Lee Kuan Yew: We’re richer for Lion of Singapore’s leadership

With the death of Lee Kuan Yew, the Lion of Singapore has roared his last.

With the death of Lee Kuan Yew, the Lion of Singapore has roared his last.

Lee was an authentic giant of Southeast Asia and one of the most influential statesmen of the 20th century. He is the last of the independence generation — those who saw countries from colonialism to full, sovereign nationhood — to leave us.

Tributes flowed from national leaders across the world. US President Barack Obama hailed him as “a true giant of history who will be remembered for generations to come as the father of modern Singapore and as one of the great strategists of Asian affairs”.

Tony Abbott said the world mourned “the passing of a giant of our region”.

GRAPHIC: The wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew (pdf)

The legend of Lee’s strategic ­sagacity has never dimmed. He was a hard head. As one Lee ­biographer put it, he was neither a hawk nor a dove “but an owl gazing balefully on all sides”.

Seldom in history can a nat­ional leader have produced so unqualified a success as modern Singapore. And hardly any other Asian achieved Lee’s worldwide recognition and influence, yet he was, in some senses, in control of no more territory or population than a mid-sized-city lord mayor.

But he developed a worldwide reputation for the deepest strategic insights. He was a crucial, though at times critical, partner for Australia.

I once asked Lee what was the decision he took which most contributed to Singapore’s success. Making English the common language was his unhesitating reply. This meant, he said, that neither Chinese nor Malay nor Indian could feel privileged in Singapore.

And, of course, it allowed Singapore to earn a living in the global economy.

Lee was supremely pragmatic and nimble in policy, but also ruthless. He is one of very few non-communist leaders ever to have entered into a coalition with the communists — as he was for a time with the Malayan Communist Party — and to out-manoeuvre them and end up in power.

He was born to modest middle-class parents in Singapore who ­expected him to grow up as a colonial gentleman. But the Japanese invasion of Singapore in World War II, the humiliation of the British, and the brutality of Japanese rule, turned Lee into a fierce ­nationalist.

Cambridge educated, he had to learn to speak Mandarin as an adult. In his early days in power, he used to say that he was no more Chinese than the American politician Tip O’Neill was Irish, ­although in the latter half of his life he became an eloquent champion of Confucianist and Chinese cultural values.

A fierce anti-communist in the Cold War days, Lee was for a time derided by the Beijing leadership. Chinese leader Zhou Enlai called him a banana — yellow on the outside, white on this inside.

But after the Vietnam War, and after the Richard Nixon led ­rapprochement between Washington and Beijing, Lee became a key mediator between the Chinese and the West.

The Chinese also came to ­admire Singapore’s distinctive mixture of economic advancement and social conservatism.

Lee himself was regarded by Australian intelligence as almost pro-communist. Canberra wanted Singapore to be part of Malaysia so that the conservative Malay rulers could keep the firebrand Lee under control. How wrong every aspect of that judgments was.

In 1965, Singapore was booted out of the Malaysian federation, largely because Lee had campaigned for political power within Malaysia.

There was nothing remotely ­inevitable about Singapore’s ­success. It had no resources, no hinterland, no natural allies.

It was a predominantly ethnic Chinese enclave in a vast Malay sea. Aggressive, expansionist communism was breathing down Singapore’s neck on all sides.

As Lee himself declared: “To build a country, you need passion. If you just do your sums — plus, minus, debit, credit — you are a washout.”

Lee’s profound understanding of Singapore’s strategic vulnerability helped him to motivate his countrymen. It also led him to reach out, to the US and to Australia. Although Singapore never ­entered a formal military alliance with the US, Lee became the most eloquent, persuasive and important Southeast Asian advocate of a strong US military presence in the region. In an interview in the mid-1990s, he told me that the US military presence “is absolutely pivotal”. “The US has been the balancer and the moderator … I hope there will always be an American factor in that balance.”

Lee first got the Singapore economy going through classic East Asian government leadership. Then he moved to shrewdly combine foreign investment with ­Singapore government-linked corporations.

His government was always nimble and looking for the next economic trend. He ran a government with zero tolerance of corruption and clear and reliable commercial laws.

He emphasised traditional Confucian social virtues of thrift, education and family. He avoided a welfare state but used government financial and ­social policy to encourage work and the ­formation of stable families.

As Singapore became more successful, he worried that social liberalism could erode his people’s strength. He regarded economic success as following on from a certain intensity in society and more than once criticised Australia as a soft society. In time Lee developed a powerful critique of the social ­debility of Western societies and became a stronger advocate of Confucian and, more generally Asian, values.

He retired as prime minister in 1990 but stayed influential as senior minister.

Lee had a complex relationship with Australia. He pioneered very good co-operation and told me that Australia and Singapore shared the same strategic interests. He wanted Australia to succeed and to be intimately involved in Asia. He saw this as being in Singapore’s interests.

But when we were slack, he was always willing to scold us, commenting once that if we did not get economic reform right, we were in danger of becoming “the poor, white trash of Asia”. Lee’s ability to speak bluntly but keep people on side was not the least remarkable aspect of this wholly extraordinary political leader.

Some in Singapore would have liked a more liberal regime domestically, but no one can doubt Singapore’s overall success. He solidified ASEAN, he kept the Americans engaged, he helped neighbours and he worked assid­uously to draw Australia into Asia, and he helped the whole world with a lot of free but valuable ­advice. He hated flamboyance. He instituted no cult of personality. He left office at the height of his power.

Singapore, Asia generally, and Australia in particular, benefited enormously from the astute and steely leadership of one of the most remarkable figures ever produced in Southeast Asia.