Lee Kuan Yew

Childhood and early education

Lee as a child

Lee was born at home on 16 September 1923, the first child to Lee Chin Koon, a Semarang born Singaporean,^[19] and Chua Jim Neo, at 92 Kampong Java Road in Singapore, then part of the British Empire.^[20] Both of Lee's parents were English-educated third-generation Straits Chinese,^[21] with his paternal side being of Hakka descent from Dabu County.^[22][23] He was named 'Kuan Yew',^[a] meaning 'light and brightness', alternately meaning 'bringing great glory to one's ancestors'. Lee's paternal grandfather Lee Hoon Leong, who was described as "especially westernised", had worked on British ships as a purser, and hence gave Lee the Western name 'Harry'.^[24] While the family spoke English as its first language, Lee also learned Malay.^[20] Lee would have three brothers and one sister, all of whom lived till old age.^[25]

Lee was not close to his father, who worked as a storekeeper within the Shell Oil Company and had a gambling addiction. His mother Chua would often stand up against her husband for his poor fiscal management and parenting skills.^[26] The family was considered prosperous with a high social standing compared to recent immigrants and had the expenses to hire servants.^[27] During the Great Depression the family fortunes declined considerably, though Lee's father retained his job at Shell.^[20] Later in life, Lee described his father as a man with a nasty temper and credited his mother with holding the family together amidst her husband's gambling addiction.^[28][29]

In 1930, Lee enrolled at Telok Kurau English School where he spent six years of his primary education.^[30][31] Attending Raffles Institution in 1935, Lee did poorly in his first two years but later topped the Junior Cambridge examinations.^[32] He also joined the Scouts and partook in several physical activities and debates.^[33] Lee was the top scorer in the Senior Cambridge examinations in 1940 across the Straits Settlements and Malaya, gaining the John Anderson scholarship to attend Raffles College.^[b] During the prize-awarding ceremony, Lee met his future wife Kwa Geok Choo; she was the only girl at the school.^[32] His subsequent university studies at Raffles College were disrupted by the onset of World War II in Asia, with the school being converted into a medical facility in 1941. The war arrived in December of that year and following the British surrender in February 1942, the Japanese occupation of Singapore began.^[34]

World War II

Lee was amongst the Chinese men rounded up by the Japanese Sook Ching operation. By his own account, he feared getting caught by the Kempeitai (military police) and reported with a friend to be screened. He attempted to leave the next morning but was ordered to join a group of already segregated men. Lee requested to collect his clothes first and managed to spend a second night in the dormitory before successfully leaving the site the next day when a different guard cleared him through.^[35] He later learned that the group of men were likely taken to the beach and executed.^[36]

Lee obtained a Japanese language proficiency certificate in August 1942 and worked in a friend's company and then the Kumiai, which controlled essential items.^[37] He got a job with the Japanese propaganda department (Hōdōbu) in late 1943 and worked for the Japanese occupation force as an English specialist.^[38][39] Working at the top of the Cathay Building, he was assigned to listen to Allied radio stations for Morse code signals.^[40][41][42] By late 1944, Lee knew Japan had suffered major setbacks and planned to move to the Cameron Highlands with his family to avoid a possible British invasion. He was tipped off that he was being followed and abandoned the plan.^[43] He engaged in private enterprises and black market sales for the rest of the war.^[44]

The rapid Japanese victory in the Malaya-Singapore campaign had a major impact on Lee as he recalled: "In 70 days of surprises, upsets and stupidities, British colonial society was shattered, and with it all the assumptions of the Englishman's superiority".^[45] In a radio broadcast made in 1961, Lee said he "emerged [from the war] determined that no one—neither Japanese nor British—had the right to push and kick us around... (and) that we could govern ourselves."^[46] It also influenced his perceptions of raw power and the effectiveness of harsh punishment in deterring crime.^[47]

University, marriage and politics

Family photo on the eve of Lee's (back row, centre) departure for the United Kingdom.

Lee chose not to return to Raffles College after the war and pursued higher education in the United Kingdom.^[26] He sailed from Singapore on his 23rd birthday on the MV Britannic, arriving in the UK on 3 October.^[48] He initially enrolled at the London School of Economics, but found himself disliking life in the British capital.^[49][50] He visited Cambridge in November and was introduced to W. S. Thatcher, Censor of Fitzwilliam House. He was admitted into the following year's Lent term and matriculated in January 1947, reading law at Fitzwilliam College.^[51]

Prior to his departure from Singapore, Lee had begun a relationship with Kwa, whom he had kept in contact during the war. They married in secret at Stratford-upon-Avon in December.^[26] Lee graduated First Class in both parts of the Tripos with an exceptional Starred-First for Part II Law in 1949 with Kwa. As the top student of his cohort, he was awarded the Fitzwilliam's Whitlock Prize; Lee was called to the Bar from the Middle Temple in 1950.^[51]

During his studies, Lee's political convictions and anti-colonial sentiments were hardened by personal experiences and an increasing belief that the British were ruling Singapore for their own benefit. He supported the Labour Party against the Conservatives whom he perceived as opposing decolonisation.^[53] In the leadup to the 1950 United Kingdom general election, Lee engaged in politics for the first time and actively campaigned for a friend, David Widdicombe in Totnes constituency, driving Widdicombe around in a lorry and delivering several speeches on his behalf.^[54]

Before returning to Singapore, Lee dropped his English name, Harry.^[c] Notwithstanding, even until the end of his life, old friends and relatives referred to him as Harry.^[56]

Discover more about Early life related topics

Chua Jim Neo

Chua Jim Neo

Chua Jim Neo was a Singaporean chef and cookbook writer best known for Mrs. Lee's Cookbook, which preserves the recipes of Peranakan cuisine. Chua was also the mother of Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore.

British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as the Sun was always shining on at least one of its territories.

Hakka people

Hakka people

The Hakka, sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Guizhou in China, as well as in Taoyuan City, Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, Pingtung County, and Kaohsiung City in Taiwan. The Chinese characters for Hakka literally mean "guest families". Unlike other Han Chinese subgroups, the Hakkas are not named after a geographical region, e.g. a province, county or city, in China. The word Hakka or "guest families" is Cantonese in origin and originally refers to the Northern Chinese migrants fleeing social unrest, upheaval and invasions in northern parts of China during the Qing dynasty who then sought sanctuary in the Cantonese provinces such as Guangdong and Guangxi, thus the original meaning of the word implies that they are guests living in the Cantonese provinces. Of course, over the centuries, they have since more or less assimilated with the Cantonese people. Modern day Hakka are generally identified by both full Hakka and by different degrees of Hakka ancestry and usually speak Hakka Chinese.

Dabu County

Dabu County

Dabu County is a county in Meizhou City, in the east of Guangdong Province, China. A center of Hakka culture, it has a population of 375,000.

Purser

Purser

A purser is the person on a ship principally responsible for the handling of money on board. On modern merchant ships, the purser is the officer responsible for all administration and supply. Frequently, the cooks and stewards answer to the purser as well. They were also called a pusser in British naval slang.

Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression (1929–1939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion began around September and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.

List of primary schools in Singapore

List of primary schools in Singapore

This is a list of primary schools in Singapore. Children typically start their primary education in the year they turn seven. Primary education lasts six years, and is compulsory for all Singapore citizens.

Raffles Institution

Raffles Institution

Raffles Institution (RI) is an independent educational institution in Singapore. Founded in 1823, it is the oldest school in the country. It provides secondary education for boys only from Year 1 to Year 4, and pre-university education for both boys and girls in Year 5 and Year 6. Since 2007, RI and its affiliated school Raffles Girls' School have been offering the six-year Raffles Programme, which allows students to skip the Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level examinations and proceed to take the Singapore-Cambridge GCE A-Level examinations at the end of Year 6.

GCE Ordinary Level

GCE Ordinary Level

The O-Level is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education. It began in the United Kingdom and has been adopted, often with modifications, in several other countries.

Kwa Geok Choo

Kwa Geok Choo

Kwa Geok Choo was a Singaporean lawyer. She was the wife of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the mother of current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. She was also the co-founder and partner of law firm Lee & Lee.

Bombing of Singapore (1941)

Bombing of Singapore (1941)

The bombing of Singapore was an attack on 8 December 1941 by seventeen G3M Nell bombers of Mihoro Air Group, Imperial Japanese Navy, flying from Thu Dau Mot in southern Indochina. The attack began at around 0430, shortly after Japanese forces landed on Kota Bharu, Kelantan in northern Malaya. It was the first knowledge the Singapore population had that war had broken out in the Far East.

Japanese occupation of Singapore

Japanese occupation of Singapore

Syonan , officially Syonan Island , was the name for Singapore when it was occupied and ruled by the Empire of Japan, following the fall and surrender of British military forces on 15 February 1942 during World War II.

Litigation practice

Lee's barrister's wig and container, on display in the National Museum of Singapore.

Lee and his wife returned to Singapore in August 1950 onboard the MS Willem Ruys.^[57] He joined the Laycock and Ong law firm founded by British lawyer John Laycock.^[58] Laycock was a co-founder of the pro-British Progressive Party and Lee represented the party during the 1951 legislative council election as an election agent.^[59] Lee was called to the Singapore bar on 7 August 1951.^[60]

During the postal union strike in May 1952, Lee negotiated a settlement which would mark his first step into the labour movement.^[61] In due course, Lee represented nearly fifty trade unions and associations against the British authorities on a pro bono basis.^[62] The disputes often centered around wages and Laycock eventually requested Lee to cease taking on such cases as it was hurting the firm.^[63][64] Activists and clients said that Lee was preparing to enter politics and was trying to burnish his 'pro-labour' credentials among the trade unions, which he later confirmed.^[65]

In May 1954, the left-wing University Socialist Club published an article 'Aggression in Asia' in the club's magazine The Fajar, and the student editors were charged with sedition.^[66][67] Lee became junior counsel to Denis Pritt. The court squashed the charges and the two counsel gained a reputation through the trial, with Lee thereafter becoming a "major leader" of the movement against British rule.^[68][69] During the same year, Lee also appealed on behalf of the students arrested during the 13 May incident. The colonial government upheld the sentences, though the case enhanced Lee's reputation as a "left-wing lawyer" and marked his first involvement with the Chinese intelligentsia.^[70][71]

Forming the PAP

Furniture from 38 Oxley Road, where the People's Action Party was founded.

During his studies in Britain, Lee met Goh Keng Swee and Toh Chin Chye via the Malayan Forum.^[72] The forum sought to promote an independent Malaya which included Singapore and met at 44 Bryanston Square in London.^[73][74] Lee and his contemporaries deliberately avoided the topic of forming a political party to avoid charges of subversion, beginning work on forming a political party only after returning to Singapore.^[75]

Lee had sought to build support among the English-educated, Malay, and Indian communities by taking on cases against the British authorities. In the course of his work, Lee became acquainted with the journalist Sinnathamby Rajaratnam; Abdul Samad Ismail, a writer for the Malay newspaper Utusan Melayu; and Devan Nair.^[76] He next turned his attention to the Chinese-speaking majority and was introduced to Lim Chin Siong and Fong Swee Suan, leaders of the influential bus and factories unions. While the unions had been infiltrated by communists, Lee consciously sought their support as he wanted a popular front.^[77] With elections approaching in 1955, Lee and his associates debated the name, ideology, and policies of the party they wanted to create at 38 Oxley Road.^[78]

The People's Action Party (PAP) was inaugurated on 21 November 1954 at the Victoria Memorial Hall. As the party still lacked members, trade union leaders rounded up an estimated audience of 800 to 1,500 supporters.^[79] Lee had also invited Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tan Cheng Lock, presidents of the United Malays National Organisation and Malayan Chinese Association. In his inaugural speech, Lee denounced the British for the slow transition to self-rule, demanded their immediate withdrawal, and said that the PAP would pursue a Singapore-Malaya union. Lee became secretary-general of the party, a post he held until 1992, barring a brief period in 1957.^[80][81]

In July 1953, Governor John Nicoll initiated the Rendel Commission to provide for a transition to self-rule. The commission created the legislative assembly and opened 25 of 32 seats for direct contest in the upcoming 1955 election. The PAP and Labour Front, led by Lee and David Marshall respectively, both criticized the concessions as "inadequate". The PAP faced manpower constraints but decided to prioritise resources and contest four seats as a protest gesture.^[82] In a rally speech, Lee said he chose the Tanjong Pagar division as it was a "working class area" and that he did not want to represent "wealthy merchants or landlords".^[83]

During the campaigning period, the British press labelled Lee as a "commissar" and accused the PAP of being a "communist-backed party".^[84] Democratic Party (DP) challenger Lam Thian also capitalized on Lee's inability to converse in Chinese. Lee's proposal for a multilingual debate was never reciprocated by Thian, though he eventually made his maiden Chinese speech after several hours of coaching.^[85][86] On polling day, 2 April, the ruling Progressive Party captured only four seats, shocking both the British establishment and its opposition. Lee defeated his competitors and won Tanjong Pagar, with the PAP winning three of their four contested seats. He pledged to work with Marshall and the new Labour Front government.^[87]

Discover more about Early career (1951–1955) related topics

National Museum of Singapore

National Museum of Singapore

The National Museum of Singapore is a public museum dedicated to Singaporean art, culture and history. Located within the country's Civic District at the Downtown Core area, it is the oldest museum in the country, with its history dating back to when it was first established in 1849, starting out as a section of a library at the Singapore Institution as the Raffles Library and Museum.

John Laycock

John Laycock

Christopher John Laycock was a British lawyer, the founder of one of Singapore's earliest law firms, Laycock and Ong. He was also one of the founders of the Singapore Progressive Party.

1951 Singaporean general election

1951 Singaporean general election

General elections were held in Singapore on 10 April 1951 to elect members to nine seats in the Legislative Council, up from six seats in the 1948 elections. A 32-day-long campaign period was scheduled, with nomination day on 8 March 1951. The result was a victory for the Progressive Party, which won six of the nine seats.

Pro bono

Pro bono

Pro bono publico, usually shortened to pro bono, is a Latin phrase that means for the public good.

Denis Pritt

Denis Pritt

Denis Nowell Pritt, QC was a British barrister and left-wing Labour Party politician. Born in Harlesden, Middlesex, he was educated at Winchester College and the University of London.

