'Unvarnished account, minus some rough edges'
Mr Lee says his latest book contains 90 years of various experiences
By Goh Chin Lian, The Straits Times, 7 Aug 2013
FORMER prime minister Lee Kuan Yew yesterday described his latest book, which features his view of the world, as a "gathering of 90 years of various experiences".
It is also a "largely unvarnished account with some of the rugged edges shaved off", said Singapore's founding father, who turns 90 next month.
Appearing to be in good spirits at his book launch at the Istana, he quipped, to laughter from the audience: "I do not want to ruffle too many feathers."
The book, One Man's View Of The World, contains Mr Lee's analysis of geopolitics, the future of world powers such as China and the United States, and what lies ahead for Europe, the Middle East, and East and South-east Asia.
One chapter is devoted to discussing Singapore's future and what a two-party system would bring. Mr Lee also reflects on life and death, God and the afterlife in the 400-page book that he dedicates to his late "wife and partner Choo".
One year in the making, the book is published by the book publishing arm of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).
The event was attended by 200 people, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, and former senior minister S. Jayakumar. Diplomats, academics and MPs were also present, as well as former Kazakhstan premier Karim Massimov.
They rose when the elder Mr Lee entered through a side entrance, wearing a blue silk Chinese jacket and black sneakers, and walked unaided to his seat.
In a speech, SPH chairman Lee Boon Yang said Mr Lee was "remarkably candid" in his analysis of international politics, now that he is freed from the limitations of being in the Cabinet.
"Mr Lee is an unapologetic realist in his perspective of international relations, one that eschews emotion or ideology," he added.
Mr Lee followed with a brief speech, delivering his remarks in 11/2 minutes: "I won't spoil your reading of the book by telling you more about it."
The two men then unveiled a picture with the book embedded within a frame.Rounding off his 10-minute appearance, Mr Lee shook hands with former MPs, including former minister of state Ch'ng Jit Koon, who had helped him at his Tanjong Pagar constituency.
About 20,000 copies of the book are on sale at $39.90 (including GST) at leading bookstores. It can be ordered online at www.stpressbooks.com.sg
What some say about the book
MASTER OF REALPOLITIK
"Where others hedge their views with reservations, Lee Kuan Yew is blunt and goes straight to the point. No other statesman or commentator can match him as a master of realpolitik."
- Lord Charles Powell, former private secretary to the late former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher
SAGE ADVICE TO CHINA, U.S.
"I particularly value his relatively optimistic view of the potential future of the crucial relationship between China and the United States, but also his sage cautionary advice to both countries."
- Professor Joseph S. Nye of Harvard Kennedy School
VIEWS ON EUROPE
"He distinctly reveals Europe's perspective of self-inflicted marginalisation if its politicians further fail to take the right action."
- Former chancellor of West Germany Helmut Schmidt
Money won't solve low birth rate problem: Mr Lee
By Rachel Chang, The Straits Times, 6 Aug 2013
IF FORMER prime minister Lee Kuan Yew were in charge of Singapore today, he would introduce a baby bonus equal to two years of the average Singaporean's salary.
This is not to boost the country's abysmal total fertility rate of 1.2. Rather, Mr Lee would do it to "prove that super-sized monetary incentives would only have a marginal effect on fertility rates".
Writing in his new book, One Man's View Of The World, Mr Lee makes clear he would offer this huge baby bonus for at least a year.
The experiment will "prove beyond any doubt that our low birth rates have nothing to do with economic or financial factors, such as high cost of living or lack of government help for parents", he says.
Instead, it is due to transformed lifestyles and mindsets which the Government is relatively powerless against, he argues in the 400-page book that is due to be launched today.
Declining fertility is the biggest threat to Singapore's survival, he says.
But, Mr Lee adds: "I cannot solve the problem, and I have given up. I have given the job to another generation of leaders. Hopefully, they or their successors will eventually find a way out."
In a chapter on Singapore, he also says the suggestion that the "Stop at Two" population campaign of the 1970s played a part in bringing fertility rates down is "absurd".
Rather, falling fertility is a global phenomenon due primarily to women's emancipation and participation in the workplace, he says.
