Lee Kuan Yew

(What, in your view, is wrong with the American system?)
It is not my business to tell people what’s wrong with their system. It is my business to tell people not to foist their system indiscriminately on societies in which it will not work.
(But you do not view the United States as a model for other countries?)
As an East Asian looking at America, I find attractive and unattractive features. I like, for example, the free, easy and open relations between people regardless of social status, ethnicity or religion. And the things that I have always admired about America, as against the communist system, I still do: a certain openness in argument about what is good or bad for society; the accountability of public officials; none of the secrecy and terror that’s part and parcel of communist government.
But as a total system, I find parts of it totally unacceptable: guns, drugs, violent crime, vagrancy, unbecoming behavior in public, in sum the breakdown of civil society. The expansion of the right of the individual to behave or misbehave as he pleases has come at the expense of orderly society. In the East the main object is to have a well-ordered society so that everybody can have maximum enjoyment of his freedoms. This freedom can only exist in an ordered state and not in a natural state of contention and anarchy.

4 thoughts on “Lee Kuan Yew

  1. shinichi Post author

    A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew
    by Fareed Zakaria
    Foreign Affairs by the Council on Foreign Relations
    (1994)
    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/49691/fareed-zakaria/a-conversation-with-lee-kuan-yew

    Lee Kuan Yew is unlike any politician I have met. There were no smiles, no jokes, no bonhomie. He looked straight at me, he has an inexpressive face but an intense gaze, shook hands and motioned toward one of the room’s pale blue leather sofas (I had already been told by his press secretary on which one to sit). After 30 awkward seconds, I realized that there would be no small talk. I pressed the record button on my machine.

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  2. shinichi Post author

    Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Asia’s Anti-Democratic Values
    by Kim Dae Jung
    Foreign Affairs by the Council on Foreign Relations
    (1994)
    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50557/kim-dae-jung/is-culture-destiny-the-myth-of-asias-anti-democratic-values

    In his interview with Foreign Affairs (March/April 1994), Singapore’s former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, presents interesting ideas about cultural differences between Western and East Asian societies and the political implications of those differences. Although he does not explicitly say so, his statements throughout the interview and his track record make it obvious that his admonition to Americans “not to foist their system indiscriminately on societies in which it will not work” implies that Western-style democracy is not applicable to East Asia. Considering the esteem in which he is held among world leaders and the prestige of this journal, this kind of argument is likely to have considerable impact and therefore deserves a careful reply.

    With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, socialism has been in retreat. Some people conclude that the Soviet demise was the result of the victory of capitalism over socialism. But I believe it represented the triumph of democracy over dictatorship. Without democracy, capitalism in Prussian Germany and Meiji Japan eventually met its tragic end. The many Latin American states that in recent decades embraced capitalism while rejecting democracy failed miserably. On the other hand, countries practicing democratic capitalism or democratic socialism, despite temporary setbacks, have prospered.

    In spite of these trends, lingering doubts remain about the applicability of and prospects for democracy in Asia. Such doubts have been raised mainly by Asia’s authoritarian leaders, Lee being the most articulate among them. They have long maintained that cultural differences make the “Western concept” of democracy and human rights inapplicable to East Asia. Does Asia have the philosophical and historical underpinnings suitable for democracy? Is democracy achievable there?

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  3. shinichi Post author

    East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia
    by Daniel A. Bell
    reviewed by Lucian W. Pye
    Foreign Affairs by the Council on Foreign Relations
    (2000)
    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/56540/lucian-w-pye/east-meets-west-human-rights-and-democracy-in-east-asia

    An American professor at Hong Kong University, Bell has hit upon a clever method for critiquing East Asian views of human rights and democracy-the contentious subjects of the “Asian values” debates-by developing long Platonic dialogues between fictional characters. His main protagonist is the American “Sam Demo,” an officer for a fictitious, U.S.-based nongovernmental organization called the National Endowment for Human Rights and Democracy. Demo first engages in rigorous discussions with a Hong Kong business executive and a human-rights activist before debating the pros and cons of democracy in Singapore with Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. His investigation concludes with a dialogue set in 2007 with a political philosophy professor at Beijing University on the possibility of Confucian-style democracy. By using this superb method for exploring philosophical issues, Bell has produced a tour de force of great depth. Fortunately for the author, Lee Kuan Yew has spoken his mind enough about the subject that Bell has no trouble using Lee’s own words. Demo, however, forces Lee to examine more closely certain points that he is prone to slip over. The sum effect is a solid philosophical work, respectful but tough-minded, that illuminates East Asian political perspectives and forces Americans to reexamine their own assumptions.

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  4. shinichi Post author

    (sk)

    1994年のインタビュー。今読み返してみると、面白い。

    インタビューの後、頼まれてもいないのに金大中はリー・クアンユーにチャレンジし、論争があったわけでもないのにどちらが正しいかなどと議論がなされた。

    2000年には、Daniel A. Bell が、”East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia” という本を出し、アメリカの人権や民主主義の優位性、普遍性を説いた。

    そして2001年には9.11が起こり、アメリカによる「民主主義と人権の世界への伝道」が始まった。

    インタビューから20年たった今、アメリカの銃、麻薬、暴力といった問題はそのままなにに対し、シンガポールはまったくといっていいほど別の国になった。

    理論とか考えとかとは別の次元で、物事は進んでいく。

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