1954 National Service riots

1954 National Service riots

In December 1953, the British colonial government in Singapore passed the National Service Ordinance, requiring all male British subjects and Federal citizens between the ages of 18–20 to register for part-time National Service. The deadline for registration was on 12 May 1954 and those who fail to register would either be jailed or fined. On 12 May 1954, students from the Chinese Middle Schools still did not register themselves for National Service. In light of the impending deadline for registration and with requests from the Chinese students, Chief Secretary William Goode would later meet representatives from the affected student body in the government house on 13 May 1954.

Goh Keng Swee

Goh Keng Swee

Goh Keng Swee, born Robert Goh Keng Swee, was a Singaporean politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1973 and 1985. Goh is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of Singapore. He was also one of the founders of the People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence.

Abdul Samad Ismail

Abdul Samad Ismail

Tan Sri Abdul Samad bin Ismail, who often went by the moniker Pak Samad, was a Malaysian journalist, writer and editor.

Devan Nair

Devan Nair

Chengara Veetil Devan Nair, also known as C. V. Devan Nair and better known simply as Devan Nair, was a Malaysian-Singaporean politician who served as the third president of Singapore from 1981 until his resignation in 1985.

Lim Chin Siong

Lim Chin Siong

Lim Chin Siong was a Singaporean politician and union leader active in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s. He was one of the founders of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence. Lim also used his popularity to galvanise many trade unions in support of the PAP.

38 Oxley Road

38 Oxley Road

38 Oxley Road was the residence of the first prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew from the 1940s until his death in 2015. The house was built in the late 19th century and is an eight-bedroom two-storey bungalow located near Orchard Road. The first meeting of the People's Action Party (PAP) occurred in the basement.

People's Action Party

People's Action Party

The People's Action Party is a major conservative centre-right political party in Singapore and is one of the three contemporary political parties represented in Parliament, alongside the opposition Workers' Party (WP) and Progress Singapore Party (PSP).

Strikes and power struggle

On 23 April 1955, workers from the Hock Lee Amalgamated Bus Company began a strike under the direction of Fong Swee Suan, leader of the Singapore Buses Workers' Union (SBWU).^[89][90] As SBWU's legal advisor, Lee worked with Marshall's government to negotiate a resolution, which was initially agreed by the SBWU but then reneged on by the company.^[91] Seeking to exert greater pressure, Lee, Fong and Lim Chin Siong addressed the strikers on 1 May (May Day), where Lee called the government a "half-past six democracy".^[92] The strike subsequently escalated into a riot on 12 May.^[93]

Lee, Marshall and the company agreed on a further resolution on 14 May, which conceded to several of the strikers' demands.^[94] In an emergency legislative assembly sitting on 16 May, Chief Secretary William Goode accused Lee of losing control of the PAP to Lim.^[91] Lee was constrained between defending the actions of his colleagues and denouncing them, instead reiterating the PAP's committal to non-violence.^[95] Marshall defended him and the PAP as "decent men" against Goode's accusations and called upon the party to "purge themselves of communists".^[91][94]

The riot led the public to perceive the PAP as being led by "young, immature and troublesome politicians", resulting in a shortfall of new members.^[96] It deepened the divide between two emerging factions, with Lee's faction advocating Fabian's brand of socialism for gradual reform and Lim's faction, later described by Fong as "favour(ing) a more radical approach".^[97] Lee was convinced that Lim and Fong's influence were pushing the party toward "political disaster".^[88] After consulting his allies Toh Chin Chye, S. Rajaratnam and Byrne, Lee censured the two men privately and demanded they change strategies or leave the party.^[98]

By 1956, Lee believed that the PAP "had been captured by the communists" and privately endorsed the Labour Front government purge of suspected "leftists" in the aftermath of the 1956 Chinese middle schools riots. The arrestees included his rival Lim and several other PAP members.^[99] When other leftist members captured six seats in the PAP central executive committee (CEC) elections on 4 August 1957,^[100] Lee refused to allow his allies to assume their appointments and said that his faction had "lost their moral right" to enforce the party's founding philosophy.^[101] Overtures were made by fellow CEC member T. T. Rajah to remain in his post, to which he declined.^[100] The government arrested the leftist leaders on 22 August^[102][103] and Lee was restored as secretary-general on 20 October. He later blamed the attempted takeover on lax admission rules to the party^[104][105] and permanently distrusted the leftists thereafter.^[103][104] On 23 November 1958, the party constitution was amended to implement a cadre system.^[105] The right to vote in party elections and run for office were revoked from ordinary party members, whom now had to seek approval from the CEC to be a cadre and regain these privileges.^[106] Lee credited the Vatican system where the pope pre-selects its cardinals for the idea.^[107]

Merdeka talks

The Labour Front government's conciliatory approach to the Hock Lee strikers led to a drastic increase in strikes.^[94] Frustrated by his limited powers, Marshall demanded further constitutional reforms towards the aim of "true self-government". Lee supported Marshall in his efforts, though he initially threatened an opposition boycott over wording disputes in the agreement.^[108]

Between 1956 and 1958, there would be three rounds of constitutional talks.^[109] Lee was part of Marshall's 13-member delegation to London in April 1956. Marshall's demands for independence were repeatedly rejected by Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd and Lee departed early over Marshall's refusal to compromise.^[110][111] He criticised Marshall for his "political ineptitude" in the British press and received widespread media and radio coverage.^[112] He returned to London in March 1957 as part of a five-member delegation led by the new chief minister Lim Yew Hock.^[113] Britain conceded to Singapore's self-governance but also demanded that a tripartite Internal Security Council be established, which proved controversial back home.^[113] Marshall challenged Lee to seek a fresh mandate from his Tanjong Pagar constituents, which Lee accepted.^[114] In the June 1957 by-elections, Lee was reelected with 68.1% of the vote.^[115]

Lee returned to London for the third and final talks in May 1958,^[116] where it was agreed that Singapore would assume self-governance with a Yang di-Pertuan Negara as head of state, with Britain retaining control of defence and foreign policy.^[117] The British House of Lords passed the State of Singapore Act on 24 July 1958, which received royal assent on 1 August, and would become law following the next general election.^[118]

1957 and 1959 elections

As the 1957 City Council election in December approached, a Hokkien-speaking candidate, Ong Eng Guan, became the PAP's new face to the Chinese electorate.^[103] The 32-seat city council's functions were restricted to up-keeping public amenities within city limits, but party leaders decided to contest the election as a "dry run" for the upcoming general election.^[119] Lee limited the PAP to contesting 14 seats to avoid provoking the government and formed an electoral pact with the Labour Front and United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) to jointly tackle the new Liberal Socialist Party.^[d][121] The PAP campaigned on a slogan to "sweep the city clean"^[120] and emerged with 13 seats, allowing it to form a minority administration with UMNO's support. Lee and the rest of the CEC unanimously endorsed Ong to become mayor.^[119]

Early in 1959, Communications and Works Minister Francis Thomas received evidence of corruption on Education Minister Chew Swee Kee. Thomas brought the evidence to Lee after the chief minister dismissed the matter.^[122] Lee tabled a motion in the assembly on 17 February, which forced Chew's resignation.^[122] As the expiry of the assembly's term approached, the PAP was initially split on whether to capture power but Lee chose to proceed.^[123] While picking the candidates, Lee deliberately chose people from different racial and education backgrounds to repair the party's image of being run by intellectuals.^[124] In the 1959 general election held on 30 May 1959, the PAP won a landslide victory with 43 of the 51 seats, though with only 53.4% of the popular vote which Lee noted.^[124][125]

The PAP's victory reportedly created a dilemma within the 12-member CEC as there was no formal process in place to choose a prime minister-elect.^[126] A vote was purportedly held between Lee and Ong Eng Guan and after both men received six votes, party chairman Toh Chin Chye cast the tie-breaking vote for Lee.^[127] When interviewed nearly five decades later, Toh and one other party member recalled the vote, but Lee and several others denied the account.^[127] Lee was summoned by Governor William Goode to form a new government on 1 June, to which he requested the release of arrested PAP members.^[128] On 3 June, Singapore became a self-governing state, ending 140 years of direct British rule.^[128] Lee was sworn in as Prime Minister of Singapore on 5 June at City Hall, along with the rest of his Cabinet.^[128]

Discover more about Leader of the Opposition (1955–1959) related topics

Lim Chin Siong

Lim Chin Siong

Lim Chin Siong was a Singaporean politician and union leader active in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s. He was one of the founders of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence. Lim also used his popularity to galvanise many trade unions in support of the PAP.

Labour Day (Singapore)

Labour Day (Singapore)

In Singapore, May Day is celebrated on 1 May each year as a mark of solidarity amongst workers. The celebration of May Day as a public holiday began only in 1960 after the People's Action Party came into power. Before then, only workers defined as such under the Labour Ordinance 1955 and those defined as industrial clerks under the Clerks Employment Ordinance 1957 were given paid holidays.

Hock Lee bus riots

Hock Lee bus riots

The Hock Lee bus riots took place on 24 April 1955 in Singapore. The riots started as a result of confrontation between the police, bus workers of the Hock Lee Amalgamated Bus Company and students who supported the bus workers.

Fabian Society

Fabian Society

The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.

S. Rajaratnam

S. Rajaratnam

Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, better known as S. Rajaratnam, was a Singaporean politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1980 and 1985. Rajaratnam is widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of Singapore. He was also one of the founders of the People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence.

Kenneth Michael Byrne

Kenneth Michael Byrne

Kenneth Michael Byrne was a Singaporean politician, diplomat and lawyer who served as Minister for Health between 1961 and 1963, Minister for Labour between 1959 and 1961 and Minister for Law between 1959 and 1963.

Chinese middle schools riots

Chinese middle schools riots

The Chinese middle schools riots were a series of riots that broke out in the Chinese Singaporean community in 1956, resulting in 13 people killed and more than 120 injured.

Lim Yew Hock

Lim Yew Hock

Lim Yew Hock was a Singaporean-born Malaysian politician and diplomat who served as Chief Minister of Singapore between 1956 and 1959. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cairnhill between 1959 and 1963 and previously a Member of the Legislative Council and later Legislative Assembly between 1948 and 1963. He and his family elected to take up Malaysian citizenship after Singapore's independence from Malaysia.

1957 Singaporean by-elections

1957 Singaporean by-elections

A by-election was held on 29 June 1957, with nomination day occurring on 18 May 1957 in the Cairnhill, and Tanjong Pagar constituency. When talks with the British authorities for self-governance broke down, Chief Minister David Marshall decided to resign from the Labour Front on 7 June 1956. Marshall had also challenged opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew from the People's Action Party to resign and recontest his Tanjong Pagar constituency as well, which he did.

House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England.

Royal assent

Royal assent

Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in others that is a separate step. Under a modern constitutional monarchy, royal assent is considered little more than a formality. Even in nations such as the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein and Monaco which still, in theory, permit their monarch to withhold assent to laws, the monarch almost never does so, except in a dire political emergency or on advice of government. While the power to veto by withholding royal assent was once exercised often by European monarchs, such an occurrence has been very rare since the eighteenth century.

Ong Eng Guan

Ong Eng Guan

Ong Eng Guan was a Singaporean politician who served as Minister for National Development between 1959 and 1960. An anti-communist, Ong was a Chinese-educated orator who became popular among the Chinese community in Singapore. He was also one of the pioneering members of the governing People's Action Party (PAP). He was elected into the City Council of Singapore and became the first and only elected mayor in Singapore's history after the 1957 City Council election.

First years in power

One of the original HDB flats constructed in 1960, picture in July 2021.

Lee's first speech as prime minister to a 50,000-strong audience at the Padang sought to dampen his supporters' euphoria of the PAP's electoral win.^[125] In the first month of Lee taking power, Singapore experienced an economic slump as foreign capital fell and Western businesses and expatriates left for Kuala Lumpur in Malaya, fearing the new government's anti-colonial zeal.^[125] As part of an 'anti-yellow culture' drive, Lee banned jukeboxes and pinball machines, while the police under Home Affairs Minister Ong Pang Boon raided pubs and pornography publications.^[e][129] The government cracked down on secret societies, prostitution and other illegal activities, with TIME magazine later reporting that a full week passed without "kidnapping, extortion or gangland rumble(s)" for the first time.^[129] Lee also spearheaded several 'mobilisation campaigns' to clean the city, introduced air-conditioning to government offices, and slashed the salaries of civil servants. The last act provoked anger from the sector, which Lee justified as necessary to balance the budget.^[130]

In February 1960, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) superseded the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) and assumed responsibility of public housing. With strong government support, the HDB under chairman Lim Kim San completed more flats in three years than its predecessor did in thirty-two.^[131] Government expenditure for public utilities, healthcare and education also increased significantly.^[131] By the end of the year, however, unemployment began to rise drastically as the economy slowed. Lee reversed anti-colonial policies and launched a five-year plan to build new industries, seeking to attract foreign investors and rival Hong Kong.^[132][133] Jurong, a swampland to the island's western coast was chosen to be the site of a new industrial estate and would house steel mills, shipyards, and oil refineries, though Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee was initially worried the venture would fail.^[134]

The government promoted multiculturalism by recognizing Malay, English, Tamil and Chinese as the official languages of the new state and sought to create a new national Malayan identity. The Ministry of Culture under S. Rajaratnam held free outdoor concerts with every ethnic race represented in the performances.^[135] Lee also introduced the People's Association, a government-linked organisation to run community centers and youth clubs, with its leaders trained to spread the PAP's ideology.^[135] Youth unemployment was alleviated by the establishment of work brigades.^[135]

PAP split of 1961

Lim Chin Siong was Lee's main political rival and formed the Barisan Sosialis after his expulsion from the PAP.

