In an interview with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew...

(This is an interview by a reporter with Lee Kuan Yew, and was published in the Straits Times)

Following up on protests at the Australian National University (ANU). In the context of the global contest for talent, how much does it matter that some people see Singapore as a place that restricts individual freedoms?

MM Lee: Let me first challenge the assumption that people see Singapore as a place that restricts individual freedom. This is the stereotype that the Western media purveys of Singapore. But businessmen and talented people who work for these companies are better informed; otherwise we wouldn't have attracted the talent we have.

The ANU knew they would get flak from the human-rights people for offering me an honorary degree. So too the Imperial College London for making me a Fellow just a few years ago; so too Melbourne University.

So what does it prove? These are people who understand what's happening in the real world and understand the real Singapore.

The press works up a storyline that Warwick University finds Singapore's academic freedom restricted, so they don't come.

I think the real reason is they worked out their sums and they found it was not economical.

You've got some of the top names from America, and even Australia has got the University of New South Wales setting up a campus.

So let's not ourselves be drawn in to purvey this line.

What is the individual freedom that you are deprived of? Are you prevented from saying what you want? Are you prevented from exercising your rights as a citizen?

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Question: Since we are trying to attract talent, does it matter that they see us in this light?

No. The people that have the talent will have the wit to investigate, to know what they are in for.

You know the number of unsolicited mails that I get and PM gets from people completely without motive? They've come, they know the old Singapore.

And what they are saying is, it's a very good place - safe, wholesome, everything works - and they wish they could have the basics we have established.

And if you allow this to be degraded, you'll never put the present Singapore together again.

If we didn't have more self-confidence in what we are doing and we listened to what is prescribed for us, we wouldn't be here.

You cannot bring Singapore from where it was to where it now is without long periods of stable government and experienced ministers.

You watch the development of Taiwan or South Korea.

The period of transformation took place when they had governments that stayed for a long time, ministers and civil servants who acquired experience and expertise and improved the system and got it to a high state.

And once they liberalised, like they did in Taiwan, you look at the growth rates. You look at their stability, you look at what their future promises.

I meet their journalists; they come to Singapore. If you read Tian Xia and several other very reputable papers, they are full of admiration for what we have achieved.

Now how does Taiwan get back to stability and growth and sanity?

It's facing a very difficult future in which China is growing bigger and bigger year by year, stronger and stronger.

And they are not in a position to go independent because the Americans will not support them because it means war.

So what is the rational thing to do? Is the rational thing to say 'I change the Constitution' and provoke the Chinese into a clash?

That's what the present President is attempting to do because then he thinks he will be able to rally votes. I mean, you are now into mass manipulation of attitudes in order to win votes by deceiving people that this is a way forward, when there is, in fact, no way forward.

You look at South Korea. They are now with a generation that voted in a new government completely at variance with US policies.

Without the US, South Korea is in dire difficulties with the North. But you have a younger generation that says, out with the Americans.

So does it make sense?

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all I get is a sense of how weak certain parties around the world are in the areas of transition.... they should case-study AIESEC... hahaha...

but always interesting to read the views of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew... his brain is amazing... =)

(will post the rest of his responses in a bit)