lightened the mood and was a good way for him to warm up before we moved on to converse about other topics.
Often, the topics were related to current affairs. We would read news articles or commentaries in Lianhe Zaobao or in newspapers from China and Taiwan, and then discuss them.
We stopped from time to time if he needed to clarify the meaning of a word or a term, or if there was a pronunciation that he had to go over a few more times.
But otherwise, we let the conversation flow freely to mimic as far as possible a natural conversation he might hold with his Chinese-speaking guests.
I enjoyed these conversations immensely as they often provided a glimpse of a side to Mr Lee that I would come to admire very much.
His sentimentality was quite evident, for example, when he recalled, with much nostalgia, his friendship with Chiang Ching-kuo. He would talk about the two stone lions he had received as a gift from the late Taiwanese leader and remind us of how Chiang had generously acceded to a request to allow the Singapore Armed Forces to train in Taiwan.
He also treasured memories of his days in Britain. When I e-mailed him one year to wish him well on his birthday, he replied in a long e-mail that he was dining in a restaurant in London.
It was a restaurant he had been to as a student and which he liked a lot. It had not changed at all, he wrote with much delight.
With age, Mr Lee spoke more slowly and softly than he used to.
But whenever he began talking about an issue related to Singapore's survival or well-being, he would become excited, his tone moving up a notch.
Discussing Singapore transformed him into a young man, I remember thinking to myself.
Mr Lee's interest in the Chinese language is well-documented. It dates back to the 1950s, shortly after he entered politics.
In his later years, however, he showed a desire to learn more, not just of the language - for conversational and speech-making purposes - but of Chinese culture as well.
He wanted to talk about Chinese geography and the cultural significance of various sayings and art forms.
I have always believed in an approach to learning Chinese that balances linguistic skills with cultural knowledge.
For me, this shift he made in his later years was evidence that he had matured in his journey as a student of Chinese.
When Mrs Lee passed away in 2010, our Chinese lessons were put on hold. It would have been understandable if Mr Lee had decided then to permanently set aside the classes. But remarkably, within a month, he chose to resume lessons, and at a normal frequency, no less.
Even in the later years, when his health did not permit for lessons to be held as frequently, he never completely gave them up. Sometimes, when he got tired, he would ask to rest for 30 minutes before resuming the lesson.
There was a determination and a fighting spirit in him that I saw, not just in the learning of Chinese, but in other areas of his life - such as in his refusal to allow his security officers to aid him in walking.
But above all, I remember Mr Lee most fondly for the kindness he never failed to show to the people around him.
Twice a year, he would host dinners for his Chinese teachers, security officers, doctors and nurses to show his gratitude. When his books were published, he would autograph a copy for each of his Chinese teachers.
Often, he would also return from his overseas trips with gifts for us. When the Chinese leader Hu Jintao gave him some pu'er tea, he gave it all to us - after asking us to explain the significance of the tea - along with a teapot, which was a gift from another official.
And so, even though for many Singaporeans the thought of Mr Lee will continue to bring to mind images of a forbidding lion, for those who had the privilege of interacting with him at close quarters, he was a gentle and compassionate lion.
Journey with a master teacher
Alan Chan Heng Loon, 62, is the chief executive of Singapore Press Holdings. He worked in the Government for 25 years, holding posts such as permanent secretary and principal private secretary to then Senior Minister Lee.
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
IN 1994, I was called up for an interview with Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who was looking for a new principal private secretary.He looked at my CV and said: "Chan Heng Loon, you don't qualify. That's the end of the interview."
I was shocked and said: "Mr Lee, may I know why I am not qualified?"
He said: "Your Chinese is no good. You only got a C6 for your Chinese. Therefore, you are not good enough to be my principal private secretary."
I told him that I had always been very proud of my command of the Chinese language and that this O-Level result had been a huge disappointment. I had, after all, been among the 10 per cent who passed the preliminary exam at Raffles Institution.
He said: "Ten per cent?"
I said: "Ya, O-Levels, I don't know what happened."
Then he started quizzing me on what I read. He was surprised that I had started reading Nanyang Siang Pau at the age of seven and that I read every copy of the Yazhou Zhoukan, Asia Weekly.
After about 30 minutes, he said: "Okay, you go and take the written exam." And I was selected.
Just one week after I became his PPS, I followed him to Taiwan where he met its leaders.