Lee took measures to secure his position in the aftermath of the 1957 party elections. In 1959, he delayed the release of leftist PAP members arrested under the former Labour Front government and appointed five of its leaders,^[f] including Lim Chin Siong, as parliamentary secretaries lacking political power.^[128][137] Lee clashed further with Lim when the government sought to create a centralised labour union in the first half of 1960.^[138] Trouble also arose from former mayor and Minister of National Development Ong Eng Guan, who Lee had appointed in recognition of Ong's contribution to the PAP's electoral win.^[138][139] Ong's relocation of his ministry to his Hong Lim stronghold and continued castigation of the British and civil servants was regarded by his colleagues as disruptive and Lee removed several portfolios from Ong's purview in February 1960.^[140][139]

In the party conference on 18 June 1960, Ong filed "16 resolutions" against the leadership, accusing Lee of failing to seek party consensus when deciding policy, not adhering to anti-colonialism and suspending left-wing unions.^[141] Lee regarded it as a move to split the party and together with his allies expelled Ong from the party.^[142] Ong resigned his seat in December, precipitating the Hong Lim by-election on in April 1961 which he won against a PAP candidate.^[140][143] The death of the PAP assemblyman for Anson that April triggered a second by-election. For the first time, Lim's faction openly revolted against Lee and endorsed Workers' Party chairman David Marshall who won the seat.^[140][144]

Lee assumed responsibility for the two by-election defeats and submitted his resignation to party chairman Toh Chin Chye on 17 July. Toh rejected it and upheld Lee's mandate.^[145] Lee moved a motion of confidence in his own government in the early hours of 21 July after a thirteen-hour debate which had begun the preceding day, narrowly surviving it with 27 "Ayes", 8 "Noes" and 16 abstentions.^[146] The PAP now commanded a single seat majority in the 51-seat assembly after 13 of its members had abstained.^[147] Lee expelled the 13 who had broken ranks in addition to Lim, Fong and Woodhull.^[147]

Leadup to referendum and merger

Lee worked with Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman in the lead up to merger.

Lee and his colleagues believed that Singapore could only survive through merger with Malaya and was unwilling to call for complete independence.^[148] Merger would allow goods to be exported to the peninsula under a common market, while devolving unpopular internal security measures to Kuala Lumpur.^[148][149] Malaya's ruling Alliance Party coalition dominated by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) had repeatedly opposed the scheme and was apprehensive that Singapore's Chinese majority would reduce 'Malay political supremacy'.^[150] Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman backtracked after the PAP's Hong Lim by-election defeat, fearing a "pro-communist government" in Singapore should Lee fall from power.^[149] On 27 May 1961, Tunku announced that Malaya, Singapore, and the British colonies of North Borneo and Sarawak should pursue "political and economic cooperation".^[149] Lee endorsed the program six days later and commenced negotiations on the formation of Malaysia.^[149]

In August 1961, Lee and Tunku agreed that Singapore's defence, foreign affairs and internal security would be transferred to the federal government, while education and labour policy remained with the state government.^[149][151] Lim Chin Siong and his supporters saw Lee's ceding control of internal security—then controlled by the Internal Security Council with British, Malayan, Singaporean representatives—to the federal government as a threat as Tunku was convinced they were communists.^[149] In a meeting with British Commissioner General Lord Selkirk, Selkirk reaffirmed that the British would not suspend Singapore's constitution should Lee be voted out.^[149] Lee saw the meeting as a British endorsement of Lim and accused it as a plot against his government.^[152] On 13 August, Lim founded the Barisan Sosialis and became its secretary-general, with 35 of 51 branches of the PAP defecting.^[147][153] Lee anticipated a Barisan win in the next election and saw 'independence through merger' as the only means for the PAP to retain power.^[150]

Lee and Goh crafted the ballot to favour option A.

Beginning on 13 September 1961, Lee gave twelve multilingual radio speeches outlining the benefits of merger in what he called the 'Battle for Merger'. The speeches proved to be a massive success for Lee's campaign, while Barisan's demands for equal airtime were rejected.^[154] Lee employed full use of state resources to suppress his opponents by revoking the Barisan's printing permits, banning or relocating its rallies, and purging its supporters from the government, while the judiciary and police engaged to "obstruct, provoke and isolate" the party.^[155] The Barisan lambasted Lee for securing only 15 seats in the Malaysian parliament for Singapore in contrast to North Borneo (16) and Sarawak (24), despite both having a combined population well below Singapore's 1.7 million.^[156] Singapore citizens would also be categorized as "nationals" and not be granted Malaysian citizenship.^[156][157] On 6 December, the legislative assembly voted 33–0 in favour of the agreements struck by Lee and Tunku, which the Barisan boycotted.^[158]

A referendum for merger was scheduled for 1 September 1962. Lee ensured that the ballot lacked a "no" option, with all three options having varying terms for admission into Malaysia.^[156] The ballot was crafted by Lee and Goh Keng Swee to capitalise on a mistake which the Barisan had made the previous year. The Barisan had inadvertently endorsed merger under terms "like Penang" (a state of Malaya) with full citizenship rights, not realising that Malayan law entitled only a native-born to qualify for automatic citizenship, which would disenfranchise nearly one third of those eligible to vote;^[159] it issued a clarification but never recovered from the mistake.^[160] Lee placed the flag of Singapore alongside option A with the terms of Singapore retaining control of education and labour policy, while portraying the Barisan's choice as option B favouring entry into the federation with no special rights, next to the flag of Penang.^[161] When Lim called for his supporters to submit blank votes, Lee countered that blank votes would count as a vote for the majority choice. 71% eventually voted for option A, while 26% cast blank votes.^[162] In November, Lee embarked on a ten-month visit to all fifty-one constituencies, prioritizing those with the highest count of blank votes.^[163]

Operation Coldstore detentions

The Malayan government considered the arrests of Singapore's left-wing groups as non-negotiable for the formation of Malaysia.^[164][165] Tunku felt that Lee lacked the initiative to suppress "pro-communist elements" and warned that a Malay-led dictatorship would be instated to prevent a "socialist majority" in the next Malayan election.^[158] As the Malayans increased pressure on the Internal Security Council (ISC) to take action, Lee began supporting the idea of a purge in March 1962.^[166] The Malayan and Singapore special branches collaborated on an arrest list of major opposition members, though doubts arose if Lim Chin Siong and Fong Swee Suan could be classified as 'communists'.^[166] Up until the end of November 1962, the British declined to support the operation without a pretext, noting that Lim and the Barisan Sosialis had not broken any laws.^[167]

The Brunei revolt on 8 December led by A. M. Azahari provided a "heaven-sent opportunity" to take action, as Lim had met Azahari on 3 December.^[168] The Malayan government convened the ISC to discuss the operation, while Singapore's Special Branch produced alleged evidence of the communist control of Barisan.^[168] On 13 December, Lord Selkirk gave his authorisation for the arrests to proceed on 16 December. However, Lee's attempt to add two Malayan parliamentarians opposed to the formation of Malaysia into the arrest list caused the Malayan representative to rescind his consent, stopping the operation.^[168] Tunku suspected that Lee was trying to eliminate his entire opposition, while Lee felt that Tunku was evading his shared responsibility for the arrests.^[163]

An ISC meeting was scheduled to be held on 1 February 1963 to remount the operation.^[169] During the interim period, Lee had added three names from the United People's Party, one of them being former PAP minister Ong Eng Guan.^[169] Selkirk expressed concerns that Ong's arrest lacked any justification and Lee conceded that it was meant as a "warning" to Ong.^[169] Tunku told Geofroy Tory, the British High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur on 30 January, that 'if this operation failed, merger with Singapore was off'.^[169] Selkirk was pressured to put his reservations aside and finally consented.^[169] On 2 February, Operation Coldstore commenced across Singapore, with 113 detained including Lim and 23 others from Barisan Sosialis.^[170][171] Lee offered Lim a path into exile which Lim rejected.^[172] The Malayans and British later pressured Lee to retract his comment when he said he "disapproved" of the operation.^[170]

In his memoirs, Lee portrayed himself as reluctant in supporting the operation, though declassified British documents revealed that Lee was "somewhat more enthusiastic" than he eventually admitted.^[173]

Discover more about Prime Minister, State of Singapore (1959–1963) related topics

First Lee Kuan Yew Cabinet

First Lee Kuan Yew Cabinet

The First Lee Kuan Yew Cabinet was the Cabinet of Singapore from 5 June 1959 to 18 October 1963. The cabinet was led by Lee Kuan Yew, who was elected as prime minister. It was formed on 5 June 1959, after securing a landslide victory in the 1959 general election.

Padang, Singapore

Padang, Singapore

The Padang is an open playing field located within the Downtown Core of the Central Area in Singapore. It includes the Padang Cricket Ground. The Padang is surrounded by several important landmarks, which include Saint Andrew's Cathedral, City Hall, the Old Supreme Court Building and the City Hall MRT station.

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur, officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and colloquially referred to as KL, is a federal territory and the ceremonial, legislative and judicial capital city of Malaysia. It is one of the fastest growing cities in Asia and the largest city in Malaysia, covering an area of 243 km2 (94 sq mi) with a census population of 1,982,112 as of 2020. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.564 million people as of 2018. It is among the fastest growing metropolitan regions in Southeast Asia, both in population and economic development.

Ong Pang Boon

Ong Pang Boon

Ong Pang Boon is a Singaporean retired politician who served as Minister for Home Affairs between 1959 and 1963 and again for a short period of time in 1970, Minister for Education between 1963 and 1970, Minister for Labour between 1971 and 1981, and Minister for the Environment between 1981 and 1985.

Housing and Development Board

Housing and Development Board

The Housing & Development Board (HDB) or often referred to as the Housing Board, is a statutory board under the Ministry of National Development responsible for Singapore's public housing. Founded in 1960 as a result of efforts in the late 1950s to set up an authority to take over the Singapore Improvement Trust's (SIT) public housing responsibilities, the HDB focused on the construction of emergency housing and the resettlement of kampong residents into public housing in the first few years of its existence.

Lim Kim San

Lim Kim San

Lim Kim San was a Singaporean politician who served as a Cabinet minister between 1965 and 1981. He was credited for leading a successful public housing programme in the country during the early 1960s, which eased the acute housing shortage problem at that time.

British Hong Kong

British Hong Kong

Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the British occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841, during the First Opium War between the British and the Qing dynasty. The Qing had wanted to enforce its prohibition of opium importation within the dynasty that was being exported mostly from British India, as it was causing widespread addiction among its populace.

Jurong

Jurong

Jurong is a major geographical region located at the south-westernmost point of the West Region of Singapore. Although mostly vaguely defined, the region's extent roughly covers the planning areas of Jurong East, Jurong West, Boon Lay, and Pioneer, along with Jurong Island in the Western Islands cluster and the southernmost portions of the Western Water Catchment. Should it be described at its greatest historical extent, the region can also include present-day Bukit Batok and Tuas.

People's Association

People's Association

The People's Association (PA) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) of the Government of Singapore that oversees neighbourhood communities and social organisations. Established in 1960, it was part of a nation-building programme to promote social cohesion and multiracialism.

Barisan Sosialis

Barisan Sosialis

Barisan Sosialis was a political party in Singapore. It was formed on 29 July 1961 and officially registered on 13 August 1961 by left-wing members of the People's Action Party (PAP) who had been expelled from the PAP. The prominent founding members of the Barisan were Lee Siew Choh and Lim Chin Siong. It became the biggest opposition party in Singapore in the 1960s and the 1980s.

Ong Eng Guan

Ong Eng Guan

Ong Eng Guan was a Singaporean politician who served as Minister for National Development between 1959 and 1960. An anti-communist, Ong was a Chinese-educated orator who became popular among the Chinese community in Singapore. He was also one of the pioneering members of the governing People's Action Party (PAP). He was elected into the City Council of Singapore and became the first and only elected mayor in Singapore's history after the 1957 City Council election.

1961 Singaporean by-elections

1961 Singaporean by-elections

Two by-elections were held in 1961. The first by-election, for the Hong Lim constituency, was held on 29 April with the nomination day held on 11 March, while the second by-election, for the Anson constituency, was held on 15 July with the nomination day held on 10 June.

Elections and tensions

Lee's proclamation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963; note the two flags atop the City Hall building.

On 31 August 1963, Lee declared Singapore's independence in a ceremony at the Padang and pledged loyalty to the federal government.^[174] With the conclusion of the trials of Barsian Sosialis' leaders, Lee dissolved the legislative assembly on 3 September and called for a snap election.^[175][176] He touted "independence through merger" as a success and utilised television and the mass media effectively.^[177] In conjunction with Sabah (formerly North Borneo) and Sarawak, Lee proclaimed Singapore as part of Malaysia in a second ceremony on 16 September accompanied by a military parade.^[178][g] Lim Chin Siong's arrest had however generated widespread sympathy for the Barisan and a close result was predicted. Australian and British officials expected a Barisan win.^[179] When the PAP defeated the Barisan in a landslide victory on 21 September, it was seen as a public endorsement of merger and Lee's socio-economic policies.^[177][180]

Relations between the PAP and Malaysia's ruling Alliance Party quickly deteriorated as Lee began espousing his policies to the rest of the country. The United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) was also shocked by the loss of three Malay-majority seats to the PAP in the recent 1963 Singapore election.^[181] Ultra-nationalists within UMNO alleged that Lee sought to overthrow the Malay monarchies and infringe on rural life.^[181] Lee's attempts to reconcile the PAP with UMNO were rebuffed as the latter remained committed to the Malaysian Chinese Association.^[181] Further hostility ensued when the PAP decided to contest in the 1964 Malaysian general election in contravention of a gentlemen's agreement that it would disavow itself from peninsula politics.^[182] Lee's speeches in Malaysia attracted large crowds and he expected the PAP to win at least seven parliamentary seats.^[183] The party ultimately won only one seat in Bangsar, Selangor under Devan Nair.^[182] Lee and other party insiders later conceded that UMNO's portrayal of the PAP as a "Chinese party" and its lack of grassroots in the peninsula had undermined its support from the Malay majority.^[182][184]

Ethnic tensions had risen prior to the April election when UMNO secretary-general Syed Jaafar Albar utilised the Utusan Melayu to accuse Lee of evicting Malays from their homes in March 1964.^[185] Lee explained personally to the affected neighbourhoods that the scheme was part of an urban renewal plan and that eviction notices had been sent to everyone irrespective of race.^[186] Albar responded by warning Lee to not "treat the sons of the soil as step-children" and led calls for the deaths of Lee and Social Affairs Minister Othman bin Wok on 12 July.^[186] On 21 July, the 1964 race riots in Singapore erupted during a celebration of Prophet Muhammad's birthday, lasting four days, killing 22 and injuring 461.^[187] Further riots occurred in late-August and early-September resulting in communities self-segregating from each other, which Lee characterized as "terribly disheartening" and against "everything we had believed in and worked for".^[185] Lee never forgot the Malay PAP leaders who stood against UMNO during the turmoil and as late as 1998, paid tribute to them for Singapore's survival.^[188]

