From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

Achtung-
Achtung
over the loudspeakers, followed by instructions that were compelling
and insistent as German porters briskly went about their business. It reminded
me of the difference between the German and Italian armies described in
despatches from the battle fronts of World War II. I had read them in reports
carried by Allied news agencies when I was editing their cables during the
Japanese occupation.
I visited Willy Brandt in Bonn in September 1970 when he was the German
chancellor. We had met earlier in Brussels, in 1964, during the centennial of the
Socialist International. After my speech at that meeting, he came up and
sympathised with me over the communal riots in Singapore that had been
organised by supporters of the central government out to intimidate the Chinese.
He invited me to visit him. I likened Singapore to a West Berlin without the
advantage of the Federal Republic of Germany to back it. As a former mayor of
West Berlin he understood my predicament. He was the most sympathetic of all
European leaders to Singapore’s plight. I tried to convince him not to write off
Southeast Asia because I was confident we would overcome the communist
insurgencies threatening so many countries in the region. Brandt was attractive –
tall and broad-framed, with a friendly, handsome face and a good voice. He was
more visceral than cerebral in his reactions. Perhaps he allowed his heart to rule

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his head. He was a good old-fashioned socialist, always in favour of equalising
opportunities and rewards.
Helmut Schmidt, who took over from Brandt in 1974, was clearheaded and
tough-minded, with definite views on all key issues. He had contempt for the
equivocation on East-West issues of developing countries’ leaders who were
afraid to criticise the Soviet Union. Having been defence minister, then finance
minister, as chancellor he had a thorough grasp of economic, defence and
strategic issues.
He and his wife Loki visited Singapore in October 1978. In the three days
they spent here, we had the measure of each other and found much common
ground. When we recorded a television interview for a German television
station, the interlocutor was surprised that we seemed to think and talk alike on
so many issues.
I proposed to Schmidt that he set up a German-Singapore Institute to run
courses on advanced manufacturing and information technology, to help German
businesses set up in the region. He agreed. The institute turned out to be of great
benefit to German investors who were able to recruit technicians trained up to
German standards. Later Singapore became host for the training of other Third
World workers at this institute.
After my visit to Bonn and Berlin the following autumn, I wrote in a note to
the cabinet:
“Berlin looked more prosperous than in 1970, my last visit. But it lacked
the relaxed and free spirit of Bonn. The communists have a choker on the
people of West Berlin. They stifled the vibrancy of life, not enough to
give cause for protest, or to make newspaper headlines, but enough of a
constant and nagging pressure to remind Germans generally that they
have hostages in West Berlin. As I passed the Russian war memorial
with their guards standing like statues, I was reminded that they were
suppliers of weapons which were causing so much suffering in Indochina
and threatening Thailand. Without the flow of these weapons, there
would be no Vietnamese troops in Cambodia nor Cambodian refugees in
Thailand. … Our saving grace is that their system is so damnably
inefficient in providing the goods and services the people want.
Regimentation has left their people shabbier in spirit and poorer in
everything, except the capacity to make war. This inferiority, over time,
will become increasingly clear to everyone including their own people. If

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the West does not give the Soviets any opportunity to exploit their
military superiority, their system will be under profound stress by the
1990s.”
So it turned out.
I next met Schmidt in Bonn in January 1980, after the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. I was with a group of leaders, including Henry Kissinger, Ted
Heath and George Shultz, for a free-ranging discussion. We were unanimous
that the Soviet Union had to be resisted at all costs and the Afghan people
supported.
Schmidt stepped down from office in 1982 because his Social Democrat