The discussion lasted from 10am to 10pm. I was taking notes. Mr Lee told me to give him the minutes the following morning - verbatim. I stayed up that night to write the minutes, and when he read them the next morning, he said: "Alan, you passed."
In 1994, Mr Lee tasked me to help him monitor the progress of the Suzhou Industrial Park project.
I also had to carry his messages to Chinese officials and convey their responses back to him. The Chinese used to laugh and call me "yu chai da ren" (the royal messenger).
During my stint as Mr Lee's PPS, the liberalisation of the financial and banking sector was also in the works. Almost every other evening, he would meet 10 bankers and quiz them on a specific topic. If he liked a banker's proposal, he would tell the man: "Write me a paper on this. Elaborate on the points."
I had to send the paper to the other nine bankers for comments. So for every paper that came in, there would be nine others as well. I had to sift through this information and organise it for myself - and sometimes I found myself lost in it. But he could read all 10 papers, distil the ideas and tell me which ones were worth pursuing.
He wanted the maximum possible opinions on a particular subject.
I was by Mr Lee's side when he met Fang Chuang Pi, the former underground leader of the Malayan Communist Party in Singapore, better known as "The Plen". The meeting took place in 1995 in Diaoyutai, China. Mr Fang had a bag with him that, out of courtesy, we didn't search. There could have been anything inside that bag, though I believe it was probably just a tape recorder. Still, throughout the conversation, while I was taking minutes, I was actually watching that bag very, very closely. The two men knew and respected each other. But there was something Mr Fang asked for that Mr Lee could not grant. So it's a bit of a regret.
Mr Lee kept his ears close to the ground. At about 11 or 12 o'clock on a Saturday, he would say: "I'd like to visit a three-room flat in XYZ precinct at 4 o'clock."
Only the manager of the town council in question and one ministry official would join him on the visit. The notice was so short that there was no time for anyone to gloss over the blemishes.
At the appointed hour, Mr Lee would walk around, inspecting the cleanliness and maintenance. Then he would go about gathering feedback from the ground. He would speak to families and people he met along corridors and ask pointed questions like: "What exactly do you do? How much do you earn?"
And wherever we went, whether it was India or Vietnam, he would always ask to visit a market. He told me: "When I walk around the market and I look at the availability of goods there, then I know whether that place is prosperous or poor."
He felt that while you can get everything in a five-star hotel, the local market was more of a dipstick of the economy.
In 1994, we were in Shenyang in Liaoning province when he asked a vendor where their pineapples were from. The answer was Taiwan. Mr Lee was taken by surprise: "Taiwan, not Hainan? You mean there is trade between China and Taiwan?"
The vendor said yes. So there were already pineapples from Taiwan in China in 1994. And Mr Lee, who always wanted to know what was going on, was able to ferret that out.
Press freedom was a fine balancing act with Mr Lee
Cheong Yip Seng, 71, former editor-in-chief of Singapore Press Holdings' English and Malay Newspapers Division, recalls the many run-ins
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
ONE November evening in 1999, Mr Lee Kuan Yew telephoned: He was troubled by a new information phenomenon, which was threatening to overwhelm the traditional media industry.In America, the markets were rapidly coming to the conclusion that there was no future in print newspapers, whose eyeballs were migrating to cyberspace.
How would this information revolution impact the Singapore media? He was anxious to find a response that would enable the mainstream media to keep its eyeballs. He wanted us at Singapore Press Holdings to think about the way forward.
For him, the media was one of three institutions in Singapore he told an aide he needed to control in order to govern effectively. The other two were the Treasury and the armed forces.
His relations with the media had been rocky at the start of his political career. While he was in the opposition, not everyone in the press had sympathy for his political goals. The Malaysian Malay media, which could then circulate in Singapore, was hostile.
My first editor-in-chief, Mr Leslie Hoffman, had a furious row with him over freedom of the press that blazed across the front pages of The Straits Times, and went all the way to the International Press Institute (IPI) annual assembly in 1959 in Berlin, where Mr Hoffman appealed for IPI support.
Once in office, Mr Lee set out to change the rules of the game: He and his government, not the press, would set the agenda for the country. They wanted command of the national narrative.
What did he want of the press in Singapore? He put it best in 1971 when he went to another IPI conference following another bitter confrontation with the Singapore media: "The mass media can help to present Singapore's problems simply and clearly, and then explain how if they support certain programmes and policies, these problems can be solved.