Malaysian Malaysia and separation

Lee's perceptions that merger was becoming infeasible was also due to the federal government's obstruction of his industrialisation program and its imposition of new taxes on Singapore in November 1964.^[186] He authorised Goh Keng Swee to renegotiate with Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein on Singapore's place in the federation in early 1965.^[186] Seeking to provide an alternative to the Alliance Party government, Lee and his colleagues formed the Malaysian Solidarity Convention (MSC) with the Malayan and Sarawakian opposition on 9 May, with its goals for a Malaysian Malaysia and race-blind society.^[186][189] The MSC was seen by UMNO as a threat to the Malay monopoly of power and special rights granted to Malays under Article 153.^[190][191] UMNO supreme council member and future prime minister Mahathir Mohamad called the PAP "pro-Chinese, communist-oriented and positively anti-Malay", while others called for Lee's arrest under the Internal Security Act for trying to split the federation.^[190][192] Mathathir in his speech stated the huaren (ethnic Chinese) of Singapore were of "the insular, selfish and arrogant type of which Mr. Lee is a good example...They are in fact Chinese first, seeing China as the center of the world and Malaysia as a very poor second".^[193]

Such fears were sincerely felt by the UNMO leaders as one UMNO politician who was friendly with Lee privately told him: "You Chinese are too energetic and clever for us...we cannot stand the pressure".^[194] Many UMNO politicians felt threatened by Lee, a politician who sought to appeal to both ethnic Chinese and Malay voters.^[193] Albar warned in a speech that the Malay voters of Singapore must have been "misled" into voting for the PAP, and the UNMO would not allow this to happen in the next election.^[193] Lee later wrote of Tunku that was "a nice man", but "he was a prince who understood power and knew how to use it. He did not carry a big stick, but he had many hatchet-bearers who would do the job for him while he looked the other way and appeared as benign as ever".^[193] Tunku was a Malay aristocrat who spent his undergraduate years at Cambridge by his own admission on "fast women" rather than studying and whom Lee contemptuously noted had been awarded a degree at Cambridge that he did not deserve solely because he was an aristocrat.^[195] Tunku in turn felt threatened by Lee, a man who had worked his way up via his intelligence and self-discipline, which made him very different from the people in his world.^[195]

On 26 May, Lee addressed the Malaysian parliament for the final time, delivering his speech entirely in the Malay language. He challenged the Alliance Party to commit itself to a Malaysian Malaysia and denounce its extremists, and also argued that the PAP could better uplift the livelihood of the Malays.^[190] Then-social affairs minister Othman Wok later recounted: "I noticed that while he was speaking, the Alliance leaders sitting in front of us, they sank lower and lower because they were embarrassed this man (Lee) could speak Malay better than them".^[196] Then-national development minister Lim Kim San also noted: "That was the turning point. They perceived [Lee] as a dangerous man who could one day be the prime minister of Malaya. This was the speech that changed history."^[196] Prime Minister Tunku labelled the speech as the final straw which contributed to his decision on 29 June that Singapore's secession was necessary.^[197] The more extreme UMNO politicians such as Albar were pressing to have Lee arrested and martial law proclaimed, but Tunku chose to accept Singapore's secession instead.^[195] The British Prime Minister Harold Wilson also quietly pressured Tunku to accept Singapore's secession, and warned him against a declaration of martial law.^[195] As Britain was defending Malaysia from Indonesian attempts to annex the country, Britain was in a strong position to apply pressure on Malaysia. Lee in his memoirs stated that Singapore owed Wilson a major debt for his role in pressuring Tunku for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.^[198]

Lee summoned Law Minister Edmund W. Barker to draft documents effecting Singapore's separation from the federation and its proclamation of independence. In order to ensure that a 1962 agreement to draw water from Johor was retained, Lee insisted that it be enshrined in the separation agreement and Malaysian constitution.^[199] The negotiations of post-separation relations were held in utmost secrecy and Lee tried to prevent secession until he was persuaded to finally relent by Goh on 7 August.^[190][200] That day, Lee and several cabinet ministers signed the separation agreement at Razak's home, which stipulated continued co-operation in trade and mutual defence.^[201] He returned to Singapore the following day and convened the rest of his cabinet to sign the document, whereupon it was flown back to Kuala Lumpur.^[200][202]

On 9 August 1965 at 10am, Tunku convened the Malaysian parliament and moved the Constitution of Malaysia (Singapore Amendment) Bill 1965, which passed unanimously by a vote of 126–0 with no PAP representatives present.^[203] Singapore's independence was announced locally via radio at the same time and Lee broke the news to senior diplomats and civil servants.^[202][204] In a televised press conference that day, Lee fought back tears and briefly stopped to regain his composure as he formally announced the news to an anxious population:^[205]

Every time we look back on this moment when we signed this agreement which severed Singapore from Malaysia, it will be a moment of anguish. For me it is a moment of anguish because all my life. ... You see, the whole of my adult life [...] I have believed in Malaysian merger and the unity of these two territories. You know, it's a people connected by geography, economics, and ties of kinship.^[206]

Discover more about Prime Minister, Singapore in Malaysia (1963–1965) related topics

1963 Singaporean general election

1963 Singaporean general election

General elections were held in Singapore on 21 September 1963. The elections saw the Malaysian ruling party, United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), backed with Singapore Alliance Party (SAP) in an attempt to oust the People's Action Party (PAP), after violating previous agreement not to do so and a highlight in the relations between UMNO and the PAP. However, the result was a victory for the PAP, which won 37 of the 51 seats in the Singapore Legislative Assembly. The Alliance, which broke its agreement not to contest the election, saw it losing all its 7 seats which it held prior to the election. Their participation in the election, in violation of the agreement between the two parties, would prompt the PAP to contest the next federal election held in Peninsula Malaysia the 1964, further adding to more tension between the two ruling parties. The 1963 election was the only election to date with no boundary changes to any of the 51 existing constituencies.

Singapore in Malaysia

Singapore in Malaysia

Singapore, officially the State of Singapore, was one of the 14 states of Malaysia from 1963 to 1965. Malaysia was formed on 16 September 1963 by the merger of the Federation of Malaya with the former British colonies of North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. This marked the end of the 144-year British rule in Singapore which began with the founding of modern Singapore by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. At the time of merger, it was the smallest state in the country by land area, and was the country's largest city behind the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

City Hall, Singapore

City Hall, Singapore

The City Hall in Singapore is a national monument gazetted on 14 February 1992. It can be found in front of the historical Padang and adjacent to the Supreme Court of Singapore, it was designed and built by the architects of the Singapore Municipal Commission, A. Gordans and F. D. Meadows from 1926 to 1929. A flight of stairs takes visitors from the Corinthian colonnade to the main building. The building was constructed to replace several houses designed by architect G.D. Coleman. It was first known as Municipal Building until 1951 when Singapore was granted city status by King George VI.

Sabah

Sabah

Sabah is a state of Malaysia located on the northern portion of Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalimantan province to the south. The Federal Territory of Labuan is an island just off Sabah's west coast. Sabah shares maritime borders with Vietnam to the west and the Philippines to the north and east. Kota Kinabalu is the region capital city, the economic centre of the region, and the seat of the Sabah region government. Other major towns in Sabah include Sandakan and Tawau. The 2020 census recorded a population of 3,418,785 in the state. It has an equatorial climate with tropical rainforests, abundant with animal and plant species. The state has long mountain ranges on the west side which forms part of the Crocker Range National Park. Kinabatangan River, the second longest river in Malaysia runs through Sabah. The highest point of Sabah, Mount Kinabalu is also the highest point of Malaysia.

Sarawak

Sarawak

Sarawak is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, Kalimantan to the south, and Brunei in the north. The capital city, Kuching, is the largest city in Sarawak, the economic centre of the state, and the seat of the Sarawak state government. Other cities and towns in Sarawak include Miri, Sibu, and Bintulu. As of the 2022, the population of Sarawak was 2.97 million. Sarawak has an equatorial climate with tropical rainforests and abundant animal and plant species. It has several prominent cave systems at Gunung Mulu National Park. Rajang River is the longest river in Malaysia; Bakun Dam, one of the largest dams in Southeast Asia, is located on one of its tributaries, the Balui River. Mount Murud is the highest point in the state. Sarawak is the only state of Malaysia with a Christian majority.

Alliance Party (Malaysia)

Alliance Party (Malaysia)

The Alliance Party was a political coalition in Malaysia. The Alliance Party, whose membership comprised United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), was formally registered as a political organisation on 30 October 1957. It was the ruling coalition of Malaya from 1957 to 1963, and Malaysia from 1963 to 1973. The coalition became the Barisan Nasional in 1973.

Monarchies of Malaysia

Monarchies of Malaysia

The monarchies of Malaysia refer to the constitutional monarchy system as practised in Malaysia. The political system of Malaysia is based on the Westminster parliamentary system in combination with features of a federation.

Malaysian Chinese Association

Malaysian Chinese Association

The Malaysian Chinese Association is a uni-racial political party in Malaysia that seeks to represent the Malaysian Chinese ethnicity; it was one of the three original major component parties of the coalition party in Malaysia called the Alliance Party, which later became a broader coalition called Barisan Nasional in Malay, or National Front in English.

1964 Malaysian general election

1964 Malaysian general election

General elections were held in Malaysia on Saturday, 25 April 1964 to elect members of the second parliament. Voting took place in 104 out of 159 parliamentary constituencies of Malaysia, each electing one Member of Parliament to the Dewan Rakyat, the dominant house of Parliament. State elections also took place in 282 state constituencies in 11 states of Malaysia on the same day, each electing one Member of the Legislative Assembly to the Dewan Undangan Negeri.

Gentlemen's agreement

Gentlemen's agreement

A gentlemen's agreement, or gentleman's agreement, is an informal and legally non-binding agreement between two or more parties. It is typically oral, but it may be written or simply understood as part of an unspoken agreement by convention or through mutually-beneficial etiquette. The essence of a gentlemen's agreement is that it relies upon the honor of the parties for its fulfillment, rather than being in any way enforceable. It is distinct from a legal agreement or contract.

Grassroots

Grassroots

A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to affect change at the local, regional, national or international level. Grassroots movements are associated with bottom-up, rather than top-down decision-making, and are sometimes considered more natural or spontaneous than more traditional power structures.

Bumiputera (Malaysia)

Bumiputera (Malaysia)

Bumiputera or Bumiputra is a term used in Malaysia to describe Malays, the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia, and various indigenous peoples of East Malaysia. The term is sometimes controversial, and has similar usage in the Malay world, used similarly in Indonesia and Brunei.

Despite the momentous event, Lee did not call for the parliament to convene to reconcile issues that Singapore would face immediately as a new nation. Without giving further instructions on who should act in his absence, he went into isolation for six weeks, unreachable by phone, on an isolated chalet. According to then-deputy prime minister Toh Chin Chye, the parliament hung in "suspended animation" until the sitting in December that year.^[207]

In his memoirs, Lee said that he was unable to sleep. Upon learning of Lee's condition from the British High Commissioner to Singapore, John Robb, the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, expressed concern, in response to which Lee replied:

Do not worry about Singapore. My colleagues and I are sane, rational people even in our moments of anguish. We will weigh all possible consequences before we make any move on the political chessboard.^[208]

Lee began to seek international recognition of Singapore's independence. Singapore joined the United Nations on 21 September 1965, and founded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on 8 August 1967 with four other South-East Asian countries. Lee made his first official visit to Indonesia on 25 May 1973, just a few years after the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation under Sukarno's regime. Relations between Singapore and Indonesia substantially improved as subsequent visits were made between the two countries.

Singapore has never had a dominant culture to which immigrants could assimilate even though Malay was the dominant language at that time.^[209] Together with efforts from the government and ruling party, Lee tried to create a unique Singaporean identity in the 1970s and 1980s—one which heavily recognised racial consciousness within the umbrella of multiculturalism.

Lee and his government stressed the importance of maintaining religious tolerance and racial harmony, and they were ready to use the law to counter any threat that might incite ethnic and religious violence. For example, Lee warned against "insensitive evangelisation", by which he referred to instances of Christian proselytising directed at Malays. In 1974 the government advised the Bible Society of Singapore to stop publishing religious material in Malay.^[210]

Defence

The vulnerability of Singapore was deeply felt, with threats from multiple sources including the communists and Indonesia with its confrontational stance. Adding to this vulnerability was the impending withdrawal of British forces from East of Suez. As Singapore gained admission to the United Nations, Lee quickly sought international recognition of Singapore's independence. He appointed Goh Keng Swee as Minister for the Interior and Defence to build up the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and requested help from other countries, particularly Israel and Taiwan, for advice, training and facilities.^[211] In 1967, Lee introduced conscription for all able-bodied male Singaporean citizens age 18 to serve National Service (NS) either in the SAF, Singapore Police Force or the Singapore Civil Defence Force. By 1971, Singapore had 17 national service battalions (16,000 men) with 14 battalions (11,000 men) in the reserves.^[212] In 1975, Lee and Republic of China premier Chiang Ching-kuo signed an agreement permitting Singaporean troops to train in Taiwan, under the codename "Project Starlight".^[213]

Economy

One of Lee's most urgent tasks upon Singapore's independence was to address high unemployment. Together with his economic aide, Economic Development Board chairman Hon Sui Sen, and in consultation with Dutch economist Albert Winsemius, Lee set up factories and initially focused on the manufacturing industry. Before the British completely withdrew from Singapore in 1971, Lee also persuaded the British not to destroy their dock and had the British naval dockyard later converted for civilian use.

