From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

Party (SPD) would not support the policies he thought necessary to restore
financial discipline. He remained active, writing in 
Die Zeit
, a newspaper, and
chairing conferences of the InterAction Council, a group of former world leaders
who met annually to discuss long-term world problems in a totally dispassionate
and non-partisan manner. I became a member of his group after I stood down
from office in 1990.
Schmidt’s successor, Helmut Kohl, was a giant of a man, probably the
largest and tallest leader in the world then. On my visit to Bonn in May 1990 he
was eloquent on German reunification, then about to happen. It had to happen,
he said, and in the context of European unity. He was confident and optimistic
that he could manage the costs and problems of reunification. He dismissed any
suggestion of a “Fortress Europe”. Germany would not condone protectionism
and he was confident the German industry would be able to compete against the
Japanese.
I expressed concern that German reunification would consume so much
resources, energy and manpower that there would be little left over for the Asia
Pacific region. He assured me that he would not lose interest in East Asia. He
was most conscious that a reunified Germany, with some 20 million East
Germans added to 60 million West Germans, would raise fears among its
neighbours. He said that everybody wanted a united Germany to remain in
NATO, and although their motives for wanting this were not always “friendly”,
the end result was positive: “European unity and German unity are two sides of
the same medallion.”
He had equally strong views on China. There were many 
dummkoepfe
(blockheads) in the Federal Republic of Germany who wanted to isolate China
because of Tiananmen. It was the wrong approach. He agreed with Singapore’s

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policy of engaging China. China wanted a foot in Europe, particularly in
Germany which had the highest number of Chinese students in Europe, and they
would be the future modernisers of China.
Unlike the French, German industries and banks had been active in
Singapore and the region from the early 1970s, long before Chancellor Kohl
developed a personal interest. After the Dutch, the Germans were the largest
single European investor in Singapore, and our largest European trading partner.
Kohl visited Singapore in February 1993, two and a half years after German
reunification. He admitted the cost of integrating East Germany was more than
he had expected. Nevertheless he was accompanied by over 40 top German
industrialists. I urged him not to leave East Asia to the Americans and the
Japanese. Germany, Kohl said, was essentially outward-looking. He wanted
more economic and cultural links with the area. He invited me to visit Germany
to keep in touch. He wanted Singapore and German entrepreneurs to invest
together in China, Vietnam and other East Asian markets. (I visited him in May
1994 to keep him abreast of events.) He also spoke of Russia, that the European
Union was not treating the leaders in Moscow with the respect that was due. The
Russians were a proud people and felt belittled and slighted by this. If the correct
approach was not maintained, he was convinced Russian nationalists and
militarists would get back into power and “the whole cycle would start again”.
In November 1995 Kohl visited Singapore again and repeated his concern
over Russia. His European partners did not understand that Russia was crucial to
peace in Europe. They had to help Russia become stronger and more democratic
and not go back to dictatorship and expansionism. Europe would need Russia as
a balance against China. For these reasons, Germany was Russia’s top aid donor
with US$52 billion in 1989, more than half of all international assistance. He
despaired of the Americans. They were becoming inward-looking. The
Republicans were “as bad if not worse”. No Republican candidate had been to
Europe during a presidential election year as they had done in the years of the
Cold War.
He wanted my personal assessment to check against his official reports on
China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the
Philippines, and I gave him frank answers with no varnish. When I said that such
and such a country was a hopeless case, he would concur to say he would not
invest there. He was hard-headed and our assessments often matched.
In June 1996 Kohl took Choo and me over the Rhine in a helicopter to visit
Speyer, with its splendid 11th century cathedral, in his home state, Rhineland-

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Palatinate, in the heart of Europe. He had brought Mitterrand, Gorbachev,
Thatcher and others on this sentimental journey to the wine district of the
Rhineland. His wife joined us at his favourite restaurant, Deidesheim Hof, where
we tried some of his favourite dishes. During dinner he regaled me with stories
of his encounters with East Asian leaders he liked and some whom he found
prickly. He found Suharto an unassuming man and they became close friends.
Before he became chancellor, he had visited Suharto at his home. As he waited
in the hall admiring fish in an aquarium, a man wearing a sweater and a sarong
came out; together they watched the fish and then got into conversation. The
German ambassador who accompanied Kohl did not take notice of him. Only
after some time did Kohl realise this was the president himself. Suharto invited
him to stay for lunch and they spent four hours together. On another occasion,
Suharto took him to his farm to see his cattle, after which Kohl arranged for a
German stud bull to be sent. The next time he met Suharto, the president shook
his hand and said the bull had done a first-class job.
Kohl showed that he placed little weight on form and much on substance
when we travelled around Speyer, all of us, not in Mercedes limousines, but in a
Volkswagen people mover. When I gave him lunch in Singapore, he arrived in a
tour coach, in order, he told me, to have a better and more comfortable view of
the city.
Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl were not the best of friends and the
German media were intrigued that I got along well with both. When they asked
me, I replied it was my business to get on with whoever was the leader of
Germany, that I did not take sides. Kohl was often unfavourably compared with
Schmidt, his immediate predecessor. Schmidt is an intellectual, always tossing
out interesting ideas which he expounded with trenchant force and clarity in