"More important, we want the mass media to reinforce, not undermine, the cultural values and social attitudes being inculcated in our schools and universities... The freedom of the press must be subordinated to the integrity of Singapore and the primacy of purpose of an elected government."
He wanted the press to help him if it thought his policies deserved support. The operative word was "if". He did not want blind support. A sycophantic, obsequious press would be worthless to him, he would tell us on more than one occasion. It would have no credibility.
In truth, most of his policies made sense. The list is long: Robust multinational corporation-led growth wiped out double-digit unemployment, widespread in the early years following independence.
Affordable public housing was easily available, made possible by large-scale land acquisition at below-market rates and use of the Central Provident Fund. An overhaul of the education system reduced once unacceptably high drop-out rates in schools so everyone could realise his full potential. Tough laws were introduced to ensure safety in the streets. Good housekeeping by never living beyond our means meant a debt-free state, crucial for a sound economy.
These and many more. That might well be, but the pitfalls for us were many even though he and our editors shared broadly similar goals: We both wanted what was best for a young nation and we believed in a credible press at the same time.
For example, land acquisition unsettled many thousands of people who refused initially to resettle and had to be forcibly moved. How do we report this massive exercise without reflecting the angst as well? Or, in the case of education, we could not avoid reporting the very adverse reactions to streaming and bilingualism. But in the process, we opened ourselves up to strong suspicions that we were undermining those initiatives.
Or spending policies. How much should people be taxed, for incomes, car ownership, employing maids, and goods and services tax? And how much financial support to give to the poor and "sandwiched class"?
Moreover, not every policy was reasonable. For instance, The Straits Times could not embrace his controversial attempt to get more graduate women to marry and have children. We felt, like most of the people, that it was too divisive to further advantage graduate women by giving them generous perks.
Mr Lee did not believe a Western-style media was in Singapore's best interest. He wanted a media like the BBC, whose objectivity he valued. He was impressed with the Japanese press. He had read about them from books by Western scholars and believed that its agenda was driven by what would best serve Japanese interests.
We went to Japan to find out more. But they are a different society in so many different ways - culturally, geographically, historically. They operated press clubs in every ministry and journalists at the clubs work at the ministry every day in a largely symbiotic relationship. It would not be workable here.
How did he translate into practice his vision of the kind of journalism he wanted?
I can only answer for the time I was at The Straits Times, from 1963 to 2006.
Put simply, in the early years, he used the hard line, with what he called knuckledusters to press his point of view, whenever he was dissatisfied with the way we covered the challenges Singapore faced.
He believed that Singaporeans had deeply embedded Asian values they should not dilute without serious consequences. Hence, he went all out to protect the strength of the family unit.
So, coverage of lifestyles that could weaken the family was a constant bone of contention. It proved tricky for the newsroom, so exposed were we to Western cultural influences and fads.
We could not ignore trends like premarital sex, but to him, it was a serious threat to the family unit. He disapproved of promiscuous conduct and would react strongly whenever we ran a piece that appeared to promote such behaviour.
He did not press his strongly held beliefs just once, but kept it up all through his years in office.
He always reminded us how the world worked. He would send us articles he had read or shared with editors his experiences over the occasional lunch or dinner. They were mostly about developments elsewhere that had an impact on Singapore.
He was always looking over the horizon, studying what trends would affect us and what new strategies were needed to either take advantage of them or minimise their adverse effects.
His goal was to educate his people and one way was through the mass media. The purpose was simple: Unless Singaporeans understood the realities of having to live off a small resource-poor tropical island one degree north of the Equator in an ever-changing world, they would not understand, and hopefully support, his tough policies.
Over time, one reality he had to accept was this: As Singapore developed, he had to abandon his knuckleduster ways; they were ill-suited to a more educated electorate wanting more political space.
Closing down newspapers and detaining journalists, actions that traumatised us in our newsrooms in the early 1970s, were no longer options.
In his closing years as Prime Minister, he took a more sophisticated and persuasive approach, stepping up his contact with the media - editors and younger, promising reporters alike - to explain the issues in person, to convince and to cajole.
On our part, we continued to press the need for more space and diversity of opinions in our pages, or lose credibility. We had to respond to the changing needs of the public who wanted out-of-bounds, or OB, markers for national discourse moved.
It was always a fine balancing act, how to professionally serve our readers without appearing to undermine policy. Regular run-ins with the Government were thus par for the course.