The chapter on Singapore is one of 11 in the new book, which focuses largely on foreign affairs.
Mr Lee covers regions including the Middle East and superpowers such as the United States and China, as well as issues like the future of the global economy and climate change.
He also writes candidly about his past encounters with world leaders and impressions of countries, but the bulk of the book looks forwards as he sizes up these countries' strengths, weaknesses and chances of success.
In the Singapore chapter, Mr Lee also reflects on the historic 2011 General Election, young Singaporeans' desire for a two-party system, and Workers' Party MP Chen Show Mao.
He returns to the issue of low fertility often, pointing to it as the reason Japan, a country he once considered "peerless", is now on what he calls a "stroll into mediocrity".
The demographic changes in Singapore and Japan are similar, he notes; the difference lies in the unwillingness of the Japanese to "shade (the) problem with immigrants" like Singapore has done.
It is this intransigence about accepting foreigners and the deeply ingrained idea that the Japanese race must be kept "pure" that makes their continued decline inevitable, he says.
"If I were a young Japanese and I could speak English, I would probably choose to emigrate," he concludes bluntly.
Mr Lee's new book was written with the research and editorial assistance of a team of Straits Times journalists. They are managing editor Han Fook Kwang, deputy editor Zuraidah Ibrahim, Opinion editor Chua Mui Hoong and political reporter Elgin Toh.
Also in the team was a civil servant seconded to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Mr Shashi Jayakumar.
Mr Lee is due to launch the book officially today at the Istana. About 20,000 copies will be on sale at $39.90 (including GST) at leading bookstores from 5pm today.
Singapore's Lee says he wants a quick death
by AFP, inSing.com, 7 Aug 2013
Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, who will turn 90 next month, said in a new book published Tuesday that he feels weaker by the day and wants a quick death.
"Some time back, I had an Advanced Medical Directive (AMD) done which says that if I have to be fed by a tube, and it is unlikely that I would ever be able to recover and walk about, my doctors are to remove the tube and allow me to make a quick exit," he wrote in the book "One Man's View of the World".
The book is dedicated to the Asian statesman's views on international affairs but an entire chapter contains his musings on death, religion and other personal issues. The 400-page work is dedicated to his late wife Kwa Geok Choo, whose death in 2010 shattered the normally stoic veteran politician.
Lee has visibly weakened since then and revealed in the book that despite daily exercise and a disciplined lifestyle, "with every passing day I am physically less energetic and less active."
"There is an end to everything and I want mine to come as quickly and painlessly as possible, not with me incapacitated, half in coma in bed and with a tube going into my nostrils and down to my stomach," he wrote.
BLUNT VIEWS ON RELIGION
Lee, a British-trained lawyer who served as Singapore's prime minister for three decades and turned it into a high-tech industrial and financial centre, expressed his blunt views on religion in the book.
"I wouldn't call myself an atheist. I neither deny nor accept that there is a God," he said.
"So I do not laugh at people who believe in God. But I do not necessarily believe in God – nor deny that there could be one."
Asked where he drew comfort from if not from religion, he said: "It is the end of any aches and pains and suffering. So I hope the end will come quickly."
LEE NOT TO BLAME FOR LOW BIRTH RATE
Elsewhere in the book, Lee addressed what he considers the biggest long-term threat to Singapore – its low birth rate – and rejected as "absurd" suggestions that his population programme in the 1970s urging couple to stop at two children contributed to the current situation.
Despite a slew of so-called "baby bonuses" to encourage couples to have children, Singapore's total fertility rate last year stood at 1.20 children per woman, far below the 2.1 needed to maintain the native-born population.
Lee, who retired from politics in 2011, blamed Singaporeans' changing lifestyles for the problem and said monetary incentives would only have a "marginal effect" on it.
"I have given the job to another generation of leaders. Hopefully, they or their successors will eventually find a way out," said Lee, who handed power to his deputy Goh Chok Tong in 1990 after 31 years in office.
Lee's son, Lee Hsien Loong, is now prime minister after succeeding Goh in 2004.
LOW BIRTH RATE OPENED DOORS TO FOREIGNERS
Singapore's low birth rate has forced the government to open the country to foreigners, who now comprise a third of the population.
