Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore
“Sir, I had not intended to intervene in any debate. But I was doing physiotherapy just now and reading the newspapers and I thought I should bring the House back to earth. Mr Rajaratnam had great virtues in the midst of despondency after a series of race riots when we were thrown out during Independence.”
“A point of clarification, Sir. The Member has compared Singapore against Switzerland, Denmark and Finland. Can I ask him if he considers Singapore's population to resource ratio equal to Denmark, Switzerland and Finland?”
“The Member has not answered my question. Is he saying that we are comparing apples with apples? Is he saying that the system of government in Finland, Denmark and Switzerland can bring them from First World to a superpower? Can they do that?”
“I am putting a simple question and ask for his clarification. He has compared Singapore as if it were a Denmark, a Switzerland or a Finland. Their system, their governments, never produced the kind of transformation that we have had, and their system and their governments have a broader base, and can afford a mediocre government.”
“At the end of the day, that will be the same for the Malays, for the Indians and for all the others. S Rajaratnam was aiming for the stars. I went along with him with the pledge, and we must try to live up to the pledge. But to say, let us forget race, language, religion, culture, that is not doable.”
“So there is a wide range of options open and it depends on your judgment on the quality of the people you appoint, and also what is the objective of appointing people to these positions, whether you want them to stay effectively until retirement, which means you have to avoid appointing good people to these positions early which is, I thi…”
The complete record
Every one of 506 lines we hold for Lee Kuan Yew, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 11.
“" I turned to another Member of the Front bench and said: "Only a few days ago an eminent supporter of the Government Benches, who was in Bandoeng, (there was a great conference in the city of Bandoeng where Afro-Asian leaders gathered in 1955), no doubt exhilarated by the high rarified mountain air in those parts, was moved to say that this Constitution was nothing but a cloak for colonialism." That is another one of them. They gave me openings. I took them and rammed through. The Chief Minister was not one who would take things lying down. He stood up and tried to explain his position. He said: "We have clearly indicated in our policy which will be debated in our motion of thanks to His Excellency's Address, the Government is of the view that the present constitution is inadequate, but it is not of the view that it is unworkable and never has been. There will be conflicts, Sir, there is no doubt about it, but the policy, the doctrine, of collective Ministerial responsibility will, I think, prevail in all circumstances. [Now he is telling his Ministers and the three officials - Chief Secretary, Financial Secretary and the Attorney-General, three British officials], . will make it workable where there is goodwill. Whatever the conflicts within the ministerial ranks, it must be remembered that the people have the majority representation in the Council of Ministers [that is, he and his Ministers], and the majority decision will prevail." It is a very different world. There was a nominated Member of Parliament who was a Scotsman, a banker of Chartered Bank called Mr Sutherland. He represented the British commercial interests.”
“No doubt that gave him a sufficient understanding of our political and economic problems, but the people of Singapore on 2nd April did not congratulate these men and they decisively showed, with one exception, that they would not have the authors of this phoney constitution. [They were all voted out.] That one exception, Sir, is because the Member concerned is a man who is versatile, a man of many sides and many colours, a man who was agile at some later date to dissociate himself from some very spurious provisions of that recommendation.' That man was Lim Yew Hock. I then said, I quoted the Chief Minister what he had been saying in the hustings, "that this constitution was outmoded even before it started, and if men of stature were asked to operate the constitution it would not work." He said he never expected himself to be the Chief Minister. So I quoted him. The Chief Minister rose to say: "Correction. That is an inaccurate report of what was indicated. I said that men of stature, [that's him] if elected [and he was] could conflict very sharply with the Official Ministers designated in that constitution. I did not say it was unworkable." My reply was: "Very well, Sir. I am afraid I must apologise to the Hon. the Chief Minister for having so inaccurately summarised it; .Now, Sir, I think the People's Action Party is charitable enough to believe that there are men of stature on the Benches opposite and we look forward with great anticipation, and even with some amusement, to the conflicts that would inevitably arise.”
“" In his message, the Secretary of State for the Colonies said: "It gives me great pleasure to send a message of greetings and goodwill to the Legislative Assembly of Singapore on the historic occasion of its first meeting under the new Constitution. My only regret is that neither I nor any of my Ministerial Colleagues can be present in person to deliver it." Then he went on, and this is where he gave me the opening. He said: "I must first of all congratulate all those who have taken part in the working out of this New Constitution, the Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir George Rendel who now see the fulfilment of their labours and His Excellency the Governor and his officers who have devoted much time to framing and bringing the Constitution into operation." It gave me a golden hammer to bang the table with, because of the mood outside. It is important if you are going to make an impact, that what you say inside must resonate outside. It is not enough to resonate in this Chamber. I moved and waded into the Chief Minister with youthful relish. 'Sir, in all these pious hopes, [we join with the Chief Minister] and we thank him for his good wishes, but we take exception when he saiys "I must first of all congratulate all those who have taken part in the working out of this New Constitution, the Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir George Rendel." Sir, the authors of this constitution, with some exceptions, were not representatives of the people. Its Chairman [Sir George Rendel] was a man with a very distinguished career in the diplomatic service, amongst whose many achievements in life was a trip across Saudi Arabia at the invitation of King Ibn Saud.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I am the only Member here, only one of the 25 elected Assemblymen in this Chamber, when the first Legislative Assembly met in its first Session in April 1955, 44 years ago. It may be useful to recapture, if only partially, the atmosphere of that period. We had met for the first time and the first order of business of the new elected Chief Minister was to move a Motion of Thanks to the Queen. The Chief Minister, Mr David Marshall, rose and said: "That this House conveys its humble duty and thanks to Her Majesty the Queen for her gracious message." The message was: "That I look forward with every confidence to the faithful discharge of this trust for I am sure that those on whom this responsibility falls will carry it out with foresight, courage and honesty of purpose." I was then sitting in the Opposition leading three other Assemblymen out of the 25. I decided that we would let it pass, as a matter of courtesy to Her Majesty the Queen. The second order of business was the motion by Mr Marshall's number 2, Mr Lim Yew Hock. He rose to convey to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Alan Lenox Boyd, an expression of warm appreciation for his message. That message was a political message. I decided I would not let it pass. After it was seconded by Mr M.P.D. Nair, who was one of the new Ministers, I rose to say: "Mr Speaker, Sir, we are asked on this motion to associate ourselves with the Government to thank the Secretary of State for the Colonies for having sent us this message. Far be it from the People's Action Party not to observe the civilities and courtesies of life, but I think it is important that we should take this occasion to remind ourselves what we have to be grateful for.”
“I leave that to my lawyer, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, who has great competence and is acknowledged as one who is extremely circumspect, knows exactly how to put a defendant in his place. EXEMPTED BUSINESS (Motion) Resolved, That the proceedings on the business set down on the Order Paper for today be exempted at this day's sitting from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1. - [Mr Wong Kan Seng].”
“I am not here, Mr Speaker, to show that I am a better lawyer than the Non-Constituency Member. The Prime Minister has quoted the Attorney-General's authority to read out certain passages, and the Attorney-General is prepared to go to court and argue that the President has no executive power. I was a lawyer. I have ceased to practise the law. I still understand certain basic principles but I always take advice, especially before I sue for defamation. I always consult people who are specialised in that practical branch of the law and who assure me that I have a foolproof case. Then I proceed.”