Exceptional speakers of different styles
Jean Marshall, 88, is the widow of Mr David Marshall, Singapore's first elected Chief Minister from April 1955 to June 1956
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
BEFORE I knew either Mr Lee Kuan Yew or David Marshall, I remember being at a political meeting at the university in 1957 or 1958. I can't remember the circumstances, but both David and Mr Lee spoke on the future of Singapore.After my years at the London School of Economics, I was not unfamiliar with political speeches. But it struck me that here were two exceptional speakers of great difference in their styles.
Mr Lee was a master of silence and the pause. He could pause and everybody would be absolutely on edge as to what he was going to say next. David had a different, sometimes more oratorical, style. He could inspire people and take them out of themselves to be something bigger than themselves.
Both of them were of course lawyers of some eminence, and I think they both respected each other as lawyers. But David had a very different personality from Mr Lee and it was at times difficult for them to appreciate each other because they really looked at life in very different ways.
David's emotional reactions were a very important component of his personality. Mr Lee appeared to have ironed out or not used emotional reactions, or possibly covered them up.
David believed that every human being has value, and that the individual has a value that can't be ironed out because every individual is worthy of respect and is important.
Of course this is difficult when it comes to working out public policy. But it did permeate his views about Singapore's post-colonial status, the need for independence, and the need for public participation in the political process.
It also permeated his professional life and the way he fought in court - not necessarily for high fees either - but for people he thought would otherwise be denied justice.
This outlook could place him at odds with the systematic planning and thinking that Mr Lee and his team had, from the very beginning, planned, worked on and maintained for years and years.
For instance, one policy to which David took great exception was the "stop at two" policy. He was very against that and said so. He felt it was taking away a very fundamental right for people to choose to have or not to have children.
Mrs Lee was very friendly. We talked about knitting patterns, education policies, children - all kinds of things. I was very relaxed with Mrs Lee and I think she was relaxed with me. I was not relaxed with Mr Lee. He could be very, very acerbic.
We would host them for dinner when David was ambassador to France from 1978 to 1993 but I was never relaxed. I think Mr Lee was probably just as awkward with David as David was with him. They were painfully correct with each other and Mr Lee then probably still regarded David as a bit of a maverick - though he did later express appreciation for David's work in France.
David had immense admiration for what the PAP team had achieved in Singapore.
Let nobody say that David held back in paying tribute to the achievements of Mr Lee and his government!
Mr Lee's way of doing things was different from David's, but David said, and not only to me, that he could never have achieved what the PAP had achieved through its organisation, cohesiveness and sheer abilities.
David saw the PAP as a juggernaut which did iron out legitimate opposition at various times in its history. I think it would be very difficult for David ever to forget that.
But he would be very capable of openly showing admiration for many of the ministers and PAP people who concern themselves with some of the issues that David was concerned with.
For instance, all the conversations that have been taking place about the people who feel left out, the people who are being left out. There is a real concern, for whatever reason, among the ministers and PAP of today about that group. That's a group that David certainly would have been concerned about.
Preoccupied with our survival
S R Nathan, 90, was Singapore's sixth president from 1999 to 2011. He was a social worker, trade union research official and diplomat before that
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
AFTER I joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1965, one of my roles as a junior civil servant was to take notes at meetings.It was a great privilege to observe at close quarters the way in which Mr Lee Kuan Yew, together with other pioneer leaders including Dr Goh Keng Swee and Mr S. Rajaratnam, set about the task of establishing the newly independent city state of Singapore on a firm footing. Mr Lee displayed extraordinary energy, resilience and an unfailing commitment, despite the odds stacked against him.
Statehood meant confronting not only the ongoing communist threat, but also other problems such as language issues, racial tensions and riots. Even after Separation, the relationship with Malaysia continued to be tense and required careful handling, as did relations with Indonesia.
Singapore's economy was in a fragile state, and jobs were in short supply. Much of the population had to be rehoused in decent conditions. These were huge challenges at the time. The Prime Minister's mind never stopped working as he mulled over the issues, big and small, that confronted Singapore. If he travelled anywhere, he was always asking if something he saw could be applied in Singapore.
He would grill anyone he met for ideas that could be useful - many a time I saw foreign dignitaries and other experts emerge from a meeting with him in a state of exhaustion, after he had pumped them for ideas and information. He was totally preoccupied with our survival and prosperity.
He could be extraordinarily tough in negotiations when our national interests were at stake. He was a pragmatist at such times, a practitioner of realpolitik, even if that meant ignoring high-minded critics, both at home and overseas. His single-mindedness fired my enthusiasm.