The influx, however, has sparked protests from citizens and prompted the government to tighten immigration flows in recent years.
Lee pointed to the example of Japan, which he said is on a "stroll into mediocrity" as the ranks of its elderly swell due to young couples not producing enough babies.
Japan's reluctance to open up to immigrants will further lead to its decline, he said.
"If I were a young Japanese and I could speak English, I would probably choose to emigrate," said Lee.
ST journalists on working with Mr Lee on book
By Rachel Chang, The Straits Times, 4 Aug 2013
Rounding out his ninth decade of life, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, so long a dominant presence in Singaporean public life, was not done talking.
Less than a year after the publication of Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going in 2011, a book based on 32 hours of interviews with Mr Lee, former ST editor Han Fook Kwang, 60, received an e-mail message from Singapore's founding prime minister.
It contained a short draft of a chapter of a new book Mr Lee wanted to write, this time on foreign affairs, and his take on different societies around the world. It would be based on insights he had honed from 50 years at the helm of Singapore's foreign policy, during which he interacted with major world leaders, from Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong to United States President Barack Obama.
Mr Han, who headed the group of The Straits Times journalists behind Hard Truths, gathered a team of four from the newsroom to interview Mr Lee and provide research and editorial assistance for the new project.
Two had also been involved in Hard Truths - Deputy Editor Zuraidah Ibrahim, 48, and Opinion Editor Chua Mui Hoong, 44 - while one was a young political reporter, Mr Elgin Toh, 29.
They were joined by a civil servant who had been seconded to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Mr Shashi Jayakumar, 40.
The ST team worked out an approach similar to the one taken with Hard Truths, and produced an outline of the book. Each chapter would distil Mr Lee's views, followed by Q&A extracts.
Mr Lee's reply: "Good proposals and excellent themes. Gives me scope to sketch my world view of the present, and anticipate the immediate future (in) five to 10 years."
And he signalled his impatience to get started.
"Ready any time," he said.
Last week, The Sunday Times asked Mr Lee via e-mail what fuelled his desire to write this book.
He replied: "To recount what has struck my life before I lose my memory."
Asked what message he wanted to convey, he said it was that "no society remains static. Every society continues to evolve, either for the better or for the worse".
The product of a year's work, One Man's View Of The World marks a departure in several ways from his previous books.
For one thing, it is oriented outwards, with only one chapter on Singapore.
The rest covers countries and regions from China to the Middle East, and issues such as climate change and the global economy.
The final chapter comprises a series of conversations over three days that Mr Lee had in May 2012 with his old friend, former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, 94.
Unlike the first two volumes of his memoirs - 1998's The Singapore Story and 2000's From Third World to First - this 400-page book focuses more on the future than the past.
While brimming with revealing anecdotes of Mr Lee's meetings with world leaders and experiences in foreign countries, the bulk of the book projects forward as he sizes up their strengths, weaknesses and chances of success.
Throughout, his judgments are delivered in characteristically blunt language.
"Mr Lee has the ability to cut to the core of complex international trends as he sees them, unencumbered by political correctness," says Ms Zuraidah.
Whether it is on the Japanese "stroll into mediocrity" or the impossibility of a one-man, one-vote system in China or the Arab countries, Mr Lee's prognosis was always one based on the fundamentals, recalls Mr Han.
"He doesn't get distracted by current events. He always looks at the larger forces, the make-up of the people, their culture and history and how these have shaped their development over the years.
"He believed that even as they evolve, they will change in a way determined by their DNA."
The ST team found that borne out by breaking news.
The night before the manuscript was to be sent off to the printers in July, word came from Egypt that the military had displaced Mr Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood-backed president elected after the Arab Spring had dislodged long-time strongman Hosni Mubarak.
The team gathered to decide if they needed to make last-minute changes to reflect events.
"But when we read the chapter again, we realised that not only was his view still valid in light of what happened, but that what happened vindicated his view," says Mr Toh.
In the chapter on the Middle East, Mr Lee wrote that "when the flurry of excitement over the Arab Spring is finally over, the world will probably come to the stark realisation that nothing much has transformed governance in that region. Those that have taken exploratory lurches in the direction of one-man, one-vote, will revert to one-man rule or one-cabal rule."