“Take the Constitution, read it, quote the Constitution to me and if we disagree on the meaning, there is the court. You cannot quote the Prime Minister and say, "On that basis, I ask the President to clip his wings." I strenuously recommend against that.”
“This is a technical point which Members should know. The Prime Minister, when he was First Deputy Prime Minister, made this statement when he moved the Second Reading of the Bill. He is not a lawyer by training. Therefore, he uses words in a non-legal way. If I had delivered that speech, I would not have used those words because "clipping one's wings" would evoke in my mind the swans we have at Botanic Gardens. They are there because they cannot fly away. And I would not have used that metaphor because I would not want a Prime Minister who cannot get up on his feet and do what he wants. The powers are enshrined in the Constitution. Never mind what the Ministers or Prime Minister say when they move a Bill. The Bill goes through the process. It goes to a Select Committee. It comes back. Finally, it goes through the Third reading. It is usually a perfunctory ritual. But it underlines the fact that you have read this for the Third time and these are the words that define the powers. Therefore, I was surprised to see this academic constitutional lawyer from our university - and I was alarmed when I read he is teaching our students constitutional law - that he had not read our own Constitution and that he believed that the President was partially ceremonial and partially executive. If he had read the provisions, he would know that in no Article or sub-Article of the Constitution is the President given executive power. He has a certain veto, a certain blocking power. Partly because I was, by training, a lawyer, so as the principal provisions were enacted, I took some care to make quite sure that this mechanism we were putting into place would not obstruct a government from doing what it legitimately should be able to do.”
“I would have thought by his persistent questioning he has given the answer to the public.”
“I fully concede that. I cannot tell Mr Low Thia Khiang what his grandson will be. I know what he is. I do not know what his son will be, never mind his grandson. A society goes through many phases. Those who missed the hardships of the Japanese Occupation will not understand my generation. Those who were born after the PAP formed the Government may believe that better roads, schools, hospitals, facilities come as the natural order of things. I do not blame them. Therefore, this setback which we had, which could become much more serious, was a reminder of how things could go dreadfully wrong. One day President Suharto was supreme; in 1997 he mismanaged a crisis. In May 1998 the country began to unravel. It is a natural sequence of the passing of the generations. He had to face a generation of Indonesians that no longer shared with him - the fight against the Japanese, against the Dutch - but a generation that had increasing frustrations and anger at what they saw was mismanagement of their resources. Can I say that my successors will be as fortunate in passing on the baton to their successors? Can Mao Zedong predict that Deng Xiaoping would inherit his mantle because he castigated him and rusticated him three times? Can Deng Xiaoping predict that Zhao Ziyang would fail him? Or that Jiang Zemin would stay for so long? Can Jiang Zemin be certain that his next president will be as wise and astute? Nobody could foresee what happened. Therefore, we try our best to have institutions in place. They are not perfect. In the end, they may all fail. Then your and my grandsons will be the worse for it.”
“Look at Vietnam, look at the People's Republic of China, they were led by men who were prepared to sacrifice everything for a cause. In power, with the cultural revolution, standards went down. In power, after they opened up in Vietnam, the whole country is awash with corruption and they have had to hang their bankers, their customs officers. I think we can take pride that we have been able in 40 years of PAP government and maintained the integrity of the institutions of the state.”
“I think there is something obtuse about the Non-Constituency Member. In the context of the Q&A, I pointed out that those who were hoping that the President could act as a counter-force to the Government, they were wrong, because all he can do is to protect the reserves and protect the integrity of appointments. If you want a counter to the Government, a check against the Government, you must have them in the Opposition, and the Opposition to be an effective counter must offer a credible alternative, which unfortunately Mr Jeyaretnam, since 1972 when he first stood for elections, has lamentably failed to do. Therefore, however I answer him, it does not really matter, because at the end of the day, does he present an alternative? This is really at the heart of our problem, that until there is a viable alternative to the present Government, to the PAP, it is imperative that the PAP must have checks and balances within itself, or all would have gone down in the last 40 years. For 16 years from 1965 to 1981, when Mr Jeyaretnam was first elected, there was no Opposition in this Parliament, but we had the system, of everybody being informed, the wheels of the system were kept going. When he came in, the system was functioning. I did not believe that the one-party system that many African countries had constitutionally legislated for was good for the country. It is bad for the PAP MPs if every time they went for election, only PAP candidates can stand against them. The very fact that they can be contested, and that the people want some opposition, keeps them on their toes. So the system works. It behoves us to remember that the system works only if there are men and women of integrity to man it. And that is easy to lose.”
“But this is a serious business and I think we should be able to make it. [Applause].”
“One has a civilisation where in covered wagons they went across the prairies and fought the Red Indians and said, "I am going to form a town here. And this is High Street, this is Main Street. I am the banker, you're the sheriff, he's the mayor. Now, let's get going." That is a different history, started with the Mayflower and a lot of other shiploads of them. We have a different past. And if you dismantle what we have done so far, you will never rebuild anything to take its place in time. We have got this far and I am greatly encouraged that we are pushing this big boulder up the hill. And it needs pushing up the hill. If you can achieve half of what this S21 Report says, in the next 20 years, that is a tremendous triumph. And it will require tremendous efforts to get there. But I take great satisfaction that there is a team in place that can do this and can listen to Tan Cheng Bock who has a different point of view. On OB markers, let me put it very simply. If your intention is to improve Singapore, you do not worry about OB markers. It is as simple as that. It is when your intention is to twist your Minister's tail, to show that you are smart, that is risking it. I think Claire Chiang says, "Should not criticise people when they make foolish suggestions." But this is part of the open debate. If you do not demolish a stupid suggestion, it may take root and it would create problems for us to demolish it later. It is a free country. But you must not be afraid. No American is afraid to be demolished. He comes out with something stupid, he gets a clout, he shrugs it off, maybe comes up with another silly letter. But in our society, face is important. So we will try, when you twist my tail, I will only tweak your ear.”
“You have listened to Mr Chiam. You have listened to Mr Jeyaretnam. I ask you, "What is the alternative?" I am not interested in what political scientists say. I am interested in the real workings of Singapore. Why have we brought Mr Simon Tay and the others in as Nominated MPs? Because we want to hear serious men and women with serious ideas so that we can engage the population in a dialogue. But will you come out and spend the next 30 years of your life running around building a grassroots organisation? And at the end of the day, when election time comes, put up the posters, find the people whom you can enthuse and vote for you? That is a different problem. And that comes back to the nature of our society. You come back to Singapore 21. We are not Americans. In certain respects, I wish we could have become more American in their grassroots volunteerism. Sometimes, late in the evening, when I finish with my work, I will check with my wife who has been reading all the literature that I brought home. All the various associations send me their newsletters. And she would talk to me about the American newsletter. This is 20, 30 years ago. As a result, they keep on sending it to me till today. In the early days, the first American expatriates came, they formed a committee to help other expatriate wives and families to familiarise themselves, where to shop, where to get doctors, dentists, what is reliable, what is not reliable. And they formed committees to help newly-arrived wives to adjust. The American Embassy had nothing to do with it. The Singapore International Foundation has to go out, send people from Singapore to Sydney, Perth, Vancouver and London to organise them. That is culture.”