During these years of nation-building, working for Mr Lee Kuan Yew was pressured, stressful, exciting and challenging. That experience was an education that no university or printed book could have given me.
As I re-read some of his speeches of the 1950s and 1960s, I was reminded that "socialism" was a recurrent theme. Was it a substantial element in his political philosophy? Was it a tactical sop to left-wing challengers? It is a term one rarely hears in speeches today, but I hope that concern for the common good remains, as we work to produce "socialist benefits through capitalist methods".
My first working contacts with Mr Lee Kuan Yew more than 50 years ago marked the beginning of a long and eventful journey. My formal credentials are modest. Yet, on many occasions he has been willing to trust me with important tasks in a number of fields, including the diplomatic service.
When I was well into my 70s, when I thought my career in public life was probably over, he asked me to put my name forward as a candidate for the presidency of this great land.
I was honoured to be given that opportunity.
I hope that my performance in the great variety of positions I have held over the years has measured up to the confidence Mr Lee Kuan Yew placed in me.
During my career in the public service, I never had any reason to change my high opinion of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the man who, more than any other individual, created modern Singapore.
As a boss, he was exacting and yet capable of great warmth.
My first assignment with him was in 1966 when I was assigned to take notes at his meeting with the Thai foreign minister at Sri Temasek.
I hurriedly put on a tie and coat, and went to the meeting room. When he saw me, he came close to me, adjusted my tie, and told me: "You must remember you are no longer in the labour movement."
That touched me immensely. I had no father, no elder brother. No one had ever done that for me, with such affection.
I am privileged to have worked with him.
He was a master teacher
Lim Siong Guan, 68, group president of GIC, was Mr Lee Kuan Yew's principal private secretary (1978-1981) and head of the Singapore Civil Service (1999 to 2005)
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
"MY MOST direct contact with Mr Lee Kuan Yew was as his first-ever principal private secretary.
He was a master teacher to me. He had me sit in on all his meetings other than the political ones, just to listen and learn from the exposure, even though the conversations often had nothing to do with any particular topic he wanted me to work on.From Mr Lee, I learnt the principles of governance which undergirded the transformation of Singapore, from the early days of self-government in 1959 and subsequent independence in 1965 to a modern metropolis.
I learnt that building a nation is not the same as building a city. A city may be plans and concrete structures, but a nation is people with hopes and aspirations who somehow have to be persuaded to function together for a worthy future for all.
And I learnt from Mr Lee that a leader not only needs to have clarity of views and single-mindedness of purpose, but also a tremendous capacity for communication, where complex problems are brought down to what the man-in-the- street can identify with.
From him and Dr Goh Keng Swee, I learnt always to look out for talent and to do whatever I could to bring people up to their potential. And I learnt a relentless drive for excellence, to be the best we can be in everything we do.
For Singapore, unlike for so many other countries, survival and success are two sides of the same coin. Singapore must seek to have as many friends as possible but, as Mr Lee would often emphasise, never forget that no one owes us a living and we must ourselves defend Singapore: no one else is responsible for our security.
These are deep lessons on leadership and governance which have been infused in my soul. The drive to be exceptional in the way we think is not an option; it is destiny for Singapore."
A man of simple tastes, says tailor
Fong Loo Fern, 61, is managing director of family-run tailoring business CYC The Custom Shop, where Lee Kuan Yew had his shirts made.
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
"MR LEE ordered shirts from us, and we also had pyjamas made for him. His name was usually embroidered on them in full.In the past, he was served by my father who was in charge of sales at the time in the 1960s.
I remember my dad was very impressed with him, saying that Lee Kuan Yew was his hero.
My father probably met him only a couple of times in the 1960s. After that, it was always Mrs Lee who took care of his needs, until she passed away. She came to the shop once or twice a year and would order shirts for him.
I first met him in 2010. It was a very ordinary meeting in his Istana office, just a spacious room rather simply furnished.
The meeting lasted maybe about 20 minutes, and sales manager Roland Tan took his measurements. The order was for a batik shirt. The fabric was a gift from someone.
We had a short conversation with him. He asked me about my family and my business. He was warm and approachable and put us at ease.
I noticed that the shirt he was wearing was kind of old already. He kept his shirts for a long time.
He had very simple tastes. His favourite colour was pink and patterns were very unlikely. He usually ordered work shirts, and didn't really choose the expensive materials.