"In other words, spring is followed by summer, autumn, then winter. Life just goes on, just as it has for millennia past."
But in other areas, the ST team found that Mr Lee's views had drastically transformed over time. Where once he thought Japan and India destined for success, now he saw fundamental flaws in both societies that would hobble them.
"I am older now, and sadder," he wrote in the chapter on India, which he once had hoped would succeed because it was a democracy, unlike China.
On Singapore, his lifelong project, Mr Lee was sanguine.
While expressing disagreement with some of the political changes that have occurred since the historic 2011 General Election, whether on ministerial pay or on the evinced desire for a two-party system, his tone was marked less by combativeness than by "resignation and acceptance", recalls Ms Chua.
It was a far cry from the Lee Kuan Yew in 1988, then aged 64, who told the country that "even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up".
That familiar iron will had mellowed into a prevailing sentiment that his time to lead had passed, and "whatever will be, will be", says Ms Chua.
Asked if he was worried about political trends in Singapore, Mr Lee answered: "No. My job is done. I am 89 years old."
His waning energy was evident to the ST team, whose interviews with him lasted at most an hour each time, as opposed to the over two hours he could do battle during interviews for Hard Truths.
Where he once relished a thrust-and-parry with his interlocutors, building up to a checkmate argument, now he got straight to his point.
In the book, there is a chapter where Mr Lee candidly reflects on life and death, revealing his decision on an Advance Medical Directive and his thoughts on the afterlife.
For Mr Toh, the youngest on the team, having the chance to interview Mr Lee was a priceless experience. "For younger Singaporeans, he is almost a mythical figure," he simply says.
Despite being in his twilight years, the man Mr Toh met was still matchlessly persuasive.
"Even if you disagree with him at first, you can't help but be brought around by the strength of his arguments," he says. "In spite of the breadth of his knowledge, he always manages to incisively get to the heart of a certain society or country."
"The stark clarity of his arguments is always stimulating," adds Ms Zuraidah.
"As journalists, we wouldn't want to pass up the opportunity to engage with him, especially at this stage in his life," Mr Han notes. "Even if only to find out if he has changed his views on the important issues."
On whether this would be theirs, and the Singaporean public's, last engagement with Mr Lee, he says: "We thought Hard Truths would be the last book. Never say never.
"FORMER PM LEE KUAN YEW ON...
Why he wanted to write the book
"To recount what has struck my life before I lose my memory."
What the book's central message is
"No society remains static. Every society continues to evolve, either for the better or for the worse."
Former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew will launch a new book on Tuesday. Titled One Man's View Of The World, the 400-page volume carries Mr Lee's views on the future of the major powers and regions of the world. Here are extracts from the book on China, the United States and the Middle East. Extracts on his personal life and on Singapore will be published next Sunday.
The Sunday Times, 4 Aug 2013
The Sunday Times, 4 Aug 2013
The real battle is over talent
America is not on the decline.
Its reputation has suffered a setback as a result of the long and messy military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a severe financial crisis.
But perceptive historians will point out that a seemingly weakened and weary America has bounced back from far worse situations. It has faced great trials and challenges within living memory: the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, the rapid post-war rise of industrial powerhouses Japan and Germany.
Each time, it found the will and energy to recover its position at the front of the pack. America has prevailed. It will do so again.
The success of America lies in its dynamic economy, sustained by an uncanny ability not just to produce the same with less, but to constantly innovate - that is, to invent completely new goods and services that the rest of the world soon finds to be useful and desirable.
The iPhone, iPad, Microsoft, the Internet - these were created in America, not elsewhere. The Chinese have many talented individuals compared to the Americans, but why have they not been able to come up with similar inventions?
Clearly, they lack a spark that America possesses. And that spark means that the Americans can be expected to throw up game-changing innovations from time to time that will again put them in the forefront.
Even if the declinists are right, and America is in fact on a downhill path, one needs to remember that this is a big country that would take a long time to decline.
If Singapore were a big country, I would not be so worried if we adopted the wrong policies, because they would be slow in showing results. But we are a small country and a wrong course of action brings catastrophic consequences within a short space of time.