“And I want to make quite sure that your instincts are immediately for Singaporeans. I do not know whether other political parties will ever be able to duplicate what we have done. But the PAP has built up a cadre of membership of several thousands of which some 80 are Members of Parliament and a grassroots leadership which Mr Ang Mong Seng has said is now 20,000-odd. But most important is the core in the civil service of expertise on how to run the various Ministries. So at the end of the day, we need this framework. Yes, we are safer now than in the 1960s which used to worry me because I could count the number of people on whom I had to depend to get things done. But without that hard core, there is no Singapore. I have listened to Mr Simon Tay. I wish it were possible that just by our being civic minded, by having more NGOs, we will throw up another leadership. It will not. It does not happen that way. That is the problem many countries face. At the end of the day, in Indonesia, they have to choose between an elite which has been brought together by 32 years under President Suharto. It may or may not be able to completely abandon its past, but it is a conglomeration of different talents in Indonesia that has been able to run the country. They may change at the top. But the central core of people who have been running the system, whoever gets to the top will find that he has to draw from the same group. That is the problem that the Malaysian opposition faces. UMNO has been at the heart of Government since 1955. Keadilan has got to offer an alternative. What is the alternative? That is their problem. As a very shrewd political commentator, Samad Ismail, said, "That's their problem.". What is the alternative? And that is Singapore's problem.”
“But when the final decision is made, as with every committee and as with every Cabinet, some people's judgement counts more than others. And no Prime Minister will stay long in his job if he does not understand that. You listen to every Minister. You are not an expert in banking. I was not. You have to go by the judgement, having read all the details, whose judgement you think is sound. And all this is possible only if there is not only leadership but a leadership that can interpret its will and its plans into action. I learned a lot from the Catholic Church. They have lasted nearly 2,000 years. The churches that have no hierarchy, they have not lasted very long. We have the Quakers, Baptists, and so on. But this church has lasted 2,000 years. They have a core of Cardinals who then elect the Pope. And they have a priesthood that keeps the faith and the flock. We need them. We need a core of people who are dedicated to the survival of Singapore and Singaporeans because every Singaporean counts. But for their survival, we need this extra. If your computer has got 32 megabytes and you are putting in a program that requires 128, you'd better go out and start buying extra and put it in. And if you find your Pentium II too slow, you go and buy your Pentium III, or you are not in the game. You cannot download, you cannot interact. Finally, it comes down to what kind of an administration do we have that will be able to translate the ideas, the plans of a Government. And what kind of a political establishment do you have that will ensure that there is a flow of talent, of talented people, Singaporeans, and they have to be. This is one area where non-Singaporeans are out because I am entrusting the future of 3 million people into your hands.”
“It has got to go into some other network so that when you book into an SIA ticket, stranded anywhere in the world, there is this relay that will take you out. You have to be a global player. That means your management must be global, of that standard. Same with NOL. NOL unfortunately bought into APL, just before the market turned down. But if you want to be in that industry, you got to cover all the Pacific Basin ports. So it is in trouble and Temasek is the biggest shareholder. Temasek decided to look for the best Chief Executive, shortlisted them and decided on a Dane who ran Maersk, one of the top shipping container lines. It is the only way we go. Either we go that way or we are marginalised and our horizon shrinks. Finally, we come to the total talent. Why do I bring up unmarried graduate mothers? Because the talent pool cannot expand or even retain its present size if you take out of that pool your best mothers. It is as simple as that. And the impact is being felt. We talk of creativity, entrepreneurs, initiative, drive, yes. At the end, in any field, the top men have got top minds, good balance, good judgement. You can take any member of any US Fortune 500. And that is drawing out of a pool of 260-something million Americans. We have 3 million Singaporeans who are not reproducing themselves in the optimal way. If we do not draw in these talents, we will be marginalised. The other countries in South East Asia will offer markets. The banks want to come. Huge customers to whom they can sell new products which the local banks will not be able to offer. All this will go on but so long as Singapore has got its four banks competing, we will be all right. Yes, every Singaporean counts. That is important.”
“Neither Alex Au nor Mr John Olds can succeed unless they find a team to inject into every department the level of expertise that we will require to meet the competition. Ten years ago, if you had asked me, I would say we were doing not badly in banking. Now I am convinced we are headed down the hill. And this is an enormous opportunity for us. We are one of the few countries, besides Hong Kong, where our banks are standing up. We have got the credibility; we have the resources. This is the time we can upgrade ourselves and form partnerships with banks in the region, upgrade them, inject capital, inject expertise. It is not just in banking. I could go on ad infinitum, because I spend much time on it. The same globalisation process is forcing SIA and NOL to compete worldwide. You can be a beautiful regional airline. You will be marginalised. Because the customer wants to go to odd places that SIA does not go to. I want to go to Buenos Aires, Santiago. The American airlines are going global. The Europeans have seen the light and they have decided they must have a few airlines that can compete globally. So they have lifted their restrictions within Europe and allowed free competition, so that in the next few years, two, three or maybe more airlines will emerge who can then take on the Americans and go global. Then wherever you are stranded, Seoul, Nairobi, Lagos, you just go to the airline, whichever airline, and say, "Here is my ticket. I want out." We have not got the critical mass to go global. So we have to team up and go global in a relay team. So SIA, like it or not, teams up with Air New Zealand, Ansett. Coach-sharing alone with Delta Airlines and Swissair does not work. It is going with Lufthansa.”
“Citibank has that. They came together. And once they have settled their internal problem of two managements coming together, all those super-products which our banks cannot think of, but which Travellers has already worked out, and are all in computers, they will go worldwide, and you are wiped out. Citibank does not want branches any more. With an educated population, you only need an ATM. And in time, you do not even need any ATM. You can do Internet banking. You need the ATM only for drawing out cash. And once you have the cashcard, you do not need the ATM. You put your cashcard, your smartcard into your computer, and you draw and you top up, or you pay in. So where is the ability of the Singapore Government to protect our four big banks? It will be gone in 10 years or less. So unless we move forward, and fast, we are wiped out. We will be marginalised, and marginal players in our own domestic base. And it is a very dangerous position to be in. We will be like New Zealand. They have been wiped out. There is no New Zealand-owned bank that can back the New Zealand economy if it runs into trouble. I have spoken to the bankers for the last six, seven years to move, but they have run in the same old way, too comfortable, please give us more time. And they did nothing in that time until we decided to move and we said, "Right, we will move. DBS and POSBank with the top management will take over your business." That forced OCBC to start looking, to upgrade its management. It wanted a Chinese because it thinks it is important that the Chinese culture in the bank must not be upset; hunted and found Mr Alex Au, who made Hang Seng Bank a success in Hong Kong, and was taken by StanChart in London. They brought him back here. But it is more than one man.”
“Because I protected them with Koh Beng Seng. I prevented the foreign banks from opening branches and having ATMs, and allowed Singapore banks to place their ATMs and their branches throughout all the HDB estates, and they grew. And now they have become important financial international institutions for us. But if they continue to play in that league, we will be wiped out. Why do I say that? Because of the speed with which technology is going. Because I have been exposed as a member of an international advisory board of a big American bank, I have seen the speed at which they themselves are changing, and they are spreading throughout the world. And we cannot stop them. We can continue with this protectionism. I gave away productivity prize at Suntec City to some 30, 40 people. One of them was a Citibank man, and Citibank is one of the best retail banks in the world. So I asked him, after the ceremony, "When we liberalise, what do you expect?" He said, "I will treble my customer base." I said, "Why?" He said, "I have got international products." Banking is no longer just taking in your deposits and then lending it out on mortgages. As a society matures, people earn enough to begin to want to make sure that their money is put to good use, will multiply, and in their retirement, they have a comfortable nest egg. So banks offer this. A good bank has got a whole panoply of products. What is it you want? Children's education, I offer you this; your old age, offer you that. Therefore, Citibank combined with Travellers. Why? Travellers has developed in America the most extensive network of customers to whom they offer the widest panoply of products - insurance, anything you want, mutual funds, the lot. But it has not got the international reach to customers world-wide.”