He wasn't very concerned about what he wore, Mrs Lee always took care of all that."
New Year card every year for shoemaker
Lee Kean Siong, 62, of Lee Hoi Wah Shoes and his sister Christine Lee, 64, had been Mr Lee Kuan Yew's personal shoemakers since 1991, when their father Lee Hoi Wah died at age 74. It was Mrs Lee who first patronised the shop in 1987.
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
"HE WAS our customer for more than 20 years, since 1990. We made shoes for Mrs Lee too, so when her husband needed shoes, she recommended us to him.It was our father who first made shoes for Mr Lee. The first mould he made of Mr Lee's feet is still in the store. After our father died in 1991, my sister and I continued to make shoes for him.
Mr Lee would make a pair once every two years. They were always a simple pair of formal shoes made of soft black leather. It was very important that they were comfortable.
Whenever he needed to have his shoes made or adjusted, he would contact me. I usually went to his house in Oxley Road. Sometimes, he would send a car to pick me up from my shop in Jalan Kukoh.
He visited my shop twice in 2011 when he was less busy. I apologised that my shop was very dirty. He said it was not a problem, he just wanted to come and see. We took a photo together on his second visit.
We're both Hakka and addressed each other as Mr Lee in Mandarin. When we talked, it was about shoes and what he needed. As long as you made good shoes for him, he'd be happy and smile. Then I'd be happy too. His bodyguard told me he praised my shoes to his foreign visitors.
The shoes usually cost $300 to make. Adjustment cost may be $30, depending on what needed to be done. We gave him a 5 per cent discount.
I made the shoes using moulds of his feet I already had. They changed only slightly. He always needed metatarsal pads put in. As he aged, his foot bone slowly protruded over the years.
He sent us quite a few things over the years. Every year since the 1990s, we received signed New Year cards with photographs of his family. Sometimes, he sent us fruit hampers.
The older he got, the less he wrote. He used to write my name on the cards but not in the more recent years. His signature also got shorter and it looked like his handwriting was getting weaker.
In 2004, he sent us a copy of his Mandarin book, Lee Kuan Yew: A Pictorial Biography.
Once, he sent us a beautiful crystal ornament that looked like it cost about $200 to $300. With it, he wrote a note that said: "With my appreciation and friendship. May your business and your shop Lee Hoi Wah prosper and flourish."
He never took 'no' for an answer
James Fu, 91, was Mr Lee's press secretary from 1972 to 1993
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
I FIRST met Mr Lee around 1954 or 1955, in his office in Malacca Street. I was a reporter with Sin Pao then and I was trying to get some news. He had formed the PAP and was the legal adviser to some of the Chinese school students. He struck me as a serious politician with strong political convictions, but I was not sure if he was a determined politician.
I made up my mind after observing him for some time, during which I was doing political reporting with Nanyang Siang Pau.
I remember one occasion when he was campaigning during the 1963 General Election and he was pushed by opposition supporters into a drain. But he remained there and continued the argument with the opposition union leaders.
That made me think that he was quite a determined person. He was quite prepared to fight with the very fierce communist cadres and he stood his ground. I began to believe that not only was he a serious politician, but he also had the determination and dedication to achieve his political goal.
I was detained in Operation Cold Store for a few months later that year as I was one of the founders of the Singapore National Union of Journalists and we were inclined to left-wing views.
After my release from detention, I joined Radio and Television Singapore as a Chinese sub-editor. I was assigned to do reporting a few years later and gradually I was asked to report on Lee Kuan Yew.
I found it difficult because my English was still not up to standard and it was not easy covering his speeches. In 1972, I was asked to become Mr Lee's press secretary. I was reluctant because my English was still quite poor.
So I made a helluva effort to improve my English. For one or two years, I read English magazines and journals. I read all of Mr Lee's past speeches. I conversed in English whenever possible and studied quite hard.
He was a very good instructor too. He corrected my English and adjusted my writing structure. That helped me to avoid repeating the same mistakes and improved my written English.
His writing is quite super and his speeches were all written by him, you know. We only supplied whatever material he needed. He could take a few days to a week - or even more - on important speeches because he needed to consult others.
As a boss, he did not accept any reasons for you not being able to achieve what he had in mind.
And he didn't have a time limit - from six o'clock in the morning to midnight, there may be something from him.
During the wedding of one of my daughters, he called and said he wanted me to discuss something with the press. I said, well, actually I'm at this function. He said, no, no, you can still do it.