America, on the other hand, is like a huge tanker. They will not simply turn around like a skiff does.
But I believe that the declinists are wrong. America is not likely to go down. Relative to China, it may become less powerful. Its power projection in the Western Pacific may be affected and it may not be able to equal the Chinese in numbers and in total GDP, but the Americans' key advantage - their dynamism - will not disappear.
America is, by far, the more creative society. And the fact that the Americans are having an internal debate about whether or not they are declining is a healthy sign. It means they have not become complacent.
The US is also a more attractive society than China can ever be. Every year, thousands of bright and restless immigrants are allowed into America, settle and become successful in various fields.
These immigrants are innovative and usually more adventurous, or they would not have left their own countries.
They provide a constant source of new ideas and bring about a certain ferment within American society, a buzz that you will not find in China. America would be far less successful without them.
For centuries, America drew top talent from Europe. Today, it is drawing them from Asia - Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and even South-east Asians.
Because the US is able to embrace these immigrants, help them integrate and offer them an equal chance of realising the American dream, there is a continuous inflow of talent that contributes, in turn, to the creation of new technology, new products and new methods of doing business.
China and other nations will eventually have to adopt parts of the American model of attracting talent to fit their circumstances. They will have to go looking around for talented people to build up their enterprises.
That is the final contest.
This is an age in which you will no longer have military contests between great nations because the nations know that they will destroy each other if they do that.
But there will be economic and technological contests, and talent is the key ingredient in those contests.
America is a society that attracts people and retains them. They have been taking in the best talent from Asia.
One man, one vote: China won't try it
The communist state will not become a democracy in the Western tradition
The communist state will not become a democracy in the Western tradition
To understand China and what it will be like in 20 years' time, you have to know what sort of people and society they are.
For 5,000 years, the Chinese have believed that the country is safe only when the centre is strong. A weak centre means confusion and chaos. A strong centre leads to a peaceful and prosperous China. Every Chinese understands that.
It is their cardinal principle, drawn from deep-seated historical lessons. There will not be a deviation from this principle any time soon. It is a mindset that predates communism. It has existed for centuries, for millennia.
Some in the West want to see China become a democracy in the Western tradition. That will not happen.
The Americans believe that you cannot be a successful country without one-man-one-vote elections, either for the president or for the Parliament, and you change leaders every few years. It's their preconceived view of the world.
The Chinese have never had such a tradition. China is a vast country of 1.3 billion people with a different culture and a different history. It will do it its way.
In the autumn of 2011, unrest erupted in the fishing village of Wukan, in Guangdong province.
Farmers lost their land to developers who were in cahoots with local officials. Profits from these land sales went to developers and officials. It started with a relatively small-scale protest by a few hundred aggrieved farmers in September.
By December, it had escalated into a full-scale revolt when one of the protesting villagers died in police custody. Within days, nearly 20,000 villagers were mobilised into action. They physically expelled officials from the village, erected roadblocks and armed themselves with simple weapons. They demanded the return of their farmland.
Although there was a blackout of all Wukan-related news in the Chinese media, many Chinese were able to read about what was happening over the Internet, from foreign news outlets.
In the end, the deputy party secretary of Guangdong met protesters and settled the matter. The authorities acknowledged that the villagers had legitimate complaints, some of the land was returned to them and villagers arrested in earlier protests were released.
Later, free elections were held by secret ballot. A chief organiser of the protests won a landslide victory and was made the new village chief. Wukan became a cause celebre for those who hoped to see democratic reform in China.
Reports tell us that similar protests are happening in other parts of China every day. Some think these incidents are evidence of a weakening Chinese state.
But the truth is that none of these incidents are allowed to escalate into national movements. The Wukan incident shows this. The Communist Party sent no less than the deputy party secretary of Guangdong to mediate and to restore order.
There are two lessons from Wukan.
The first is that the Communist Party retains its hold. Order is restored with the help of the party. The second lesson is how the party can use a mix of hard and soft measures to keep peace.
Before any incident escalates, the very powerful state security apparatus can come down hard on unrest to nip the problem in the bud. But it is also able to take the side of villagers against corrupt local officials.