“But to have a DNA change, to have it into one melange, that is not easy. Will we become one tribe? Not possible. If we try, we will bring misfortune to ourselves. Because there are tribal elements in our society that say: I want to be myself. The Sikhs do not want to be absorbed. The various Muslim sects themselves do not want to be absorbed by other sects, let alone by other religions. And I say, leave well alone, let us find common ground, because those are the cards that we were dealt with. So much easier if we are all one race, one language, one religion. And that was Jafaar Albar's cry when he wanted to beat us down: Satu bangsa, satu bahasa, satu ugama. That excludes me, of course, and excludes a lot of other people. So, having gone through that stress, we came to the conclusion that we have to be the opposite, tolerant of each other, accommodative, multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-cultural. In other words, I am not foisting myself on you. But we face severe challenges. What has gone before cannot be extrapolated easily into the future. In the last eight and a half years since I resigned as Prime Minister, I have had the advantage of time and the opportunity to attend meetings with top bankers, top executives in different parts of the world, and I have concluded that our previous aspiration of becoming the centre for Southeast Asia is inadequate, because this is a global stage, whether you like it or not. Therefore, to play in this global market, you must have talent of a global standard. Perhaps more time should be spent to get this message across. Maybe the Member for Ayer Rajah would better understand. Yes, we have good bankers. But he is wrong, if he believes that the Singapore banks are thriving because they are wonderful bankers.”
“But even they now, under the impact of globalisation, open to foreign influences, are faced with heart-wrenching problems of both their economic restructuring which will alter the nature of their society and life-time employment, and also the way in which they interact with the world. Japan now has over a million families working abroad. How do they re-absorb the children of these engineers, executives, managers who have been educated in Japanese schools but exposed to foreign influences? I know of Japanese diplomats who have travelled all over the world with their families, and their children have been unable to fit in, and have settled in Los Angeles or London, or elsewhere. They are faced with very serious problems of change, and so are we. The past is valuable in telling us how we got here, and having us understand what are our perils, what are our fault lines, and do not mistake them. They are not going to disappear in 20, 30, 40 years. But if we are aware of it, it is like living with an earthquake fault. We can build buildings which may be able to stand the shocks. That is my hope. I am disappointed with the Opposition, particularly Mr Chiam. It is Singapore's culture that if you are the Opposition, you oppose. And he is unable to see, good man though he is in many ways, that this is a basic issue of the future of our society. He says it is a PR effort. Enormous amount of energy, work went into it! I read the Committee's deliberations or summaries of it, and congratulated and encouraged the Minister for Education. It is in the right direction. But it is not easy, and it will not be accomplished in one generation. Some of the things that some Members have spoken of may not be achieved in 20 generations. You can have cultural change and acculturation.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, first, let me congratulate the members of the Committee and its Chairman for having spent so much time and effort to crystallise 6,000-odd views into a few pages. The discussions in this House, which I have read and sometimes listened to, give hope that what we started umpteen years ago is being pushed forward. No society is static. No society remains, either going up or going down. We did the easier part, getting raw, basic clashes to be muted, distributing the population into mixed housing estates, sending them to the same schools, preventing them from segregating. It will take much more to get them to finally accept each other and begin to trust each other. And it takes just one mishap and you will find segregation begins all over again. Only those who have seen in raw life what happens to people when they clash - and your uniform is your face, your shape, your appearance - will understand what primeval hate is. We now have a stable, quiet, relatively placid situation. And on this, we build. I have seen societies of a very high standard go down in its civility. The Britain I went to in the 1940s, after seven years of war - 1939 to 1945 - was a very civil society, which I admired greatly. Now, bombs, lone bomber, IRA bombs, football hooligans. What went wrong? I do not know. Immigrants? Travel? Foreign influence? TV? But something has been lost. I have seen the Japanese as conquerors and I saw them rehabilitate and re-establish themselves. I could not help, reluctantly, but admire their sterling qualities as a nation, as a race, the Yamato race. And they have all the advantages of homogeneity, solidarity and total commitment to each other.”
“So Japanese laptops have beautiful clear screens and then, later on, American laptops have it. Can we do that? I really doubt whether we can. Once in a while, we throw out an unusual man like Chris Tan and we bring him back and he starts our IMCB. But he is important. If we can find enough of our Chris Tans to come back and we provide him with a hard core of our own, then we can survive, we can succeed. Then we will prove to Samuel Huntington that he is wrong. And that is my ambition. It is a challenge which I think I am winning. [Applause.] 5.14 pm”
“China will keep going at 8% or 10% because it is starting from a low base. And if we are not careful, many doing business there will find the cities becoming so improved. They can improve it, if not in 10 or 20 years. Once they start going to Chinese schools, they may never come back, as those who have gone to Australia, New Zealand, many do not come back. So in this very mobile world, we have to work out a system that will keep a certain hard core of men and women of ability who are committed to Singapore, who want to see Singapore survive, who want to keep up one little place in Asia which has blazed the trail. We went against the odds. We did not follow conventional wisdom. People said we should not have multinationals. We did not have the entrepreneurs. We will never have the kind of entrepreneurs that the Japanese, the Americans and the Europeans have. They are top men. We have one Sim Wong Hoo and he is having a hard time against the competition. His Creative Technology, you can think that 200 or 300 bright Americans, including Chinese in America, improve on it and suddenly, you have lost your market, you are out. Yes, we have to find niches for ourselves. But if we think we are going to blaze the trail to new technology, we are kidding ourselves. The Japanese can. They have got the numbers. They have got the people with that capability, 125 million of them. So they could have crystal displays, LCDs. I asked an American executive in Williamsberg, "How did they become so good? Did they learn from you?" He said, "No. We were very careful not to give them anything. They thought it out themselves." And now all American laptops are at a disadvantage. Because when they make a new one, they sell first to Japanese companies.”
“Unless we upgrade the quality of our schools, there will be more daughters and sons abroad, of people who can now afford it. So by these independent schools plus the scholarships of at least 25% from those who are poor, we are able to get the best wherever they come from, whether they come from bright homes or not bright homes, equal chance. But please remember they do not start with equal capacities. If you believe we all start with equal capacities, then you will embark on policies that will not work. If we try to make our son a musician, he would have failed. I could have got him the best music teachers, he came back with his report card -- A, B, C, D, E, F -- it was always D or E for music. He cannot sing, he cannot play musical instruments. Three children, more or less the same, one slightly different, can play better than the other two, more agile. This assessment of reality and then matching policies to maximise on reality is the reason why we have succeeded. I would like to make one last important observation. Do not hesitate to face a problem head-on. Never dodge it. It is what I have done in this case. I would never run away. Not possible. You put out an SES statement, I must respond. I must go to the end of the world with you because what is at stake is what I have set out to do. It was not a one-man job, I was just the conductor and I had a good orchestra, good players in that orchestra. And I do not want the music to stop with the new conductor and new instrumentalists. It is important. But for the Prime Minister to succeed under different conditions, he has to face the conditions of 1996 and the prospect of a very different world, a booming economy, not just in Singapore. We will be in a few years less booming than many of our neighbours, including China.”