Fortunately I had invited a few senior journalists from all the newspapers, so I discussed the matter with them then and there.
That is the thing you were expected to do. You couldn't say, "I can't". He didn't believe in that.
He would think that everything could be done, you just had to think about how to do it. That was his attitude.
It was not easy to work for Mr Lee. You had to have some tolerance and endurance and you had to work very, very hard.
When I was his press secretary, I went to play golf in Jurong one May Day. Suddenly a police car came to the course and I had to cancel my game.
At the time there were no mobile phones, so they'd contacted my house and were told: "James went to play golf." So they went to the golf course to get me. After that, I said, no more golf.
Generally, his assignments were quite difficult.
For example, the merger of the two Chinese newspapers in 1983. That was his idea as he thought their circulation was going down and they might not survive.
That was a very difficult task for me as a former Chinese newspaper journalist, having to face the old directors of the Chinese newspapers. But that was his idea and I had to take time to implement it. I had to talk to the directors repeatedly and get their agreement. That was very difficult.
But Mr Lee has been quite kind to me and helped me a lot. Even after I retired, when I had a kidney operation, he wrote to me to express his concern.
An open man who embodied the word 'statesman'
Sidek Saniff was a PAP MP from 1976 to 2001, and a Minister of State and Senior Minister of State from 1991 to 2001.
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
"THERE is another side to Lee Kuan Yew. I had the opportunity of having lunch with him several times, sometimes one on one. You had to be on your toes constantly.We would not only discuss my portfolio at the time, whether it was the Ministry of Social Affairs, Communication, Trade and Industry. We would also talk about important things, sensitive matters about the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians.
He was an open man and the embodiment of the word "statesman". I appreciated it very much because the discussions were no-holds-barred and you were free to raise sensitive matters like the Singapore Armed Forces, mosques and the azan (the Islamic call to prayer five times a day). I was told that we had to lower the volume of the azan.
Mr Lee suggested broadcasting it over the radio. Up to now, you can hear the azan on the radio five times a day.
Another discussion I learned from was about the donations to the Mosque Building Fund. At the time the donation was 50 cents. Then, Mr Lee agreed to increase the donation to $1. But after we got $1, we thought, let's make it $2, $3. But Mr Lee said: "Sidek, when you collect money from your citizens, make it the barest minimum. Those who want to give more, can give."
I gave Mr Lee a copy of my book, Paradigma Melayu Singapura, The Paradigm of Singapore Malays, which outlined my thoughts on the development of our Malay community over the years, in 2011.
He wrote back to say thank you and signed it himself. He found time to say thank you. That was a classic example of what leadership and statesmanship is about. So when people say he was very garang and fierce, yeah, he was. But you must know that against the background of communism, he had to deal with it and do what was necessary. But he had a soft side.
He inducted new blood, like-minded Singaporeans that put the well-being of Singapore and Singaporeans at heart, especially the second generation leadership headed by Mr Goh Chok Tong.
I remember one occasion when my family and I were on vacation in Malaysia. I got a note: "Sidek, please do not extend your vacation, PM would like to see you." So a few days later, I met Mr Lee and he told me: "I want you to follow Hon Sui Sen to China." We then sat down for a chat. He told me three things I can never forget.
Number one: "Can you tahan (tolerate)? The weather will be minus 18 deg C." I just told myself that if Hon Sui Sen who was above 60 at the time could do it, so could I - I was only 40 then. So I nodded.
Second question: "You have an overcoat?" I think he knew that people may not use overcoats frequently. I said: "I'll buy one."
He said: "No need, Don't waste money." He paused for a while and said: "Ahmad Mattar has a good overcoat. Borrow from him."
Third question: "Do you have the boots to cover your shoes?" This time, I tried to convince him that I could buy the boots myself because they would cost me at most $100.
But he said: "Oh, don't waste money, don't waste money."
He was very thrifty. That was how he handled our money, our kitty. That thrift must start from you. That was his clear message.
So in the end, I went to China with borrowed overcoat and borrowed shoes."
The three Lee Kuan Yews that I know: Tough prime minister; Perfectionist writer; Elder statesman
Chan Heng Chee, ambassador-at-large and chairman of the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, was ambassador to the United States from 1996 to 2012 and is a former political science lecturer
The Straits Times, 25 Mar 2015
OVER the years, I came to know three Lee Kuan Yews: the tough prime minister, the perfectionist writer, and the elder statesman.The first time I met Mr Lee was in May 1969. I was a young assistant lecturer newly returned from Cornell. The Prime Minister had come to speak to the staff of the University of Singapore.