Eventually, Lee and his cabinet decided the best way to boost Singapore's economy was to attract foreign investments from multinational corporations (MNCs). By establishing First World infrastructure and standards in Singapore, the new nation could attract American, Japanese and European entrepreneurs and professionals to set up base there. By the 1970s, the arrival of MNCs like Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard and General Electric laid the foundations, turning Singapore into a major electronics exporter the following decade.^[214] Workers were frequently retrained to familiarise themselves with the work systems and cultures of foreign companies. The government also started several new industries, such as steel mills under 'National Iron and Steel Mills', service industries like Neptune Orient Lines, and the Singapore Airlines.^[215]

Lee and his cabinet also worked to establish Singapore as an international financial centre. Foreign bankers were assured of the reliability of Singapore's social conditions, with top-class infrastructure and skilled professionals, and investors were made to understand that the Singapore government would pursue sound macroeconomic policies, with budget surpluses, leading to a stable valued Singapore dollar.^[216]

Throughout the tenure of his office, Lee placed great importance on developing the economy, and his attention to detail on this aspect went even to the extent of connecting it with other facets of Singapore, including the country's extensive and meticulous tending of its international image of being a "Garden City",^[217] something that has been sustained to this day.

Anti-corruption measures

Lee introduced legislation giving the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) greater power to conduct arrests, search, call up witnesses, and investigate bank accounts and income-tax returns of suspected persons and their families.^[218] Lee believed that ministers should be well paid in order to maintain a clean and honest government. On 21 November 1986, Lee received a complaint of corruption against then Minister for National Development Teh Cheang Wan.^[219] Lee authorised the CPIB to carry out investigations on Teh, but Teh committed suicide before any charges could be pressed against him.^[220] In 1994, he proposed to link the salaries of ministers, judges, and top civil servants to the salaries of top professionals in the private sector, arguing that this would help recruit and retain talent to serve in the public sector.^[221]

Population policies

In the late 1960s, fearing that Singapore's growing population might overburden the developing economy, Lee started a "Stop at Two" family planning campaign. Couples were urged to undergo sterilisation after their second child. Third or fourth children were given lower priorities in education and such families received fewer economic rebates.^[221]

In 1983, Lee sparked the "Great Marriage Debate" when he encouraged Singapore men to choose highly educated women as wives.^[222] He was concerned that a large number of graduate women were unmarried.^[223] Some sections of the population, including graduate women, were upset by his views.^[223] Nevertheless, a match-making agency, the Social Development Unit (SDU),^[224] was set up to promote socialising among men and women graduates.^[221] In the Graduate Mothers Scheme, Lee also introduced incentives such as tax rebates, schooling, and housing priorities for graduate mothers who had three or four children, in a reversal of the over-successful "Stop at Two" family planning campaign in the 1960s and 1970s.

Lee suggested that perhaps the campaign for women's rights had been too successful:

Equal employment opportunities, yes, but we shouldn't get our women into jobs where they cannot, at the same time, be mothers...our most valuable asset is in the ability of our people, yet we are frittering away this asset through the unintended consequences of changes in our education policy and equal career opportunities for women. This has affected their traditional role ... as mothers, the creators and protectors of the next generation.

— Lee Kuan Yew, "Talent for the future", 14 August 1983^[225]

The uproar over the proposal led to a swing of 12.9 percent against the PAP government in the 1984 general election. In 1985, some especially controversial portions of the policy, that gave education and housing priorities to educated women, were abandoned or modified.^[226][221]

By the late 1990s the birth rate had fallen so low that Lee's successor Goh Chok Tong extended these incentives to all married women, and gave even more incentives, such as the "baby bonus" scheme.^[221]

Water resources

Singapore has traditionally relied on water from Malaysia. However, this reliance has made Singapore subject to the possibility of price increases and allowed Malaysian officials to use the water reliance as political leverage by threatening to cut off supply. To reduce this problem, Lee decided to experiment with water recycling in 1974.^[227] As a result of such efforts, Singapore has achieved self-sufficiency with its water supply since the mid-2010s.^[228]

Foreign policy

Malaysia and Mahathir Mohamad

Mahathir Mohamad

Lee looked forward to improving relationships with Mahathir Mohamad upon the latter's promotion to Deputy Prime Minister. Knowing that Mahathir was in line to become the next Prime Minister of Malaysia, Lee invited Mahathir to visit Singapore in 1978. The first and subsequent visits improved both personal and diplomatic relationships between them. Then UMNO's Secretary-General Mahathir asked Lee to cut off all links with the Democratic Action Party; in exchange, Mahathir undertook not to interfere in the affairs of Malay Singaporeans.

In June 1988, Lee and Mahathir reached an agreement in Kuala Lumpur to build the Linggui dam on the Johor River.^[229] Lee said he had made more progress solving bilateral issues with Dr Mahathir from 1981 to 1990 than in the previous 12 years with the latter's two predecessors, Tun Abdul Razak and Tun Hussein Onn.^[192] Mahathir ordered the lifting of the ban on the export of construction materials to Singapore in 1981, agreed to sort out Malaysia's claim to Pedra Branca island and affirmed it would honour the 1962 Water Agreement.^[192]

One day before Lee left office in November 1990, Malaysia and Singapore signed the Malaysia–Singapore Points of Agreement of 1990 (POA). Malayan Railways (KTM) would vacate the Tanjong Pagar railway station and move to Bukit Timah while all KTM's land between Bukit Timah and Tanjong Pagar would revert to Singapore. Railway land at Tanjong Pagar would be handed over to a private limited company for joint development, the equity of which would be divided 60% to Malaysia and 40% to Singapore. However, Prime Minister Mahathir expressed his displeasure with the POA, for it failed to include a piece of railway land in Bukit Timah for joint development in 1993. Not until 2010 was the matter resolved, under Malaysia's Najib Razak and Lee's son, Lee Hsien Loong.

Following Lee's death, Mahathir posted a blog post that suggested his respect for Lee despite their differences, stating that while "I am afraid on most other issues we could not agree [...] [h]is passage marks the end of the period when those who fought for independence lead their countries and knew the value of independence. ASEAN lost a strong leadership after President Suharto and Lee Kuan Yew".^[230]

United States

Lee Kuan Yew and his wife Kwa Geok Choo with United States President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan on 8 October 1985 at the White House

Lee fully supported the US involvement in the Vietnam War. Even as the war began to lose its popularity in the United States, Lee made his first official visit to the United States in October 1967, and declared to President Lyndon B. Johnson that his support for the war in Vietnam was "unequivocal". Lee saw the war as necessary for states in Southeast Asia like Singapore to buy time for stabilizing their governments and economies.^[231][232] Lee cultivated close relationships with presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan,^[233] as well as former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger^[234] and George Shultz.^[235] In 1967 Nixon, who was running for president in 1968, visited Singapore and met with Lee, who advised that the United States had much to gain by engaging with China, culminating in Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China.^[236]

In the 1980s, closer defence relations between Singapore and the United States enabled Singapore to acquire advanced American weapon platforms and capabilities. The United States provided Singapore with aircraft such as the F-16 and the E-2C airborne early warning (AEW) to strengthen its air defences.^[237]

In October 1985, Lee made a state visit to the United States on the invitation of President Reagan and addressed a joint session of the United States Congress. Lee stressed to Congress the importance of free trade and urged it not to turn towards protectionism.

It is inherent in America's position as the preeminent economic, political and military power to have to settle and uphold the rules for orderly change and progress... In the interests of peace and security America must uphold the rules of international conduct which rewards peaceful cooperative behaviour and punishes transgressions of the peace. A replay of the depression of the 1930s, which led to World War II, will be ruinous for all. All the major powers of the West share the responsibility of not repeating this mistake. But America's is the primary responsibility, for she is the anchor economy of the free-market economies of the world.^[233]

In May 1988, E. Mason "Hank" Hendrickson was serving as the First Secretary of the United States Embassy when he was expelled by the Singapore government.^{[238][239][240]} The Singapore government alleged that Hendrickson attempted to interfere in Singapore's internal affairs by cultivating opposition figures in a "Marxist conspiracy".^[241] Then-First Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong claimed that Hendrickson's alleged conspiracy could have resulted in the election of 20 or 30 opposition politicians to Parliament, which in his words could lead to "horrendous" effects, possibly even the paralysis and fall of the Singapore government.^[242] In the aftermath of Hendrickson's expulsion, the U.S. State Department praised Hendrickson's performance in Singapore and denied any impropriety in his actions.^[238] The State Department also expelled Robert Chua, a senior-level Singaporean diplomat equal in rank to Hendrickson, from Washington, D.C. in response.^[243][244] The State Department's refusal to reprimand Hendrickson, along with its expulsion of the Singaporean diplomat, sparked a rare protest in Singapore by the National Trades Union Congress; they drove buses around the U.S. embassy, held a rally attended by four thousand workers, and issued a statement deriding the U.S. as "sneaky, arrogant, and untrustworthy".^[245]

China

Singapore did not establish diplomatic relations with China until the U.S. and Southeast Asia had decided they wanted to do so in order to avoid portraying a pro-China bias.^[246][247] His official visits to China starting in 1976 were conducted in English, to assure other countries that he represented Singapore, and not a "Third China" (the first two being the Republic of China and People's Republic of China).^[248]

In November 1978, after China had stabilized following political turmoil in the aftermath of Mao Zedong's death and the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore and met Lee. Deng, who was very impressed with Singapore's economic development, greenery and housing, and later sent tens of thousands of Chinese to Singapore and countries around the world to learn from their experiences and bring back their knowledge as part of the opening of China beginning in December 1978. Lee, on the other hand, advised Deng to stop exporting Communist ideologies to Southeast Asia, advice that Deng later followed.^[249][250] This culminated in the exchange of Trade Offices between the two nations in September 1981.^[251] In 1985, commercial air services between mainland China and Singapore commenced^[252] and China appointed Goh Keng Swee, Singapore's finance minister in the post-independence years, as advisor on the development of Special Economic Zones.^[253]

On 3 October 1990, Singapore revised diplomatic relations from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China.

Cambodia

Lee opposed the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978.^[254] The Singapore government organised an international campaign to condemn Vietnam and provided aid to the Khmer Rouge which was fighting against Vietnamese occupation during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War from 1978 to 1989. In his memoirs, Lee recounted that in 1982, "Singapore gave the first few hundreds of several batches of AK-47 rifles, hand grenades, ammunition and communication equipment" to the Khmer Rouge resistance forces.^[255][256]

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High commissioner (Commonwealth)

High commissioner (Commonwealth)

In the Commonwealth of Nations, a high commissioner is the senior diplomat, generally ranking as an ambassador, in charge of the diplomatic mission of one Commonwealth government to another. Instead of an embassy, the diplomatic mission is generally called a high commission.

Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He was the Leader of the Labour Party from 1963 to 1976, and was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1983. Wilson is the only Labour leader to have formed administrations following four general elections.

ASEAN

ASEAN

ASEAN, officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, military, educational, and sociocultural integration between its members and countries in the Asia-Pacific. The union has a total area of 4,522,518 km2 (1,746,154 sq mi) and an estimated total population of about 668 million, containing approximately 8.5 per cent of the world population in 2021. ASEAN generated a purchasing power parity (PPP) gross domestic product (GDP) of around US$10.2 trillion in 2022, constituting approximately 6.5 per cent of global GDP (PPP).

Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation

Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation

The Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation or Borneo confrontation was an armed conflict from 1963 to 1966 that stemmed from Indonesia's opposition to the creation of state of Malaysia from the Federation of Malaya. After Indonesian president Sukarno was deposed in 1966, the dispute ended peacefully and the nation of Malaysia was formed.

East of Suez

East of Suez

East of Suez is used in British military and political discussions in reference to interests beyond the European theatre, and east of the Suez Canal, and may or may not include the Middle East. The phrase was popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his 1890 poem Mandalay. It later became a popular song when a tune was added by Oley Speaks in 1907.

Goh Keng Swee

Goh Keng Swee

Goh Keng Swee, born Robert Goh Keng Swee, was a Singaporean politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1973 and 1985. Goh is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of Singapore. He was also one of the founders of the People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence.

Ministry of Interior and Defence

Ministry of Interior and Defence

The Ministry of Interior and Defence (MID) was a ministry of the Government of Singapore. It was established in 1965, with Goh Keng Swee as the inaugural minister. The ministry was responsible for both internal and external security, controlling both the police force and the armed forces.

Chiang Ching-kuo

Chiang Ching-kuo

Chiang Ching-kuo was a politician of the Republic of China. The eldest and only biological son of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China and ended martial law in 1987. He served as premier of the Republic of China between 1972 and 1978, and was president of the Republic of China from 1978 until his death in 1988.

Economic Development Board

Economic Development Board

The Economic Development Board (EDB) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Government of Singapore that plans and executes strategies to sustain Singapore as a leading global hub for business and investment.

Hon Sui Sen

Hon Sui Sen

Benedict Hon Sui Sen was a Singaporean politician who served as Minister for Finance between 1970 and 1983. A member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Havelock between 1970 and 1983.

Albert Winsemius

Albert Winsemius

Albert Winsemius was a Dutch economist best known for serving as an economic adviser to Singapore between 1961 and 1984. He led the United Nations Survey Mission to Singapore and played a major role in the formulation of Singapore's national economic development strategy.

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

The original incarnation of the Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components, as well as software and related services to consumers, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health, and education sectors. The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939, and initially produced a line of electronic test and measurement equipment. The HP Garage at 367 Addison Avenue is now designated an official California Historical Landmark, and is marked with a plaque calling it the "Birthplace of 'Silicon Valley'".

Lee (middle) meets with United States Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Singapore's Ambassador to the United States Chan Heng Chee in 2000

After leading the PAP to victory in seven elections, Lee stepped down on 28 November 1990, handing over the prime ministership to Goh Chok Tong.^[257] By that time he had become the world's longest-serving prime minister.^[258] This was the first leadership transition since independence. Goh was elected as the new Prime Minister by the younger ministers then in office. When Goh Chok Tong became head of government, Lee remained in the cabinet with a non-executive position of Senior Minister^[259] and played a role he described as advisory. Lee subsequently stepped down as secretary-general of the PAP and was succeeded by Goh Chok Tong on 2 December 1992.^[260]

In April 1996, Lee and his son, Lee Hsien Loong, disclosed that they had purchased apartments from Hotel Properties Ltd, a real estate developer listed on the Stock Exchange of Singapore, at substantial discounts ranging from 5 to 12 percent.^[261] The dispute arose amidst rampant property speculation in Singapore.^[262] This disclosure prompted sufficient public disquiet for Lee to appear before Parliament to explain the purchases.^[263] Lee said that as he was a prominent figure, the developer had a "legitimate incentive" to provide discounts for publicity, and that he had previously purchased a car and acquired services from his tailor and cobbler at a discount.^[264] The amount saved was donated to charities after the prime minister denied Lee's request to repay the amount to the government.^[262]

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Chan Heng Chee

Chan Heng Chee

Chan Heng Chee is a Singaporean academic and diplomat who has been serving as Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2012, Chairwoman of the National Arts Council and Member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights. She had also served as Singapore Ambassador to the United States between 1996 and 2012.