“So what happens when you have a society that begins to have education stratifying it, is that if the man is not so stupid as to go and do what some of our men are still doing, a doctor marries his nurse, or a lawyer marries his secretary, and so on, if he marries his equal, the chances are you either have a doctor or a dentist or some professional. But even the lowest, by the nature of the way human beings reproduce, they may not produce so many bright ones. But it is amazing how from some great great grandfathers, some bright great great grandson or granddaughter comes out from a very poor family. And it is the business of the Government when such a person appears to open the way for him to rise to the top. That is not what the Labour Party wanted. They wanted everybody to go to the comprehensive schools so that all come out equal. They do not even want them to go to a special grammar school where bright young poor kids are brought together for special training to send them to Oxbridge. But you see it is not a practical solution, does not match reality, so it has not succeeded. Supposing they took the other way, get all these young bright kids, train them, send them to the best schools and the universities. They will be on top. And that is the way we have gone. So when Dr Tony Tan started the independent schools, which I urged him to do, it is really not to stratify our society but to raise our level, because too many people were sending their children abroad, because they could not find quality schools in Singapore. One day when Mr Ho Kah Leong told me that his daughter had gone to school in Melbourne, I said something must be done. It cannot be. We are doing ourselves harm.”
“So only one son will get it and they've got to wait until both mother and father have left the scene. So some reshuffling of the cards has got to be thought out well before this problem becomes acute and we must have the will, the ingenuity and the creativity to think of solutions. I do not know if Mr Ling spends his time thinking about these problems, but perhaps he has his think-tank, Dr Chee, pose him these problems and let us see what his solutions are. But I urge you to believe me. We did not embark on this in jest for our personal fame, for our personal glory. We got saddled with this responsibility and there are times when I wish the coin had dropped the other way and I had not gone into politics. Then somebody would have done this job and I would be like my brother, with $60 million. As he told me, "No, easily you will make twice that amount." All younger brothers think better of their elder brothers. But we thought out the plans carefully. Not me alone. There was Dr Goh, there was Lim Kim San, quite a few of us, worked out, put the idea, lift it into shape and you have today's Singapore. But societies are not static. Technology changes and new generation comes in, new lifestyles, they also want to come up to the top. And the critical factor is to have social mobility. I will now come to the last and most sensitive of all these issues, namely, the question of what is inherited and what is trained or taught. I believe in the bell curve. I make no pretence that you get two farm horses, you get a race horse. That is not how race horses are bred. If you read how they breed race horses, you know that they all come from Arabia and that they have had race horses from all over the world. But the ones whose parenthood goes back to Arabia, Arabian horses, they win.”
“When Kwek Hong Png died he must have left a few hundred houses, in corporations, buildings, and so on. One day Ng Teng Fong's children will also have a few hundred houses; so will Wee Cho Yaw, and I do not know who else are in this big-owning class. I have only several, or my wife has several. I have suggested to them, think about this as one way, do not do it like the British, tax them, because all you will do is to have them unload, move out their money from Singapore, then you are left with nothing. Leave it. But when they die, you say you can have two for each child or member of the family, the rest must be sold within X number of years, like we do for foreigners. Give them 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, so the market is not suddenly depressed by a five-year sale, but over time you have to sell off. In other words, more people get a chance to buy and own good quality housing. But as DPM pointed out to me, he argued this with him, he said: But in the end, it will go back to the chaps who are the big and the best players. I agree. Some will go back, but each time we are doing a redistribution of the chips, you keep each generation, new group of young executives and professionals, being able to get into every sector. What we must not have is that those families that already have will always have and the new families cannot have. That will lead to division. I worry because my son, the DPM, his house, which his mother helped him buy for $1.5 million, at the time he bought it, I thought it was not much of a house. I am told in the market it is worth $10 million. So I did a mental calculation. In another 15 or 20 years, at the rate of escalation, it will have gone up to $20 million. How can his son ever hope to own a house like that? And he has three sons, one daughter.”
“When you sell it in Singapore, you know you do not get a premium. And so the SIA local and SIA foreign shares, there is a wide gap. So too are SPH local and foreign shares. In fact, as you go along, every year, the next buyer knows he has to wait less time. So the price begins to rise. That is one way, and it can be solved, and immediately you get 3,000, 4,000 or 5,000 couples less disgruntled. Another way, and maybe the private sector will welcome this -- Heng Chiang Meng, Leong Horn Kee, even Mr Dhanabalan's company -- we sell you land, but as part of the tender, we tell you beforehand that 10% of the units, or maybe 15% if the demand is high, can only be sold to Singaporeans and the strata title will stipulate that for 10 years, they can only be sold to Singaporeans. In other words, same buildings, same flats, but no free market, no foreign buyer bonus or premium. So when you bid for the land, you deduct for what you will lose, sale price. It can be done. That is a quick solution. The aim of HDB is really to scale down and not to move up, because they want to get out of it and just concentrate on the lower income. But, unfortunately, we now have a higher income group or middle-higher income group that feels that it is being priced out. I am not sure that we need to do anything much at the moment. Let us first watch and stabilise this market. Let us see what happens. In three to six months, the market will be stable. Then we will know whether it has dropped by 5%, 10%, 15%, whatever, and we keep it stable. Meanwhile, all these options can be calculated. But in the longer term, as I told you, when we play, smaller and smaller winner versus winner, the chips end up in the best winner.”
“And the first solution is an immediate one which can be solved within 2-3 years, if not earlier. The private sector market will always be what it is. They are going to get the best customers to boost their properties, to maximise profits. If we had allowed the private sector to do public housing, it would have failed. Because they would be wanting to build and sell to the best-paying customers, the best buyers. We have a different target -- to give everybody, particularly those who cannot afford, a home. So we entered that market and controlled it, and today build up 85%. Now we face this little problem, or it is little in numbers, because the young executives and professionals do not decide the outcome of the election. The outcome of the election is decided in the housing estates. But I think they are an important section because they are vocal, they are the people we want to join us. So a solution must be found. I have suggested, and they are thinking about it, go in for luxury executive condominiums. We enter that market. We sell to Singaporeans, if necessary, by ballot. 3,000 a year, 5,000 a year, we can do it. We have the capacity, together with the private architects, to do that. Heng Chiang Meng will be put out of business, partially. So will Leong Horn Kee, partially. But it will be equal to any of the best that the private sector can produce because we will use private sector architects, use their contractors, their materials, but lower price, but no quick resale, because that is not the Government's duty. You say you want a home, we sell you a home, maybe 20% less than the private market. But you stay in it 10 years before you sell it to a foreigner. When you sell, you sell to another Singaporean. In other words, it is like SIA or SPH shares.”