It is too simplistic to think of the Communist Party as corruption-ridden. In fact, throughout the rebellion, Wukan villagers were careful to declare on their banners that they supported the Communist Party, but were opposed to corrupt local officials.
This has been a common strategy taken by Chinese protesters for thousands of years. They know that opposing the central authority means certain annihilation.
So they oppose wrongdoing by local officials while declaring loyalty to the centre. No one challenges the centre unless they are prepared to go all the way and take control of the whole country, which is most unlikely.
Political evolution
As change sweeps across the country, China's politics must evolve too. It is not possible for any system to remain unchanged forever.
One of the most astounding things I have seen in my lifetime is how the Leninist system in the Soviet Union could throw up a law graduate in Mikhail Gorbachev, who decided that the system was bad and ought to be reformed. I can't say that it will not be repeated in China.
However you fine-tune the choice of leaders, you'll get a generation that says: "Look, this is stultified. Let's liberate it." Nobody can say that won't happen.
But even if it did happen, it will not result in one man, one vote. There will be a displacement of one set of leaders by another set of leaders, because culturally and historically, the belief in China is that a strong central authority leads to peace and prosperity.
One man, one vote has never been in China and has never produced a prosperous China. And they're not going to try it.
No matter how many Wukans crop up, in the medium term, I do not see an uprising succeeding.
Yes, the Chinese have a tradition of peasant-led rebellions, or qi yi. But this tends to happen when life becomes unbearable. At the moment, the lives of ordinary people are getting better. Why should they want a revolution?
They know that a revolution could cost them all the progress they have achieved since Deng Xiaoping opened up the country.
For their young people, economic prospects have never been better, standards of living are being enhanced daily and China is strengthening as a nation. I don't see them rocking the boat.
Disenfranchised rural workers are not in the numbers and are not organised. They long to join the middle class in the cities and to better their lot.
The middle class, in turn, is anxious to get to the top. After it manages to get into position and consolidates itself, it may want more transparency and a greater say on how the country is governed, but that may be some time off.
In short, while the present system needs to evolve, it is not on the verge of falling apart.
China under Xi Jinping: Will it be a bully?
It is hard to predict what policies President Xi Jinping will pursue and what legacy he will seek for himself over the decade that he is in charge.
It is hard to predict what policies President Xi Jinping will pursue and what legacy he will seek for himself over the decade that he is in charge.
Chinese leaders do not broadcast their future plans before assuming office. They prefer to keep their heads below the parapet.
China is at a critical period in terms of domestic challenges and Mr Xi will want to focus his energies on tackling those problems.
Much will also depend on what external events suddenly come upon him. Your best plans go awry when you are confronted with a serious unexpected development.
But I believe he will respond in a thoughtful way, without panicking. He carries weight and I think he will carry the party with him. His military background will give him clout with the military as well.
His foreign policy will be closely watched. China's rise has become a source of consternation for many countries, whether in the West or in Asia.
A strong China brings many benefits to the global community, such as growing investments by Chinese firms that go abroad. But China's neighbours are starting to sense a more assertive foreign policy stance from the sleeping giant that has woken up.
The United States also is experiencing a strong challenge to its pre-eminence, if not globally, then certainly in the Asia-Pacific region.
At the heart of the matter is whether or not one believes China's repeated guarantees that it seeks nothing more than a peaceful rise and that it will never become a hegemon.
There are two views. One, that the Chinese will quietly become strong and quietly increase their influence, without acting like a bully. The other, that they'll flex their muscles and try to browbeat everyone.
I think they will choose the former, but grow their muscles at the same time.
Deng Xiaoping was convinced that it was wise for China to maintain a low profile as it gradually became stronger. He believed in keeping your light under your bushel, or what the Chinese call tao guang yang hui.
The Chinese know that they need another 30 to 40 years of peace to catch up with the rest of the world. They have come to the conclusion that if they stay on course, avoid upsetting the existing powers and make friends with everybody, they can only grow stronger and stronger.
It will give them the space to deal with internal problems and to continue to grow their economy.