People's Action Party

People's Action Party

The People's Action Party is a major conservative centre-right political party in Singapore and is one of the three contemporary political parties represented in Parliament, alongside the opposition Workers' Party (WP) and Progress Singapore Party (PSP).

Prime Minister of Singapore

Prime Minister of Singapore

The prime minister of Singapore is the head of government of the Republic of Singapore. The president appoints the prime minister, a Member of Parliament (MP) who in their opinion, is most likely to command the confidence of the majority of MPs. The incumbent prime minister is Lee Hsien Loong, who took office on 12 August 2004.

Goh Chok Tong

Goh Chok Tong

Goh Chok Tong is a Singaporean former politician who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1990 and 2004, and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party between 1992 and 2004. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Marine Parade SMC between 1976 and 1988, and Marine Parade GRC between 1988 and 2020.

Senior Minister of Singapore

Senior Minister of Singapore

Senior Minister of Singapore is a position in the Cabinet of Singapore. Holders of this office have served as either the prime minister or the deputy prime minister. Among the executive branch officeholders in the order of precedence, the position ranks after the prime minister and the deputy prime minister. They also serve as part of the Prime Minister's Office and work at The Istana.

Secretary (title)

Secretary (title)

Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived from the Latin word secernere, "to distinguish" or "to set apart", the passive participle meaning "having been set apart", with the eventual connotation of something private or confidential, as with the English word secret. A secretarius was a person, therefore, overseeing business confidentially, usually for a powerful individual.

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991.

In December 2004, Lee stepped down to become Minister Mentor. Expressing concern about the declining proficiency of Mandarin among younger Chinese Singaporeans, he started a year-long campaign called "华语 Cool!" (Mandarin is Cool!) to garner interest in using Mandarin.^[265]

On 13 September 2008, Lee underwent treatment for abnormal heart rhythm (atrial flutter) at Singapore General Hospital. The treatment was successful, and he was well enough to address a philanthropy forum via video link from the hospital.^[266] On 28 September 2010, he was hospitalised for a chest infection, cancelling plans to attend the wake of the Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Balaji Sadasivan.^[267]

In November 2010, Lee's private conversations with James Steinberg, US Deputy Secretary of State, on 30 May 2009 were among the US Embassy cables leaked by WikiLeaks. In a US Embassy report classified as "Secret", Lee gave his assessment of a number of Asian leaders and views on political developments in North Asia, including implications for nuclear proliferation.^[268]

In January 2011, the Straits Times Press published the book Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going.^[269] Targeted at younger Singaporeans, it was based on 16 interviews with Lee by seven local journalists in 2008–2009. The first print run of 45,000 copies sold out in less than a month after it was launched in January 2011. Another batch of 55,000 copies was made available shortly after.^[270]

After the 2011 general elections in which the Workers' Party, a major opposition political party in Singapore, made unprecedented gains by winning a Group Representation Constituency (GRC), Lee announced that he decided to leave the Cabinet for the Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, and his team to have a clean slate.^[271] Some analysts, such as Citigroup economist Kit Wei Zheng, believed that the senior Lee had contributed to the PAP's poor performance.^[272] In particular, he stated during campaigning that the voters of Aljunied constituency had "five years to live and repent" if they elected the Workers' Party, which some viewed as having backfired for the PAP as the opposition went on to win Aljunied.^[273]

In a column in the Sunday Times on 6 November 2011, Lee's daughter, Lee Wei Ling, revealed that her father suffered from peripheral neuropathy.^[274] In the column, she recounted how she first noticed her father's ailments when she accompanied him to meet the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Connecticut in October 2009. Wei Ling, a neurologist, "did a few simple neurological tests and decided the nerves to his legs were not working as they should". A day later, when interviewed at a constituency tree-planting event, Lee stated: "I have no doubt at all that this has not affected my mind, my will nor my resolve" and that "people in wheel chairs can make a contribution. I've still got two legs, I will make a contribution".^[275]

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Chinese Singaporeans

Chinese Singaporeans

Chinese Singaporeans are Singaporeans of Chinese descent. Chinese Singaporeans constitute 75.9% of the Singaporean citizen population according to the official census, making them the largest ethnic group in Singapore.

Atrial flutter

Atrial flutter

Atrial flutter (AFL) is a common abnormal heart rhythm that starts in the atrial chambers of the heart. When it first occurs, it is usually associated with a fast heart rate and is classified as a type of supraventricular tachycardia. Atrial flutter is characterized by a sudden-onset (usually) regular abnormal heart rhythm on an electrocardiogram (ECG) in which the heart rate is fast. Symptoms may include a feeling of the heart beating too fast, too hard, or skipping beats, chest discomfort, difficulty breathing, a feeling as if one's stomach has dropped, a feeling of being light-headed, or loss of consciousness.

Singapore General Hospital

Singapore General Hospital

Singapore General Hospital (SGH) is an academic health science centre and tertiary referral hospital in Singapore. It is located next to the Bukit Merah and Chinatown districts of the Central Region, close to the Outram Community Hospital (OCH), which functions as a supplementary community and rehabilitation hospital to SGH for newly-discharged patients. There is also the Outram Polyclinic to complement outpatient care. All of these institutions are operated by SingHealth, which comes under the purview of the Ministry of Health (MOH).

Balaji Sadasivan

Balaji Sadasivan

Balaji Sadasivan was a Singaporean politician and neurosurgeon. He attended Raffles Institution, Siglap Secondary School and National Junior College, and studied medicine at the University of Singapore. After graduating in 1979, he continued his education at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (F.R.C.S.) in 1984. He also trained at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, from 1985 to 1989, and became a Fellow of Harvard University in 1990. He worked as a neurosurgeon until 2001, publishing over 50 book chapters and journal articles.

James Steinberg

James Steinberg

James Braidy Steinberg is an American academic and political advisor, and former United States Deputy Secretary of State. He has served as the dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University since November 1, 2021. Prior to his deanship, he was a professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University

2011 Singaporean general election

2011 Singaporean general election

General elections were held in Singapore on 7 May 2011. President S. R. Nathan dissolved parliament on 19 April 2011 on the advice of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Voting is mandatory in Singapore and is based on the first-past-the-post system. Elections are conducted by the Elections Department, which is under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's Office. Nomination day was held on 27 April 2011, and for the second election in a row, the PAP did not return to government on nomination day, but it did return to government on polling day. This election also marked the first and the only three-cornered fight since 2001 in Punggol East SMC before it increased to four-cornered fight on a by-election held two years later.

Group representation constituency

Group representation constituency

A group representation constituency (GRC) is a type of electoral division or constituency in Singapore in which teams of candidates, instead of individual candidates, compete to be elected into Parliament as the Members of Parliament (MPs) for the constituency. The Government stated that the GRC scheme was primarily implemented to enshrine minority representation in Parliament: at least one of the MPs in a GRC must be a member of the Malay, Indian or another minority community of Singapore. In addition, it was economical for town councils, which manage public housing estates, to handle larger constituencies.

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991.

Citigroup

Citigroup

Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate Travelers Group in 1998; Travelers was subsequently spun off from the company in 2002. Citigroup owns Citicorp, the holding company for Citibank, as well as several international subsidiaries. Citigroup is incorporated in Delaware.

Peripheral neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy, often shortened to neuropathy, is a general term describing disease affecting the peripheral nerves, meaning nerves beyond the brain and spinal cord. Damage to peripheral nerves may impair sensation, movement, gland, or organ function depending on which nerves are affected; in other words, neuropathy affecting motor, sensory, or autonomic nerves result in different symptoms. More than one type of nerve may be affected simultaneously. Peripheral neuropathy may be acute or chronic, and may be reversible or permanent.

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Henry Alfred Kissinger is a German-born American diplomat, geopolitical consultant, and politician who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances.

Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. As of the 2020 United States census, Connecticut was home to over 3.6 million residents, its highest decennial count count ever, growing every decade since 1790. The state is bordered by Rhode Island to its east, Massachusetts to its north, New York to its west, and Long Island Sound to its south. Its capital is Hartford, and its most populous city is Bridgeport. Historically, the state is part of New England as well as the tri-state area with New York and New Jersey. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word "Connecticut" is derived from various anglicized spellings of "Quinnetuket”, a Mohegan-Pequot word for "long tidal river".

The State flag flying at half-mast at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) following the death of Lee Kuan Yew

On 15 February 2013, Lee was admitted to Singapore General Hospital after suffering a prolonged cardiac dysrhythmia, which was followed by a brief stoppage of blood flow to the brain.^{[276][277][278][279]} For the first time in his career as a Member of Parliament (MP), Lee missed the annual Chinese New Year dinner at his constituency, where he was supposed to be the guest-of-honour.^[280][281] He was subsequently discharged, but continued to receive anti-coagulant therapy.^{[282][283][284]}

The following year, Lee missed his constituency's Chinese New Year dinner for the second consecutive time owing to bodily bacterial invasion.^[285] In April 2014, a photo depicting a cadaverous Lee was released online, drawing strong reactions from netizens.^[286]

On 5 February 2015, suffering from pneumonia, Lee was hospitalised and was put on a ventilator at the intensive care unit of Singapore General Hospital, although his condition was reported initially as "stable".^[287][288] A 26 February update stated that he was again being given antibiotics, while being sedated and still under mechanical ventilation.^[289][290] From 17 to 22 March, Lee continued weakening as he suffered an infection while on life support, and he was described as "critically ill".^{[291][292][293]}

On 18 March that year, a death hoax website reported false news of Lee's death. The suspect is an unidentified minor who created a false webpage that resembled the PMO official website.^[294] Several international news organisations reported on Lee's death based on this and later retracted their statements.^[295][296]

On 23rd of that same month, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced his father's death at the age of 91.^[297] Lee had died at 3:18am Singapore Standard Time (UTC+08:00).^[298][297] A week of national mourning took place,^[299] during which time Lee was lying in state at Parliament House. As a mark of respect, State flags at all Government buildings were flown at half-mast. During this time, 1.7 million Singaporean residents as well as world leaders paid tribute to him at Parliament house and community tribute sites throughout the country.^{[300][301][2]} A state funeral for Lee was held on 29th of that same month and attended by world leaders.^[302] Later that day, Lee was cremated in a private ceremony at the Mandai Crematorium.^[303]

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Death and state funeral of Lee Kuan Yew

Death and state funeral of Lee Kuan Yew

On 23 March 2015, Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister of Singapore and co-founder of the People's Action Party, died at the age of 91 at 03:18 Singapore Standard Time (UTC+08:00), after having been hospitalised at the Singapore General Hospital with severe pneumonia since 5 February that year. A formal announcement was made on national television and radio by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at 08:00 that morning.

Half-mast

Half-mast

Half-mast or half-staff refers to a flag flying below the summit of a ship mast, a pole on land, or a pole on a building. In many countries this is seen as a symbol of respect, mourning, distress, or, in some cases, a salute. Most English-speaking countries use the term half-mast in all instances. In the United States, this refers officially only to flags flown on ships, with half-staff used on land.

Nanyang Technological University

Nanyang Technological University

The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a national research university in Singapore. It is the second oldest autonomous university in the country and is considered as one of the most prestigious universities in the world by various international metrics. It is usually ranked amongst the world's top 20 institutions of higher learning. NTU is ranked 19th in the world according to the 2023 QS World University Rankings, and has also been ranked 1st globally amongst young universities by the QS World University Rankings since 2015.

Arrhythmia

Arrhythmia

Arrhythmias, also known as cardiac arrhythmias, heart arrhythmias, or dysrhythmias, are irregularities in the heartbeat, including when it is too fast or too slow. A resting heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adults – is called tachycardia, and a resting heart rate that is too slow – below 60 beats per minute – is called bradycardia. Some types of arrhythmias have no symptoms. Symptoms, when present, may include palpitations or feeling a pause between heartbeats. In more serious cases, there may be lightheadedness, passing out, shortness of breath or chest pain. While most cases of arrhythmia are not serious, some predispose a person to complications such as stroke or heart failure. Others may result in sudden death.

Anticoagulant

Anticoagulant

Anticoagulants, commonly known as blood thinners, are chemical substances that prevent or reduce coagulation of blood, prolonging the clotting time. Some of them occur naturally in blood-eating animals such as leeches and mosquitoes, where they help keep the bite area unclotted long enough for the animal to obtain some blood. As a class of medications, anticoagulants are used in therapy for thrombotic disorders. Oral anticoagulants (OACs) are taken by many people in pill or tablet form, and various intravenous anticoagulant dosage forms are used in hospitals. Some anticoagulants are used in medical equipment, such as sample tubes, blood transfusion bags, heart–lung machines, and dialysis equipment. One of the first anticoagulants, warfarin, was initially approved as a rodenticide.

Pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity of the condition is variable.

Death hoax

Death hoax

A death hoax is a deliberate report of someone's death that is later proven to be untrue. In some cases it might be because the person has intentionally faked death.

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991.

Lying in state

Lying in state

Lying in state is the tradition in which the body of a deceased official, such as a head of state, is placed in a state building, either outside or inside a coffin, to allow the public to pay their respects. It traditionally takes place in a major government building of a country, state, or city. While the practice differs among countries, in the United States, a viewing in a location other than a government building, such as a church, may be referred to as lying in repose. It is a more formal and public kind of wake or viewing. Lying in state often precedes a state funeral.

Parliament House, Singapore

Parliament House, Singapore

The Parliament House is a public building and a cultural landmark in Singapore. It houses the Parliament of Singapore, and is located in the Civic District of the Downtown Core within the Central Area. Within its vicinity is Raffles Place, which lies across from the Parliament House from the Singapore River, and the Supreme Court's building across the road. The building was designed to represent a contemporary architectural expression of stateliness and authority. The prism-shaped top, designed by President Ong Teng Cheong, was similarly a modernist take on the traditional dome.