“They are a bit nervous because it is such a fundamental kind of solution but does not need immediate action. Way down the road, 5-10 years, they can think about it. Let me explain. The British tried to kill off the landed properties by taxing them when they die - 95% estate duty, high income tax. You re-distribute wealth. The result: the wealthy landowners, the Duke of Westminster who owns Covent Garden and the West End, put it in trust, entail. So they only have life interest and it belongs to their children, and then their grandchildren. So when they die, they only pay estate duty on themselves, their portion, life interest. And so the sons, the moment they have owned it, they entail again, and so on. So they could not get it. And you say you tax too much, they put their money abroad. So in the end, they got no change. But if you have no change, and you have great disparity, eventually you have a revolution. That is why revolutions take place. That is why the French revolution took place. There comes a time when the winners have too much and the losers say let us overturn the system, and they do. And the last time that happened in France was 1958 when they brought back de Gaulle, and he started afresh. The British never had a revolution. They went on by evolution but the problem is not solved. Their class hatreds have diminished to some extent but the underlying antagonism at the unfairness of it, of people with huge landed properties, and they with nothing. But how do we solve this? If we do nothing, our able will leave. If they cannot get good properties, they will go off to Australia, Canada. They will be second-class citizens, but anyway they will have a big house. And Singapore's economy will go down. I think we should find a solution for this.”
“Next week, three out of 10 meet again in 10. Finally, you have what you have in the world - the billionaires. Just think that over. Why are they billionaires? Because they have that extra -- the killer instinct! Can Singapore allow that to go to its logical conclusion? I think we cannot. The British tried it -- to reverse the process -- they failed. The tragedy of the British Labour Party was they refused to admit that men were not equal. So when they implemented socialist policies, equal educational opportunities, and it did not produce equal results, they said, "class system". Those who went to public schools had the advantage. Those who went to all these county schools were out, never got to the best universities because they had poor teachers. That is not true. That is rubbish! I used to subscribe from my student days to the Fabian Society pamphlets that believe in this fair, equal, just society. When it failed and they still had people with good results, some with mediocre results, and many with poor results, they said, change the system. And what was the change? Two headmasters wrote this paper. When I read it, I thought to myself: "God! There is no hope." They proposed that you take all the best teachers who are all in the best schools and send them to the weakest students. And the weak teachers can teach the good students, and then you equalise. It is what you call a procrustean solution. If the man's leg is too long for the bed, just chop his leg off. I decided I will stop subscribing to the Fabian Society. You cannot do that. Lee Tsao Yuan has raised a very significant problem which, I think, is with us. And the solution -- there are several -- which I have put to the Prime Minister and his colleagues.”
“That is why the West, America and Western Europe beat Russia, the Soviet Union and China. I read a magazine article of what happened to the gymnast champion Olga in the Olympics. What was she doing? This was the London Sunday Times magazine. She had no sponsors, she was a coach with a miserable flat, husband, children, poor food, and they showed pictures of the flat. On the other hand, the American champion, Mary Lou Retton, who won at Los Angeles Olympics, beautiful costume, every gymnastic leotard or whatever, carried her name, multimillion dollars. So one succeeded, the other failed. I started life as a socialist and a near communist. So we formed up with the communists, all men are equal. But I decided that this was not true. It is against my observation and my logic. We are a close family -- three brothers, one sister. We are similar but we are not equal. Some are better athletically, some are better mathematically, some have more energy, some have less energy. My own children - they are very similar but they are also good at different things. And that is the nature of man and you have to devise a system that enables each one to thrive to his maximum. So you give prizes along the way. Now, who wins the big prizes? This is a very big problem. I choose another metaphor. If we sit around a table, let us say, 10 of us, play bridge or poker, and each starts off with 1,000 chips. At the end of five hours, I will tell you the chips will go into a big pile in front of two or three. Must be. It is in the nature of human beings. Some are good at bridge. If you meet Kasparov in chess, you have no chance. Even IBM Blue got defeated. So what chance have you got? So out of 10, three are winners. Let us say we break up into eight teams of 10.”
“What then is the philosophy behind it? If I can use a metaphor, I say life is a marathon. It is an unending competition, without a finishing line; you finish one, the next marathon begins. So when we started in 1959, and we fired the "go" signal, everybody thought, yes, I am going to win this prize -- just, equal society, equal opportunities for all. But we are not equal human beings. Some have great stamina, some have not. Some have great energy, and good minds to think out a strategy, some have less. So by the half-way mark, by about the 1970s, the middle 1970s, I could feel that many knew that their children were not going to win the first prize. Because in a marathon, everybody starts off most energetically, then after a few kilometres they are drenched with water and panting and so on, so they know it is better to give up. But if they gave up in life, the country suffers. So all along the way, we gave consolation prizes. You finish one kilometre, you get a prize. You give up, you do not get the second kilometre prize. So he tries and he paces himself to collect the most kilometres. That is a reality. It has to be faced. But if you say, all equal, whether you finish or you do not finish, then you will never produce a marathon winner. Do not believe that Pete Sampras and Boris Becker train every day, for what? For your enjoyment, or to win the first prize and with it millions of dollars. That is what spurs them on. You just wait, given a few years, you will find young Chinese trying to be like Michael Chang in China. I am sure they are going around looking for those with the right joints, right muscles, right height, so that, unlike Michael Chang, he would not be looking so small at the other end of the court. It is that which produces human progress.”
“Dr Goh went around, from a corporal, that was all his experience, he set out to form the PDF. So Members of Parliament, civil servants, ex-volunteers, put on uniforms, went marching and the first National Day Parade, we had some kind of an army. But immediately I said, National Service for all, build up the largest possible base on a small manpower, which means they are not going to fight, unless they have something to defend. So I worked out the CPF scheme and HDB to match. It has taken 30 years (1965 to 1995) to reach 85% HDB home ownership, 10% private home ownership. So 5% have no stake. For 95% of Singaporeans, as the properties go up, they rise with it. So a taxi driver who bought a 3-room flat for $25,000 -- $30,000, today it is worth $150,000 to $180,000, and with main upgrading, in another five years, if he just waits, it will be worth $300,000. You show me one city in Asia where that is so. You say that is social engineering. I say, yes, it was. I am not ashamed of it. It was good. Was it completely altruistic? Yes, and no. Politically, we had a vested interest, because we knew an ownerless, renting proletariat is a fickle, volatile voter. As you can watch Taipei, they voted against the KMT, you watch Tokyo, they voted against the LDP, you watch Seoul, they voted against the ruling government. Or you watch Delhi, they voted against Congress. But in Singapore, they know that if they vote against the PAP and they land up with Dr Chee Soon Juan and all the bright young men that Mr Chiam hoped to get -- I know he has learnt his lesson, but it is a little bit too late -- they may toss around a vote just to needle the new Prime Minister, but they know that the wrong vote and the property just goes right down and they are worth very little.”
“I faxed him. I said, "Don't overkill. Let us go step by step." If this does not stop the speculation, there are a few other measures we can take which will stop the speculation. But we do not want to stop the growth of the property market. Honest buying and selling and the desire of the people to buy houses should be matched by the supply of land for builders, and so the decision was made, and I think it will work. It is already cooling off. By another 3-4 months, it will pick up and find a new level. No longer this fever. But Dr Lee Tsao Yuan brought up a fundamental question: the dream, is it out of reach? I have discussed this with the young Ministers, and I have put up certain proposals which startled them. Let me explain a certain philosophy of Government and a certain philosophy of society on which my old colleagues and I have governed Singapore. Men are not equal in a society. But you've got to be able to bring them together into a united whole, a sense of one nation, one society, that we share successes and we share tribulations. The other example is Hong Kong. Every man for himself, the British Government is just a referee. If you win, winner takes all. So you have seven, eight, nine, ten Rolls-Royces, house on the hill, house in town, yacht, and then you find shanty huts on the hillsides in the New Territories. We cannot do that. They do not have to defend themselves. If they had to defend themselves, and everybody has got to have a gun, that system would not work. I have a secretary now who is digging up the records, because when I have spare time I am writing up what my colleagues and I did. He produced me a document way back in 1965, immediately after independence, and we had to build up an army.”
