From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

Party, one that went back to my student days in the Britain of the 1940s.

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She was an intense person, full of determination and drive, confident that she
could implement her domestic economic policy, but under no illusion about the
difficulties she would face from the unions. So when the coal miners’ strike
began in March 1984, I felt she would take the fight to the finish. But I did not
expect such nastiness in the clashes between the strikers and the police to last for
a whole year. Her predecessors would not have toughed it out.
In April 1985 Mrs Thatcher paid us an official visit. At dinner, I
congratulated her for trimming the excesses of the welfare state:
“For nearly four decades since the war, successive British governments
seemed to assume that the creation of wealth came about naturally, and
that what needed government attention and ingenuity was the
redistribution of wealth. So governments devised ingenious ways to
transfer incomes from the successful to the less successful. In this
climate, it requires a prime minister with very strong nerves to tell voters
the truth, that creators of wealth are precious members of a society who
deserve honour plus the right to keep a better part of their rewards … We
have used to advantage what Britain left behind: the English language,
the legal system, parliamentary government and impartial administration.
However, we have studiously avoided the practices of the welfare state.
We saw how a great people reduced themselves to mediocrity by
levelling down.”
Mrs Thatcher responded graciously in similar vein: “I like to think that once
you learnt it from Britain. And now we are relearning it from you. … Talent,
initiative, adventure, endeavour, risk, confidence, vigour have made Singapore
an example to other nations of success – an example whose clear message is that
you can’t enjoy the fruits of effort without first making the effort.”
The next day several pro-Labour British papers carried an outburst from
Labour shadow health minister Frank Dobson: “Mr Lee should keep his stupid
mouth closed.” A Labour MP, Allen Adams, added, “If we are going to take his
state as a model, the country would be going back to 1870 when people worked
in sweatshops around the clock for virtually nothing.” This was the stereotypical
Old Labour, minds that had not kept up with developments. In 1985 Singapore’s
per capita GDP was US$6,500 as against Britain’s US$8,200. By 1995
Singapore’s per capita GDP of US$26,000 had surpassed Britain’s US$19,700.
Our worker earned more than the British worker. He also owned his own home

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and had more savings (in his Central Provident Fund and POSBank accounts)
than the British worker.
When Mrs Thatcher resigned in November 1990, she sent me this farewell
letter:
“How unexpected life can be: who would have imagined that we should
both leave the highest office in our respective countries on almost the
same day, after so many years of working together. But as I leave, I just
wanted to say how enormously I have benefited from our association and
admired all that you stood for. One thing surely cannot be in doubt:
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings will be much duller
without either of us present!”
I had more dealings with Margaret Thatcher than with other British prime
ministers because she was in power for three terms. Of all the prime ministers, I
thought she offered the best hope for Britain. Her strengths were her passionate
belief in her country and her iron will to turn it around. She was convinced that
free enterprise and the free market led to a free society. Her basic political
instincts were sound though she tended to be too self-confident and self-
righteous. Her disadvantage, in a class-conscious Britain, was her background as
“the grocer’s daughter”. It was a pity that the British establishment still laboured
under these prejudices. By the time she left office Britons had become less class-
ridden.
However, Thatcher could provoke great antipathy from the prime ministers
of the old white dominions. At the Bahamas Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in 1985, both the Canadian and Australian prime ministers,
Brian Mulroney and Bob Hawke, badgered and pressed her to agree to economic
sanctions against South Africa. All the opening speeches at the conference
except hers attacked South Africa’s apartheid. Thatcher alone stood against
imposition of further sanctions on Pretoria, calling instead for a dialogue. I
respected her strength to withstand this isolation. She refused to be browbeaten
and bludgeoned into submission. Unfortunately, she was on the wrong side of
history.
John Major was chancellor of the exchequer when he accompanied Margaret
Thatcher to the CHOGM in Kuala Lumpur in October 1989. I met him again at
10 Downing Street in May 1996. He had a tough assignment. Margaret Thatcher
had thrown her weight behind his election as Conservative Party leader and

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prime minister and expected him to stick to her policies on Europe. Her
influence in the party made life difficult for him. The media too did not give him
much of a grace period, writing him off within months. And so, although the
economy was doing well, it did not help him against New Labour in May 1997.
I was struck by the youthful energy of Tony Blair when I first met him in
London in May 1995, when he was leader of the opposition. He was a year
younger than my son, Loong. Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, took notes and
followed up. Blair wanted to know the factors that made the difference between
East Asia’s high sustained growth and Britain and Europe’s more sluggish rates.
I suggested that he visit East Asia before the election and see its tremendous
transformation. After he took office he would be insulated by protocol.
The following January he visited Japan, Australia, then Singapore, where he
met our trade union leaders and saw the benefits they had obtained for union
members. He was interested in our individualised old-age pension accounts – the
Central Provident Fund (CPF), which also provided funds for home ownership
and medical services. He made no secret of his deep Christian beliefs which
made him a socialist or, as he added when I looked askance, a social democrat.
He was candid enough to repeat “or a social democrat”, something Old Labour
scorned. His “New Labour” was not a pose. He asked me what the prospects
were for a successful Labour government. I said he would have a difficult time,
once Labour was in government, getting Old Labour to accept his policy. The
Labour Party was much older than he was and would not change so easily.
A few days after Blair’s visit, Chris Smith, the shadow minister for social
security, came to study our system, and a few months later, Peter Mandelson, a
close aid of Tony Blair, came to look at our Medisave, health insurance and
other functions of Singapore’s CPF. Blair struck me as a serious politician
wanting to learn about the developments in East Asia and the reasons they were
successful. When we met again in London that autumn, there was an endless
flow of questions over dinner.
The studied humility with which he presented himself and his party after his
stupendous election victory in May 1997 was a tribute to his self-discipline. I
watched the television coverage of his victory speech and his walk to 10
Downing Street. It reflected well on his team. I was in London a month after he
won. We talked for an hour, and again wasted no time on pleasantries. He was
focused on the tasks he had set for his government in his election promises. He

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was on overdrive, but not unduly elated at having been thrust into power at such
a young age. We talked about China and the approaching handover of Hong
Kong at the end of June. He was pragmatic in not wanting to rake over the coals
Chris Patten had fired. Instead he was looking ahead to the longer-term future of
Sino-British ties. As I expected, he attended the handover ceremony and had
talks with President Jiang Zemin.
A year later, May 1998, when we again met at No. 10, he was all focused on
the pressing issues, especially the Northern Ireland peace talks. He found time to
discuss a range of other subjects, but not bilateral problems because there were
none. Our circumstances had changed; Singapore was no longer as involved with
Britain in matters of defence and security as with the United States, Australia
and New Zealand. My generation was Anglocentric, my son’s generation is
more focused on America. Loong and his contemporaries have to understand the
United States. They have trained in US military institutions and done
postgraduate studies in colleges like Harvard and Stanford. I lived under Pax
Britannica; Loong’s generation has to cope under Pax Americana.

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