Cremation

Cremation

Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning.

Mandai Crematorium and Columbarium

Mandai Crematorium and Columbarium

Mandai Crematorium and Columbarium is a crematorium and columbarium complex located at Mandai Road in Mandai, Singapore. The complex is operated by the Government of Singapore under the National Environment Agency. It is one of two government crematoria in Singapore, the other being the Choa Chu Kang Columbarium.

As prime minister from 1959 to 1990, Lee presided over many of Singapore's advancements. He oversaw Singapore's transformation from an island nation with a high illiteracy rate and no natural resources into a developed country with a high-income economy within a single generation, commonly termed (from his autobiography) as 'From the third world to the first world'.^{[305][306][307][308]} Singapore's gross national product per capita (GNP) rose from $1,240 in 1959 to $18,437 in 1990. The unemployment rate in Singapore dropped from 13.5% in 1959 to 1.7% in 1990. External trade increased from $7.3 billion in 1959 to $205 billion in 1990. In other areas, the life expectancy at birth for Singaporeans rose from 65 years at 1960 to 74 years in 1990. The population of Singapore increased from 1.6 million in 1959 to 3 million in 1990. The number of public flats in Singapore rose from 22,975 in 1959 (then under the Singapore Improvement Trust) to 667,575 in 1990. The Singaporean literacy rate increased from 52% in 1957 to 90% in 1990. Telephone lines per 100 Singaporeans increased from 3 in 1960 to 38 in 1990. Visitor arrivals to Singapore rose from 100,000 in 1960 to 5.3 million in 1990.^[309]

Notably, these economic accomplishments were achieved in large part due to Lee's stewardship of public administration through relevant and targeted public policy; Lee introduced measures to jumpstart manufacturing of finished goods for export (export-oriented industrialization) and sought to create a conducive business environment in the trading nation to attract foreign direct investment (through the establishment of the Economic Development Board, EDB).^[305][310] Lee also forged a symbiotic and mutually dependent relationship between the People's Action Party with the National Trades Union Congress, whereby the governing political party received certain input from the labour grassroots, whilst the national trade union centre is led by prominent PAP party politicians who usually have ministerial portfolios within the Government.^[311] The Government's tight control over trade union activities and industrial relations, ensured near-total industrial peace, that was assessed to be a prerequisite for rapid economic development.^[312]

Lee was a staunch promoter of economic globalisation and a vocal opponent of protectionism.^[313][314] Lee said that Singapore's only natural resources are its people and their strong work ethic.^[315] In addition, Lee was focused on social policies such as improving and mandating higher public standards for education, sanitation and hygiene, whilst concurrently improving public health by expanding modern health care and greatly increasing the quantity and quality of high-rise affordable housing (through the establishment of the Housing and Development Board, HDB) for working- and middle-class families.^{[305][310][316][317][318]} Various world leaders had also praised Lee. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once wrote of Lee: "One of the asymmetries of history is the lack of correspondence between the abilities of some leaders and the power of their countries." Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher praised "his way of penetrating the fog of propaganda and expressing with unique clarity the issues of our time and the way to tackle them".^[319]

Lee's achievements in Singapore had a profound effect on the Communist leadership in China, who made a major effort, especially under Deng Xiaoping, to emulate his policies of economic growth, entrepreneurship and subtle suppression of dissent. Over 22,000 Chinese officials were sent to Singapore to study its methods.^[320] He has also had a major influence on thinking in Russia in recent years.^[321][320] On the other hand, proponents of liberal democracy especially in the West criticised Lee's rule as authoritarian and as intolerant of dissent, citing his numerous attempts to sue political opponents and newspapers who express unfavourable opinions of Lee. Reporters Without Borders, an international media advocacy group, requested Lee and other senior Singaporean officials to stop taking libel suits against journalists.^[322] Lee was a co-inventor of "Asian values".^{[323][324][325][326]}

Critics accuse him of curtailing press freedoms, often imposing limits on public protests which prevented further occurrences, restricting labour movements from industrial action or strike action, suppressing wage growth of skilled workers (in order to be competitive with developing countries) amid widening and high levels of income inequality along with wealth inequality (relative to other developed countries), had encouraged an elitist mindset as well as filing defamation lawsuits against prominent political opponents.^{[327][15][328][329][330][331][332]} However, supporters argued in retrospect that his actions were necessary for the country's early development, and various international political analysts note that Lee's governance was generally pragmatic and benevolent.^[9] During the three decades in which Lee held office, Singapore grew from a developing country to one of the most developed nations in Asia and the world.^[333]

Discover more about Legacy related topics

International Herald Tribune

International Herald Tribune

The International Herald Tribune (IHT) was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said to have met that goal. It published under the name International Herald Tribune from 1967 to 2013, but its origins as an international newspaper traces back to 1887.

Literacy

Literacy

Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, humans in literate societies have sets of practices for producing and consuming writing, and they also have beliefs about these practices. Reading, in this view, is always reading something for some purpose; writing is always writing something for someone for some particular ends. Beliefs about reading and writing and its value for society and for the individual always influence the ways literacy is taught, learned, and practiced over the lifespan.

Natural resource

Natural resource

Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land, all minerals along with all vegetation, and wildlife.

Developed country

Developed country

A developed country is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for evaluating the degree of economic development are gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), the per capita income, level of industrialization, amount of widespread infrastructure and general standard of living. Which criteria are to be used and which countries can be classified as being developed are subjects of debate. Different definitions of developed countries are provided by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; moreover, HDI ranking is used to reflect the composite index of life expectancy, education, and income per capita. Another commonly used measure of a developed country is the threshold of GDP (PPP) per capita of at least USD$22,000. In 2022, 36 countries fit all four criteria, while an additional 17 countries fit three out of four.

International trade

International trade

International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services.

Life expectancy

Life expectancy

Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth (LEB), which can be defined in two ways. Cohort LEB is the mean length of life of a birth cohort and can be computed only for cohorts born so long ago that all their members have died. Period LEB is the mean length of life of a hypothetical cohort assumed to be exposed, from birth through death, to the mortality rates observed at a given year.

Public housing in Singapore

Public housing in Singapore

Public housing in Singapore is subsidised, built and managed by the Government of Singapore. Starting in the 1930s, the country's first public housing was built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) in a similar fashion to contemporaneous British public housing projects, and housing for the resettlement of squatters was built from the late 1950s. In the 1960s, under the SIT's successor the Housing and Development Board (HDB), public housing consisting of small units with basic amenities was constructed as quickly and cheaply as possible at high densities, and was used for resettlement schemes. From the late 1960s, housing programmes focused more on quality, public housing was built in new towns, and a scheme allowing residents to lease their flats was introduced. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, more public housing options were provided for the middle class and efforts to increase community cohesion within housing estates were made. From the 1990s, the government began portraying public housing as an asset, introducing large-scale upgrading schemes and loosening regulations on the resale of public housing while additional housing programmes for the sandwich classes and elderly residents were introduced. Rising housing prices led to public housing being seen as an investment from the 2000s, and new technologies and eco-friendly features were incorporated into housing estates.

Singapore Improvement Trust

Singapore Improvement Trust

The Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) is a former government organisation that was responsible for urban planning and urban renewal in Singapore. Formally established in 1927 under the Singapore Improvement Ordinance, it was modelled after similar organisations in India. The SIT initially carried out back lane improvement schemes and marking out unsanitary buildings for demolition, but began constructing public housing from 1935. After 1945, the SIT initially focused its efforts on the repair of its residential developments. It resumed constructing public housing in 1947 but was unable to keep up with demand. The SIT was also involved in the development of a "Master Plan", which set out Singapore's developmental direction, from 1952 to 1958. In the late 1950s, plans were set out to replace the SIT with two departments—housing and planning—culminating in two bills that were passed in 1959. With the establishment of the successor organisations by the government of Singapore, the Housing and Development Authority and the Planning Authority, in 1960, the SIT was dissolved.

Public administration

Public administration

Public administration or public policy and administration is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment, management of non-profit establishment, and also a subfield of political science taught in public policy schools that studies this implementation and prepares civil servants, especially those in administrative positions for working in the public sector, voluntary sector, some industries in the private sector dealing with government relations and regulatory affairs, and those working as think tank researchers. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" whose fundamental goal is to "advance management and policies so that government can function." Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are: "the management of public programs"; the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day"; and "the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies." The word public administration is the combination of two words—public and administration. In every sphere of social, economic and political life there is administration which means that for the proper functioning of the organization or institution it must be properly ruled or managed and from this concept emerges the idea of administration.

Public policy

Public policy

Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public policy can be considered to be the sum of a government's direct and indirect activities and has been conceptualized in a variety of ways.

Finished goods

Finished goods

Finished goods are goods that have completed the manufacturing process but have not yet been sold or distributed to the end user.

Export-oriented industrialization

Export-oriented industrialization

Export-oriented industrialization (EOI) sometimes called export substitution industrialization (ESI), export led industrialization (ELI) or export-led growth is a trade and economic policy aiming to speed up the industrialization process of a country by exporting goods for which the nation has a comparative advantage. Export-led growth implies opening domestic markets to foreign competition in exchange for market access in other countries.

Action against Far Eastern Economic Review

In April 1977, just months after a general election which saw the People's Action Party winning all 69 seats, the Internal Security Department, under orders from Lee, detained Ho Kwon Ping, the Singapore correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review, as well as his predecessor Arun Senkuttavan, over their reporting. Ho was detained under the Internal Security Act which allows for indefinite trial, held in solitary confinement for two months, and charged with endangering national security. Following a televised confession in which Ho confessed to "pro-communist activities",^[334] he was fined $3,000. Lee Kuan Yew later charged FEER editor, Derek Davies, of participating in "a diabolical international Communist plot" to poison relations between Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia.

In 1987 Lee restricted sale of the Review in Singapore after it published an article about the detention of Roman Catholic church workers, reducing circulation of the magazine from 9,000 to 500 copies,^[335] on the grounds that it was "interfering in the domestic politics of Singapore."^[336]

On 24 September 2008 the High Court of Singapore, in a summary judgment by Justice Woo Bih Li, ruled that the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine (Hugo Restall, editor), defamed Lee and his son, the Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong. The court found the 2006 article "Singapore's 'Martyr': Chee Soon Juan" suggested that Lee "ha[d] been running and continue[d] to run Singapore in the same corrupt manner as Durai operated [the National Kidney Foundation] and he ha[d] been using libel actions to suppress those who would question [him] to avoid exposure of his corruption".^[337] The court ordered the Review, owned by Dow Jones & Company (in turn owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp), to pay damages to the complainants. The magazine appealed but lost.^[337][338]

Action against J.B. Jeyaretnam

Lee commenced proceedings for slander against opposition leader J. B. Jeyaretnam for comments he made at a Workers' Party rally in the 1988 general election. Lee alleged that Jeyaretnam's speech at the rally implied he had tried to cover up the corruption of the former Minister for National Development, Teh Cheang Wan, by aiding and abetting his suicide. The action was heard by Justice Lai Kew Chai, who ruled against Jeyaretnam and ordered him to pay damages of S$260,000 plus costs to Lee. Jeyaretnam lost an appeal against the judgment.

Action against Devan Nair

In 1999, the former President of the Republic of Singapore Devan Nair who was living in Canada, remarked in an interview with the Toronto The Globe and Mail that Lee's technique of suing his opponents into bankruptcy or oblivion was an abrogation of political rights. Devan Nair also described Lee as "an increasingly self-righteous know-all" surrounded by "department store dummies". In response to these remarks, Lee sued Nair in a Canadian court and Nair countersued. Lee then brought a motion to have Nair's counterclaim thrown out of court. Lee argued that Nair's counterclaim disclosed no reasonable cause of action and constituted an inflammatory attack on the integrity of the Singapore government. However, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice refused to throw out Nair's counterclaim, holding that Lee had abused the litigating process and therefore Nair had a reasonable cause of action.^[339]

Lee wrote in one of his memoirs that Nair was forced to resign as President due to his alleged alcoholism, a charge which Nair denied.^[340]

International Herald Tribune defamation case

In 2010 Lee, together with his son Lee Hsien Loong, and Goh Chok Tong, threatened legal action against The New York Times Company, which owns the International Herald Tribune, regarding an op-ed piece titled "All in the Family" of 15 February 2010 by Philip Bowring, a freelance columnist and former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. The International Herald Tribune apologised in March that readers of the article may "infer that the younger Lee did not achieve his position through merit". The New York Times Company and Bowring also agreed to pay S$60,000 to Lee Hsien Loong, S$50,000 to Lee and S$50,000 to Goh (totalling about US$114,000 at the time), in addition to legal costs. The case stemmed from a 1994 settlement between the three Singaporean leaders and the paper about an article, also by Bowring, that referred to "dynastic politics" in East Asian countries, including Singapore. In that settlement, Bowring agreed not to say or imply that the younger Lee had attained his position through nepotism by his father Lee Kuan Yew. In response, media-rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders wrote an open letter to urge Lee and other top officials of the Singapore government to stop taking "libel actions" against journalists.^{[341][342][343]}

Discover more about Legal suits related topics

1976 Singaporean general election

1976 Singaporean general election

General elections were held in Singapore on 23 December 1976. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 69 seats, the third of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat. Voter turnout was 95.1%, out of 857,297 voters eligible from the 53 contested constituencies.

Internal Security Department (Singapore)

Internal Security Department (Singapore)

The Internal Security Department (ISD) is the domestic counter-intelligence and security agency of Singapore under the purview of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), tasked to confront and address security threats, including both domestic and international terrorism, and foreign subversion and espionage. The ISD has the utmost right to detain without trial individuals suspected to be a threat to national security.

Ho Kwon Ping

Ho Kwon Ping

Ho Kwon Ping is a Singaporean businessman. He is the executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, a Singapore-based leisure business group, which owns both listed and private companies engaged in the development, ownership and operation of hotels, resorts, spas, residential homes, retail galleries and other lifestyle activities in the region.

Far Eastern Economic Review

Far Eastern Economic Review

The Far Eastern Economic Review was an Asian business magazine published from 1946 to 2009. The English-language news magazine was based in Hong Kong and published weekly until it converted to a monthly publication in December 2004 because of financial difficulties.

