From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

particularly Syria, but its influence everywhere else had declined. They had
given a lot of arms but had few friends. He was confident that, united, the West
had the ability to restore the general balance of power.
During his first two years as president, with Pierre Mauroy as prime minister,
Mitterrand followed standard socialist policies. He lowered interest rates,
expanded credit to mop up unemployment and nationalised several major
industries and banks. The French economy suffered. Old as he was, in his 70s,
Mitterrand’s ideology was not set in stone. He changed his prime minister and
pursued more conventional economic policies to control money supply and

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inflation, and restored steady if unspectacular growth. One achievement of his
14 years as president was to educate the French socialists and make them a party
of government.
We had a more substantial discussion for over an hour in September 1986
when his Concorde made a refuelling stop at Changi Airport. Protocol did not
require me to meet him, but I had found him a serious man. His was a 
tour
d’horizon
. With great insight, Mitterrand said that the Soviet empire was in such
a state that one mere accident would be enough to split central Europe from the
Soviet Union, that Soviet control was based on a balance of power which had
been in its favour. However, history had shown that the balance always shifted
and the ideological power of the Soviet Union was beginning to decline. A third
generation of communists believed that they could benefit from the experience
of the Western world, and this was causing weaknesses in the Soviet system.
He wholeheartedly agreed with me that Europe would be a much stronger
force in international affairs if it could speak in one voice. This was his great
ambition – a Europe of 320 million with great technological capabilities. He
believed English and French could serve as common languages in Europe, with
French equally powerful. But the unification had to be a slow process. If it were
a question of survival, Europe would undoubtedly be totally united. On the other
hand, Europe would always resist being swallowed by the American civilisation;
it would fight to maintain its distinct European identity. Americanisation, with
its fast foods, pop music and movies, was invading the basic European lifestyles.
He asked about the Cambodian situation, which he said appeared frozen. I
disagreed with his view because there was now cause for optimism. Communism
had been checked in the region, having reached its peak when North Vietnam
captured Saigon. Since then, the emptiness of the communist system, Vietnam’s
invasion and occupation of Cambodia and its own grinding poverty had
destroyed the image of idealism that communism had hitherto projected.
Mitterrand was surprised to learn that living standards in Vietnam were so
dreadfully low that, as I told him, they were happy to get food parcels from
relatives in America and France. The Vietnamese, I said, had made a grievous
strategic error in fighting China. By continuing its occupation of Cambodia,
Vietnam had to forego economic growth while the Asean countries were forging
ahead. Vietnam was already one generation behind Asean, and by the time they
found a solution to their Cambodian burden they would be lagging by two
generations.
I met Mitterrand again on an official visit in May 1990. He came out to the

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steps of the Élysée to greet me, an honour our ambassador noted. He again
expressed surprise at the failure of the Vietnamese who were “courageous,
imaginative and resourceful people”. I added that the Vietnamese knew that they
were able and could see that the Thais who were less hardworking and less
organised were the more successful, that it was their system that was at fault. To
put right the system, they would need a generation change at the top. Could there
be a grass-roots movement in Vietnam to overthrow the system as had happened
in Eastern Europe? I did not think so, because Vietnam had a long-established
tradition of emperors and strong leaders.
Mitterrand returned to the subject of the collapse of the Soviet empire and
with uncanny prescience predicted the re-emergence of “all sorts of nationalistic
forces that had long been suppressed”.
One able French prime minister was Edouard Balladur who led a Gaullist
government that cohabited with socialist President Mitterrand. We had met on
several previous occasions. His diplomatic adviser had been ambassador in
Singapore and a friend, so I knew Balladur was a man of considerable ability. I
was surprised, therefore, that he had some strange theories about trade. In his
office, with note-takers, he expounded his theory that liberalisation for free trade
could take place only between countries of similar social and economic
structures, otherwise the differences could lead to distortions and unfair
competition. He gave as example the French textile industry which would be lost
in another 10–15 years because of competition from China, Taiwan and South
Korea. I disagreed with him and argued that protection of any country’s industry
was no longer possible except at great cost. Companies were global in reach, an
irreversible result of progress in technology, especially in global
communications. Firms sourced material from one country, used labour from
another, set up production plants in a third and marketed their products in a
fourth.
Although he agreed with my views in general, he could not but take a
protectionist position, because of fears over the loss of jobs whenever companies
relocated their production plants out of France. He agreed that economic
competition should be honest and fair, adding that Japanese car manufacturers
did not compete fairly as they possessed certain advantages. I found this an
eccentric and odd explanation from a man of undoubted intellect.
A similar view was put to me by Jacques Chirac when, as mayor of Paris, he

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met me in Singapore at the end of 1993. He had read the speech I made at the
Asahi Forum that October when he was in Tokyo. He found my proposition that
Europe was protectionist absurd. Europe was the most open market in the world
with the lowest tariffs. The real protectionists, he argued, were Japan and the
United States. It was unfair to blame France or the European Commission for
blocking the Uruguay Round negotiations because it refused to give up Europe’s
Common Agricultural Policy. I countered that if there were no free trade, then
the world must prepare for another war. The Chinese had built their ancient
empire because they needed to establish order over a wide expanse of territory
and its many peoples so that goods and services could be exchanged freely
within their empire. When all parts of the globe were carved up into various
empires as before World War II, war resulted from competition for more raw
materials, more markets and more wealth.
We next discussed French agriculture and the Uruguay Round. I had listened
to a BBC programme on the plight of the French farmers and how the French
countryside had suffered. But this was part and parcel of the technological
revolution. French farmers could not be protected forever and ever to keep their
way of life unchanged. Chirac retorted that France needed to protect its
agriculture, but he wanted me to know that he shared my views on free trade.
For its own long-term interest there was no way other than free trade, hence
France was the least protectionist.
I quoted former GATT Director-General Arthur Dunkel as an expert witness
that France was protectionist. The then director-general, Peter Sutherland, also
said so. Chirac interjected to say that he had no confidence in Sutherland. I said
the EEC president, Jacques Delors, had confidence in Sutherland, to which
Chirac promptly replied that he had no confidence in Delors as well!
Chirac said we could not convince each other, so it was best if we agreed to
disagree. In the end he did move the position of Balladur’s government so that a
settlement was reached on the Uruguay Round. Since we first met in 1974,
Chirac and I had become friends and could talk freely and frankly to each other
without giving or taking offence.
I was struck by the deep interest both Chirac and the German chancellor,
Helmut Kohl, had in China and East Asia. I discussed this with Prime Minister
Goh Chok Tong and suggested that he launch an initiative for regular meetings
between leaders of the European Union (EU) and East Asia. The Americans had

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regular meetings with East Asia through APEC, and with the EU through many
organisations. But the EU and East Asia had no formal meetings that could
foster trade, investments and cultural exchanges. Goh took it up with French
Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, and the first Asia-Europe meeting of leaders
was held in Bangkok in February 1996. Visiting Asian countries on their way to
or after that meeting, many European leaders discovered the extent of the East
Asian industrial transformation, and decided on biennial meetings of EU and
East Asian leaders.
My first encounter with Germans was at Frankfurt airport in April 1956. The
British Overseas Airways Corporation “Argonaut” had stopped in Rome where I
heard mellifluous if languid announcements over the loudspeakers as Italian
porters trundled baggage leisurely. On arrival at Frankfurt a few hours later I felt
the air appreciably cooler and crisper, as if to match the peremptory