They are also mindful of the need to avoid the paths that Japan and Germany took. The rise of Germany and Japan resulted in a competition in Europe and Asia respectively for power, influence and resources that led to two terrible wars in the 20th century, and ultimately ended their rise.
If China gets involved in a war, it risks internal disturbance, clashes and disorder, and it may go down again - perhaps for a long time.
So, for the Chinese, the rational calculation would be: "We've waited so long for this opportunity to catch up with the developed world. Why be in a hurry and jeopardise our gradual rise?"
What Arab Spring? One-cabal rule will be back
When the flurry of excitement over the so-called Arab Spring is finally over, the world will probably come to the stark realisation that nothing much has transformed the governance in that region.
As dramatic as the changes look, and as sensational as newsmen have made them out to be, when we look back with broad lenses many decades from now, it is highly doubtful that any of them would prove to be part of a substantive and permanent shift towards popular rule in the region.
It is far more likely that these democratic experiments will not last. Before long, I expect many of the countries that have taken exploratory lurches in the direction of one man, one vote to revert to one-man rule, or one-cabal rule.
In other words, spring is followed by summer, autumn, then winter. Life just goes on - just as it has for millennia past.
The Middle East region lacks a history of counting heads and making decisions on that basis. There is no democratic tradition - whether in ancient Islamic times, in more recent colonial history, or in the post-colonial nationalistic era.
When the British and French protectorates broke up into separate states, they all ended up with one-man rule - not by coincidence, but for deep cultural and sociological reasons.
One might argue, of course, that democracy, being a relatively novel phenomenon in human history, begins somewhere in every region, and that in many places, including a number of Asian countries, it has taken root - or at least appeared to do so - despite a similar absence of democratic tradition.
But there is one key difference. On top of not having any prior experience in representative forms of politics, the Middle East also lacks vital social factors that form the foundation on which democracy must stand.
The first is a sense of equal citizenship. This is the idea that you and I, despite all our differences in wealth, social standing, achievement, physical and mental attributes, and so on, are on par at some level for no reason other than that we are both citizens of a particular nation.
We possess the same rights and responsibilities that the nation accords to any individual belonging to it. We are legally equal, and morally so as well. This concept necessarily precedes the development of actual democratic practices and institutions. It has to gain acceptance not only in intellectual or progressive circles but also throughout society.
What we see in many parts of the Middle East, however, are tribal or feudal systems. In Saudi Arabia, tribal leaders bring gifts to the King once a year. Like in ancient China, the King gives them more valuable gifts in return. The loyalty held by ordinary people is to the tribe - not to the nation, for no nation exists, and certainly not to fellow citizens...
Observers have pointed out that some Arab states have become nations, in the more modern sense - most notably Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.
Even in these cases, however, there is a second and no less vital ingredient they lack which is necessary for democracy to mature and for the citizenry to accept the outcome not just of the first election after the revolution but all subsequent elections as well. This ingredient is what I call the wherewithal to make real economic progress.
The ability is missing simply because they have insisted on keeping women in the background.
Arabic society in general is male-dominated. They have refused to allow women to be educated equally and to become as productive as men in society - precisely what is needed for the potential of these countries to be unlocked and for their economies to become modernised. They have resisted this, always finding some excuse or other...
Even in the Middle Eastern countries where women attend universities in near-equal proportion to their male counterparts, they are prevented from reaching their full potential in many other ways.
Often, they are denied entry into prestigious courses, such as the sciences, engineering or law, and are expected instead to take up more traditionally "female" occupations like teaching.
Even when they do make it out of the educational system as equals, the labour force participation rate for women in many Middle Eastern countries trails that for men by a large margin for various reasons.
Some have to endure discriminatory work practices ranging from unequal pay to sexual harassment. Others simply do not find it worth the trouble battling daily with inconveniences such as restrictions on women travelling in public alone or with a general social intolerance towards married women who do not stay at home to take charge of domestic affairs.
New democratic regimes cannot survive for long without delivering real economic progress. After all, what does democracy mean to the man in the street if it does not bring him tangible results? Little more, surely, than having to stand in a line from time to time, waiting to mark a piece of paper.
Within one or two election cycles, there would inevitably be disillusionment with the system, followed by a reversion to some form of authoritarian rule.
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