A week earlier he had been deeply disturbed by the reactions of students who did not seem to understand the gravity and implications of the May 13 racial riots in Malaysia, judging by their questions and mood at his public lecture.
The PM was seized by the potential contagious impact on Singapore, then a fledgling nation. How could he make them understand the stakes and our vulnerabilities?
I stood up to say something in defence of the students. Mr Lee dismissed what I said. I came back with another response. Someone who was present mumbled: "She is very young."
Mr Lee was seen as a stern, no-nonsense, authoritarian figure. He was respected and feared. He brooked no opposition. He felt the weight of the immense tasks ahead of him. He probably disagreed with and did not like most, if not all, of my writings as a political scientist for the next two decades.
I saw him again after I returned from my posting as the Permanent Representative to the UN. I was invited to the Istana with Tommy Koh and Kishore Mahbubani to lunch with him.
It was 1993. We ate simply in a small room. There I met a different Lee Kuan Yew. He was putting forth his views on the world. The Cold War was over, the Soviet Union had collapsed, the US and Europe were triumphalist. He was thinking through his assessment of the new power configuration and what this meant for Singapore.
In hindsight, he was positioning Singapore in the new world order to ensure maximum prospects for its survival. We were his sounding board. He wanted us to challenge his conclusions.
I realised then that he was open to argument, but you had to have strong arguments. He was rigorous and robust in arguing back, like an advocate in court. After several lunches, I learnt gradually that his brusque and strong response was his debating style. If the argument was good, he would accept it.
This was demonstrated again in 1995 when he started writing his memoirs. He sent each draft chapter around to a few people to critique. I was one of them.
He would ask what we thought of what he had written, and how he could improve it. Was it tedious? Factual errors, statistics, misremembered dates, he took in at once. He accepted comments telling him it was tedious and he would lose the reader's interest.
There were occasions when one or a couple of us would disagree with his reading of an event or conclusion in his analysis of domestic or international developments. Again if the arguments were good he deleted or amended the paragraphs.
But it did not end there. He would revise his chapter and send it back to us to ask again: Is this better? Could he improve it further? Only when we had no further comments did he leave the draft.
I was posted to Washington by mid-1996. I received his faxed chapters in the morning. My comments were sent to him by noon. My astonished secretary would come to my office at 2.30pm to say he had sent back the revised version. It was 2.30am in Singapore.
This rhythm of exchange was repeated again and again. He was a perfectionist.
As ambassador in Washington, I accompanied him and Mrs Lee when he visited the US as Senior Minister and later Minister Mentor.
Whatever his title, Americans at the highest levels - presidents, secretaries of state, defence or treasury, elected representatives - made time for him. They wanted to hear his assessments of Asia and the world.
Ex-presidents and prime ministers of other countries do not normally get a White House meeting with American presidents. Mr Lee was the rare exception. The captains of industry and business, the chairmen and CEOs too were eager to get a share of his time and insights.
Mr Lee knew how to put a point across that landed the punch and left a strong impression with his American hosts. He never told anyone what they wanted to hear. He told them what he thought. In these meetings he infused American officials and industry with confidence and trust in Singapore and Singaporeans. He created our brand name, and investments flowed into our country.
Mr Lee was strong and energetic when he came to the US in the mid-1990s. His visit was the best thing for an ambassador, for his name opened doors. I noticed then that sometimes when asked a question, he would admit frankly that he did not know the answer. He was a mellower and more philosophical Lee Kuan Yew.
I came to know how close and devoted he was to Mrs Lee. He was touchingly solicitous of her and more so as she became frail after her first stroke. But her presence calmed him. Later, after her death, he himself turned frail.
In 2010 when he went to Washington to receive the Lincoln Medal, his last trip to the US as it turned out, he was widely acclaimed as "one of the great statesmen of Asia".
Everyone spoke of how he built a remarkable success of Singapore out of so little. The admiration and respect for him and for Singapore were genuine and universal. They saw him as the last of the era of great post-war leaders.
It is hard to sum up Lee Kuan Yew. He was truly a patriot. He worked indefatigably for Singapore. He had the interest of his country at heart.
My wish is that younger Singaporeans should read about him, know him and understand his role in the making of our nation.