“Ministers, high salaries, buying homes -- it is going to be an election issue. I am prepared for that. The Prime Minister is prepared for that. What would you have? Ministers, as in other countries, owning huge bank balances elsewhere in Geneva, Zurich, homes in California, London, Sydney? Or Ministers buying homes in Singapore, and if Singapore falls, collapses, they also are finished? They cannot buy shares because we have inside information not only of what the economy is doing, but what we intend to do to intervene. The Prime Minister asked DPM to cool this property market. He and the Finance Minister have been working on that package, together with Lim Hng Kiang for the last one month. They could have just told one little word to somebody and you sell before this package and a few hundred million dollars can be cleaned up, before the stock market went down, or people are saddled with properties which they can no longer sell. But you've got to trust them. You've got to have men who can be trusted. He owns two properties, plus three others, which now have dropped in value. So has my wife. But we take this decision. We are accustomed to taking such decisions. All my life, if I allowed personal interest to decide which way to go, we would have a different country. The value of all his properties went down at least by 15%, 20%. In fact, the package he put up with Lim Hng Kiang -- these are the young team -- they were very aggressive. And the Finance Minister says, "Okay,". When I saw this, I was most disturbed, because you can bring the market down, you cannot bring the market up. It is difficult. People must have confidence. So I was glad that we brought back Tony Tan from banking, and he minuted "This is too much". And I said I agreed. The PM was in Vietnam.”
“There is no harm letting it be known. It is a difference in philosophy. She was trying to follow the market and gave $1 million. The Chairman, Dr Yeo Ning Hong, thought, "God, $1 million, better clear with me." But she thought that was the market price. But he has been in Government for so long, the idea of paying $1 million, when he was earning $300,000-$400,000 as a Minister, shocked him. I think we start thinking in different terms. It is an unfair and unequal world. If you want an equal world, you end up with the Communist system. Mao Ze Dong's salary was about 15 or 20 times that of the lowest paid worker and so everybody was on grade 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 15, 20. But as I explained to you, when the man took his Mao jacket off, it was fur-lined. The ordinary worker had not got a fur-lined jacket and he got different perks. And the system did not work. She has been offered a higher salary of $28,000 last year. She decided, for her own moral authority over the others, to set the example and refused to take it. She stayed put at $21,000, but in April this year, Dr Yeo Ning Hong pressed her again and insisted that she takes $28,000. So I suppose she will be declaring a higher income tax. $7,000 more a month, that is $84,000 more a year. If you start paying the DPM what he was paid before it was pegged to the private sector, should he stay on? Yes, says Mr Chiam, we all should. Maybe he would. But for how long, when he can make more? Maybe he would, not wanting to make more, because his father did this and he feels he may be under an obligation. But you cannot run the system. The system will malfunction unless it is monitored and adjusted. And I say this very seriously, that the salary adjustments were part of the process of clean and honest Government.”
“Wu Ching Liang. He is a very good man and also very bright. But please do not believe that because of my association with them, I now think like an entrepreneur or I think like them or will act like them. I believe it is a plus and I never doubted it, because I am guided by one simple principle in my life. What I am afraid to have publicly discussed, I never privately do. Whatever I do privately, I may have to keep it secret for some time. But if it comes out, I am prepared to defend myself. It has served me well and I am happy that the House is in total agreement, the Opposition and the Government, that there was nothing wrong. But what is most important is that we bring it out into the open and that the world knows the new leaders were prepared to act on the same standards. We are disproving Professor Samuel Huntington. There are a few things which I want to settle first. My daughter-in-law, Ho Ching, wrote to me this morning. She said, "Better clarify about Singapore Technologies." Otherwise, she cannot get good men. She said that she did not get much. But she, as the MD, had paid $1 million in bonuses to successful MDs of her subsidiaries. She has written this to me, so I am sure she would not mind my announcing it, because people will know it anyway. Last year, her salary was $21,500 per month. With the 13-month AWS, it was $279,500 per annum. Her bonus was $290,000, making a total of $569,500. Let me tell the Opposition. This is chicken feed compared to what the big companies are paying. This is a Government GLC. I have been urging the GLCs to follow private company practice - stock options, bonuses varying year by year. Because without that, Singapore Technologies have lost some good men. And the $1 million also caused a big row.”
“But to succeed, we need Ng Teng Fong, the Kwek Hong Png family, the Lum Chang group, Ong Beng Seng. I will not be able to do what they can do. But I can conceptualise and having met them, I understand what it is we as a Government can do to facilitate their enterprise. I have met Ker Sin Tze's Liang --- An hon. Member: Wu Ching Liang.”
“No, what will happen to Ong Beng Seng with Koh Beng Seng in charge. He says he is really worried. So I spoke to the Prime Minister and spoke to Richard Hu and I think it is only fair that I should say this. I told my brother yesterday. I said, "No, you are wrong. If Ong Beng Seng does his job, Koh Beng Seng will not do any harm to him. But if he does his job wrong, is not open, not straightforward, bending the rules, he has to face the consequences." I want to say this. I have cleared this with the PM and the Finance Minister. That MAS and SES have nothing against HPL or Ong Beng Seng. He can do his business. There is no need for anybody to run away from him, as if he is a leper. He is a straightforward businessman. Let us be very careful not to destroy entrepreneurs. He is an entrepreneur and I admire him as an entrepreneur. When President Suharto asked the PM to move into new areas in the tourist industry in Indonesia, I saw several entrepreneurs, one by one. I came to the conclusion that Ong Beng Seng was the best operator of them all. So I said, "You move in. Try and lead as many of our teams as possible, team up with pribumi entrepreneurs there, not with Chinese Indonesians, because that will lead to more complications. Get pribumis." He told me, "Yes, I understand, don't worry." He does not always succeed. He went to Vietnam to start a hotel. He followed me. He even got a site and one member of the committee of Ho Chi Minh City was put on his board, which is not the Singapore practice. But it still failed because he got the wrong member on the board. I think it is important for us to make a clear distinction if we are to succeed. The people here have to be Jesuits, in this sense. We do not touch it. We play according to the rules.”
“What will happen to him with Koh Beng Seng who is gunning for him?" An hon. Member: Ong Beng Seng.”
“That the system I set up worked without me in charge, and the Prime Minister was in charge. The Finance Minister did not report to me. When the matter went up to him, he went to see the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister did not consult me. He had an inner pow-wow, because it is a dangerous thing investigating me and the DPM. He never told me this. I heard all this only now. He consulted Dr Tony Tan, Wong Kan Seng, Jayakumar. They decided and rightly said, "Have to investigate". I was ill or recovering from my stent operation, have to be questioned. In other words, the system worked, because of the men I put in charge, including Mr Koh Beng Seng, whom Dr Goh and I nurtured. He is an honest man. He had to report against somebody who was his protector and his patron, because he was about to be sacked when he clashed with the former head of MAS. And I told Dr Richard Hu, "No, we change the boss. This man is an honest man, keep him there." I think Dr Richard Hu will remember that. But he did his duty. He did not come to tell me and say, "Sir, I've got this case against you. I'd better give you the documents. I think you'd better hide it." He could have done that and returned the favours I did him. Because he had clashed with Mr Joe Pillay who was MD of MAS and he was Deputy MD. And knowing him as an expert in the banking field, knowing Joe Pillay was an all-rounder, not an expert, I supported him, and Joe Pillay went to National Development and another MD took over. But he did not report to me and I am very proud of it. I chose the right man. My younger brother, Dr Lee Suan Yew, rang me up yesterday and said, "You know, Ong Beng Seng is very worried. He said that both I and Richard Hu said in Parliament that giving DPM 12% showed corruption or intention to corrupt.”
“The honesty and efficiency that Senior Minister Lee has brought to Singapore are likely to follow him to his grave. In some circumstances, authoritarianism may do well in the short term, but experience clearly shows that only democracy produces good government in the long run, as in America." But long before he threw me that challenge, the gauntlet, I had been thinking of the responsibility my colleagues and I face as time creeps over us, and we went in for systematic self-renewal. If we left it to chance, this House would not have the people who are sitting here. And even the four Opposition Members would not have won their seats without using money. Every government in this part of the world, having got into office, ensures its re-election by being able to give money. But the Opposition cannot raise the same amount of money. So they must win. Read what the newspapers say per voter gets in Taiwan, hundreds of millions of dollars. Read what the newspapers say when there is an election for UMNO, until Dr Mahathir deplores the practice. He is worried and he is open about it. And the Deputy Prime Minister is also against it. But a system has set in. We did not allow that system. We finished off the secret societies within the first three years of office. From 1955, we suffered at the hands of the gangsters and I had to fight a by-election in Tanjong Pagar. Before the next elections, we set out and cleaned them up. There are no gangsters running in Singapore. You win or lose on your merit. We have formed our own rules. I believe - I would not call this an incident, I am not sure what is the appropriate word for it - out of this particular occurrence, good has come and will come to Singapore. What does it prove?”
“But you just look at the prices. "And Lee Kuan Yew", says Samuel Huntington, "has provided the example and the discipline necessary to achieve this." In other words, he concedes that example and discipline were necessary to achieve this. If I am down, if I go and take $416,000, the example is gone, is it not? They will cheer and give me the most rousing send-off of anybody who has to quit politics. But I am not likely to oblige them. Why should I? His real gauntlet is in his last paragraph. He praises Taiwan, which he is entitled to do. I admire many of the things they have done. Small island, of course slightly more resources than us, but from a small Japanese colony, bereft of infrastructure, or not much infrastructure, they are now one of the thriving industrial states of Asia. But of course not all things are right as Dr Ker Sin Tze who has just come back from the President of Taiwan's inauguration on Monday, would tell us. I am waiting to hear from him. You never read this in the Western press. But you read it in the (Yazhou Zhoukan), you read it in Taiwan newspaper, (Tian Xia), very moderate, balanced monthly, you read it in the Hong Kong press, (hei jin hei she hui) and even Newsweek -- I do not know whether they knew what they were doing -- showed a picture where the President of Taiwan had to hold up the hands of the local Mafia boss in order to get the votes of that area. If I go and do this act, the Western press would say, "Here is another Andreotti." But because it is Taiwan following their pattern, he says, "No, no. That is democratic politics." He says, "The freedom and creativity that President Lee has introduced here in Taiwan will survive him.”
“Yet, as the article also pointed out (this was the New York Times article), Taiwan and Singapore are the two most successful Chinese societies in the 5,000 years' history of Chinese civilisation, and one or the other is likely to be the model for the future of mainland China. That is a very, very big issue. So when they gun for us, remember, they want us to disappear -- not that they hate us, we are their best friends, we help them -- but they do not want us to succeed as long as we follow this policy of clean, honest administration, no monkey business, no free rampant press that is free to spread false information, libellous information, without challenge, as in the Philippines or as in America. He concedes, "Some authoritarian governments, Singapore among them, have been remarkably successful in producing economic prosperity, social order, general well-being." But do you know what they always say, cannot chew chewing gum, cannot spit in the streets, cannot urinate in the lifts, got to keep toilets clean, fine for this, that and the other, that is authoritarian, is against democracy. It stifles creativity according to Dr Chee Soon Juan. If we can do all those things, chew gum, pee in the streets, spit around, that will make you creative. He says, "Singaporeans legitimately boast about the lack of corruption of their political system." "Legitimately boast" - we do not boast. We do it because it is a matter of need, of survival. If we are like the others, money politics, what is the advantage of the big banks, the big petrochemicals, the big refineries, billions of dollars worth of investments? Why do they come to this tiny island which Mr Ng Teng Fong, one of our most successful property developers, says it is so small, you cannot see it on the map?”
“That once I am gone, so will this pristine quality. I take this as perhaps the most serious challenge and I think it is no better stated than by Samuel Huntington, Professor of Political Science, Harvard. And he went to a seminar in Taipei last year, 27th August 1995, where he extolled all the emerging democracies and denounced Singapore. He is a person of some renown, some standing. He is the man who wrote the article "The Clash of Civilisation" which is coming. In his speech, he threw down this gauntlet to me. He described the Taiwanese model and all the other liberal models which were following the American pattern, then he described Singapore. He conceded, yes, it is successful but it is authoritarian and will die with the authoritarian person. Let me quote what he said: `The contrast between this model [that means the Singapore model which he disapproves of] and the democratic model is often set forth in terms of the contrast between Singapore and Taiwan. A contrast that is real is also often exaggerated as in the recent New York Times headline, which summed it up as a difference between "clean and mean", on the one hand [that is me and all of you], and "filthy and free", on the other [that is Taiwan and the new democratic President, freely elected by 21 million people].' It is a matter of great importance to the Americans because it is not just Singapore and Taiwan. The Americans are most concerned about it: which is the model to which mainland China will be attracted. And he was quite honest.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, first, I want to thank the Members of the Opposition for helping to clear publicly any doubts about the legality or propriety of the purchases. Mr Chiam had said so, Mr Ling How Doong had said so, Mr Low Thia Khiang had said so. I am sorry that Mr Cheo was unable to make up his mind and has decided to leave it to the people to decide, which I do not think speaks well of the trust the people in Nee Soon put in him. He is here, the people of Nee Soon are not here. He can judge better than they can judge. They watch television. But from the three out of four Members of the Opposition, they have said that there is no question of illegality or impropriety and that, in fact, any question of wrongdoing arose only because the money was returned. I agree. He was not here yesterday when I explained why it was returned. I think he was not here also when the Deputy Prime Minister earlier in the day explained why it was returned. I hope he accepts the explanation and perhaps satisfy himself or, at least help satisfy his constituents. And in fact they should write a petition and say, "Please don't give it to charity. Or if you must give to charity, please don't forget Bukit Gombak." Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to take this opportunity to answer the questions that have been raised, especially by the Nominated Member, Dr Lee Tsao Yuan, on the Singapore dream. Is it now out of grasp? But it is a challenge relatively small in the wider challenge and that wider challenge is: can Singapore continue, be successful after the first generation is gone? There are many doubters. In fact, many still believe that because I am in Cabinet, therefore it is me that is able to keep up these standards and that therefore things have not deteriorated.”