Internal Security Act (Singapore)

Internal Security Act (Singapore)

The Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) of Singapore is a statute that grants the executive power to enforce preventive detention, prevent subversion, suppress organized violence against persons and property, and do other things incidental to the internal security of Singapore. The present Act was originally enacted by the Parliament of Malaysia as the Internal Security Act 1960, and extended to Singapore on 16 September 1963 when Singapore was a state of the Federation of Malaysia.

High Court of Singapore

High Court of Singapore

The High Court of Singapore is the lower division of the Supreme Court of Singapore, the upper division being the Court of Appeal. The High Court consists of the chief justice and the judges of the High Court. Judicial Commissioners are often appointed to assist with the Court's caseload. There are two specialist commercial courts, the Admiralty Court and the Intellectual Property Court, and a number of judges are designated to hear arbitration-related matters. In 2015, the Singapore International Commercial Court was established as part of the Supreme Court of Singapore, and is a division of the High Court. The other divisions of the high court are the General Division, the Appellate Division, and the Family Division. The seat of the High Court is the Supreme Court Building.

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991.

Chee Soon Juan

Chee Soon Juan

Chee Soon Juan is a Singaporean politician, activist and former lecturer who has been serving as Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party since 1993.

National Kidney Foundation Singapore

National Kidney Foundation Singapore

The National Kidney Foundation Singapore (NKF) is a non-profit health organisation in Singapore. Its mission is to render services to kidney patients, encourage and promote renal research, as well as to carry out public education programs on kidney diseases. As of February 2016, NKF has 29 dialysis centres in Singapore.

Dow Jones & Company

Dow Jones & Company

Dow Jones & Company, Inc. is an American publishing firm owned by News Corp and led by CEO Almar Latour.

J. B. Jeyaretnam

J. B. Jeyaretnam

Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, better known as J. B. Jeyaretnam or by his initials JBJ, was a Singaporean politician, lawyer, and judge who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Anson SMC between 1981 and 1986 and Non-Constituency Member of Parliament between 1997 and 2001. He was the de facto Leader of the Opposition between 1981 and 1986.

1988 Singaporean general election

1988 Singaporean general election

General elections were held in Singapore on 3 September 1988. President Wee Kim Wee dissolved parliament on 17 August 1988 on the advice of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won 80 of the 81 seats.

This section contains too many or overly lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. Please help improve the article by presenting facts as a neutrally worded summary with appropriate citations. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote or, for entire works, to Wikisource. (September 2022)

Chinese marginalisation

On 15 September 2006, at the Raffles Forum hosted by the School of Public Policy, Lee made a remark as to how the "Malaysian and Indonesian governments systematically marginalise its Chinese people", by bringing up topics such as the May 1998 riots of Indonesia and Ketuanan Melayu, which subsequently caused a short diplomatic spat.^[344] He then described the systematic marginalisation of the Chinese in Malaysia, which aroused a strong response from the Malaysian government. Politicians in Malaysia and Indonesia expressed dissatisfaction with this, and demanded the Singaporean government to explain and apologise for Lee's remarks.^[345][346]

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad criticised Lee Kuan Yew for his "arrogance and disrespect" for neighbouring countries, and countered that Malaysia could also question Singapore's marginalization of its local Malays and other minorities such as the Eurasians and Indians. Former Indonesian President B. J. Habibie also described the "little red dot" term in reference to Singapore as an incentive for Indonesian youth to learn from Singapore's achievements, and that the original intention was distorted. On 30 September, while Lee Kuan Yew apologised to the Malaysian Prime Minister at the time Abdullah Badawi for his remarks,^{[347][348][349]} he did not fully retract his remarks.^[350][351]

Eugenics

Alarmed that Singapore's fertility rate was falling precipitously low, Lee launched the Graduate Mothers' Scheme in 1983, giving tax deductions for children to women with university degrees, and priority in admission to primary schools to graduate mothers with 3 or more children.^[352]

In his speech at the 1983 National Day Rally, Lee said, "If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society... So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That's a problem."^[353]

"If we continue to respond ourselves in this lopsided manner we will be unable to maintain our present standards," he added. "Levels of competence will decline. Our economy will falter, the administration will suffer, and society will decline.., for every two college graduates in 25 years' time there will be one graduate and for every two uneducated workers there will be three."^[354]

In June 1984, Lee's government rolled out grants for low income and low education women to undergo sterilisation. If a woman and her husband had no O-level passes and fewer than 3 children, the woman could receive a $10,000 grant for undergoing sterilization. Sterilized lower-class parents were also given priority primary school admission for their existing first and second children. The uproar over the proposal led to a swing of 12.9 percent against the People's Action Party in the general election held later that year. In 1985, especially controversial portions of the policy that gave education and housing priorities to educated women were eventually abandoned or modified.

A proponent of nature over nurture, Lee averred that "intelligence is 80% nature and 20% nurture" and attributed the successes of his children to genetics.^[355]

Islam

In 1999, in a discussion forum, Lee Kuan Yew was asked whether the emotional bonds of various ethnic groups in Singapore could be a hurdle to nation building, Lee replied: "Yes, I think so, over a long period of time, and selectively. We must not make an error. If, for instance, you put in a Malay officer who's very religious and who has family ties in Malaysia in charge of a machine-gun unit, that's a very tricky business. We've got to know his background. I'm saying these things because they are real, and if I don't think that, and I think even if today the Prime Minister doesn't think carefully about this, we could have a tragedy. So, these are problems which, as poly students, you're colour-blind to, but when you face life in reality, it's a different proposition".^[356]

In 2011, WikiLeaks published diplomatic cables attributing controversial comments on Islam to Lee. WikiLeaks quoted Lee as having described Islam as a "venomous religion". Lee called the remarks "false" and looked up to MFA's filenote of meeting and found no record of the claim, stating: "I did talk about extremist terrorists like the Jemaah Islamiyah group, and the jihadist preachers who brainwashed them. They are implacable in wanting to put down all who do not agree with them. So their Islam is a perverted version, which the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Singapore do not subscribe to". He added that "Singapore Muslim leaders were rational and that the ultimate solution to extremist terrorism was to give moderate Muslims the courage to stand up and speak out against radicals who hijacked Islam to recruit volunteers for their violent ends".^[357][358]

In Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going, Lee stated that Singaporean Muslims faced difficulties in integrating because of their religion, and urged them to "be less strict on Islamic observances". His remarks drew fire from Malay/Muslim leaders and MPs in Singapore, prompting a strong reaction from his son Lee Hsien Loong, the Prime Minister at that time, who said "My views on Muslims' integration in Singapore differed from the Minister Mentor's. Muslims are a valued and respected community, who have done a good deal to strengthen our harmony and social cohesion." Lee Kuan Yew then told the media "I made this one comment on the Muslims integrating with other communities probably two or three years ago. Ministers and MPs, both Malay and non-Malay, have since told me that Singapore Malays have indeed made special efforts to integrate with the other communities, especially since 9/11, and that my call is out of date." Subsequently, he added: "I stand corrected. I hope that this trend will continue in the future."^[359][360]

Homosexuality

Under Lee's tenure as prime minister, homosexuals were arrested and prosecuted under section 377A of the penal code. In his later years, Lee appeared to become more supportive of LGBT issues, expressing a belief that homosexuality was genetic and questioning the rationale behind its criminalisation.^[361][362] He believed that homosexuality would eventually be accepted in Singapore, but advocated for a measured and "pragmatic approach" toward the matter "to maintain social cohesion."^[363]

Corporal punishment

One of Lee's abiding beliefs was in the efficacy of corporal punishment in the form of caning.^[364] In his autobiography The Singapore Story, Lee described his time at Raffles Institution in the 1930s, mentioning that he was caned there for chronic lateness by the then headmaster, D. W. McLeod. He wrote: "I bent over a chair and was given three of the best with my trousers on. I did not think he lightened his strokes. I have never understood why Western educationists are so much against corporal punishment. It did my fellow students and me no harm".^[365]

Lee's government inherited judicial corporal punishment from British rule, but greatly expanded its scope. Under the British, it had been used as a penalty for offences involving personal violence, amounting to a handful of caning sentences per year. The PAP government under Lee extended its use to an ever-expanding range of crimes.^[366] By 1993, it was mandatory for 42 offences and optional for a further 42.^[367] Those routinely ordered by the courts to be caned now include drug addicts and illegal immigrants. From 602 canings in 1987, the figure rose to 3,244 in 1993^[368] and to 6,404 in 2007.^[369]

In 1994, judicial caning was publicised in the rest of the world when an American teenager, Michael P. Fay, was caned under the vandalism legislation.^[364]

School corporal punishment (for male students only) was likewise inherited from the British, and is still in use in schools, permitted under legislation from 1957.^[370] Lee also introduced caning in the Singapore Armed Forces, and Singapore is one of the few countries in the world where corporal punishment is an official penalty in military discipline.^[371]

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Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy is an autonomous postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore (NUS), named after the late former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.

Ketuanan Melayu

Ketuanan Melayu

Ketuanan Melayu is a political concept that emphasises Malay preeminence in present-day Malaysia. The Malays of Malaysia have claimed a special position and special rights owing to their longer history in the area and the fact that the present Malaysian state itself evolved from a Malay polity. The oldest political institution in Malaysia is the system of Malay rulers of the nine Malay states. The British colonial authorities transformed the system and turned it first into a system of indirect rule, then in 1948, using this culturally based institution, they incorporated the Malay monarchy into the blueprints for the independent Federation of Malaya.

Mahathir Mohamad

Mahathir Mohamad

Mahathir bin Mohamad is a Malaysian politician, author, and physician who served as the 4th and 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the office from July 1981 to October 2003 and later from May 2018 to March 2020 for a cumulative total of 24 years, making him the country's longest-serving prime minister, as well as the first and only person to be appointed Prime Minister twice. Before becoming premier, he served as Deputy Prime Minister and in other cabinet positions. He was a Member of Parliament for Langkawi from May 2018 to October 2022, Kubang Pasu from August 1974 to March 2004, and Kota Setar Selatan from April 1964 to May 1969. His political career has spanned more than 75 years, from joining protests opposing citizenship policies for non-Malays in the Malayan Union in the 1940s to forming the Gerakan Tanah Air coalition in 2022.

B. J. Habibie

B. J. Habibie

Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie was an Indonesian engineer and politician who was the third president of Indonesia from 1998 to 1999. Less than three months after his inauguration as the seventh vice president in March 1998, he succeeded Suharto who resigned after 31 years in office. His presidency was seen as a landmark and transition to the Reformation era. Upon becoming president, he liberalized Indonesia's press and political party laws, and held an early democratic election three years sooner than scheduled, which resulted in the end of his presidency. His 517-day presidency and 71-day vice presidency were the shortest in the country's history.

Little red dot

Little red dot

"Little red dot" is a nickname often used in the media, and in casual conversation, as a reference to Singapore. It refers to how the nation is depicted on many maps of the world and of Asia as a red dot. The sovereign country and city-state comprising the main island and all its islets – a total land area of approximately 750 square kilometres – is much smaller than its Southeast Asian neighbours.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

Tun Abdullah bin Ahmad Badawi is a Malaysian retired politician who served as the 5th Prime Minister of Malaysia from October 2003 to April 2009. He was also the sixth president of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the largest political party in Malaysia, and led the governing Barisan Nasional (BN) parliamentary coalition. He is informally known as Pak Lah, Pak meaning 'Uncle', while Lah is taken from his name 'Abdullah'.

1984 Singaporean general election

1984 Singaporean general election

General elections were held in Singapore on 22 December 1984. President Devan Nair dissolved parliament on 4 December 1984 on the advice of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won 77 of the 79 seats, marking the first time since 1963 that at least one opposition candidate was elected to parliament in a general election, although the first presence of an opposition MP was in the 1981 Anson by-election.

Heritability of IQ

Heritability of IQ

Research on the heritability of IQ inquires into the degree of variation in IQ within a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population. There has been significant controversy in the academic community about the heritability of IQ since research on the issue began in the late nineteenth century. Intelligence in the normal range is a polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by more than one gene, and in the case of intelligence at least 500 genes. Further, explaining the similarity in IQ of closely related persons requires careful study because environmental factors may be correlated with genetic factors.

Islam

Islam

Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centered around the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam, called Muslims, number approximately 1.9 billion globally and are the world's second-largest religious population after Christians.

Jemaah Islamiyah

Jemaah Islamiyah

Jemaah Islamiyah is a Southeast Asian Islamist militant group based in Indonesia, which is dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia. On 25 October 2002, immediately following the JI-perpetrated Bali bombing, JI was added to the UN Security Council Resolution 1267 as a terrorist group linked to Al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991.

Caning in Singapore

Caning in Singapore

Caning is a widely used form of corporal punishment in Singapore. It can be divided into several contexts: judicial, prison, reformatory, military, school, and domestic. These practices of caning as punishment were introduced during the period of British colonial rule in Singapore. Similar forms of corporal punishment are also used in some other former British colonies, including two of Singapore's neighbouring countries, Malaysia and Brunei.

Lee and his wife, Kwa Geok Choo, were married on 30 September 1950. Both spoke English as their first language. Lee first started learning Chinese in 1955, at the age of 32.^[372][373] During World War II, he learned the Japanese language to help him survive, and worked as a Japanese translator during the Japanese occupation of Singapore.^[374]

Lee and Kwa have two sons and a daughter.^[375] His elder son Lee Hsien Loong, is the third prime minister of Singapore. Several members of the Lee family hold prominent positions in the Singapore society. His younger son Lee Hsien Yang was President and CEO of SingTel, and Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS).^[376] Lee's daughter Lee Wei Ling, a neurologist and epileptologist, was director of the National Neuroscience Institute. Lee's daughter-in-law Ho Ching, was executive director and CEO of Temasek Holdings.^[376][377] His wife Kwa Geok Choo, died on 2 October 2010, at the age of 89.

Lee identified as a Buddhist in name, and would practice Buddhist rituals on occasion.^[378] He has also been described as agnostic and has stated that he "neither [denies] nor [accepts] that there is a God".^{[379][380][381]} In his later years, Lee practised meditation under the tutelage of Benedictine monk Laurence Freeman, director of the World Community for Christian Meditation.^[382][380]

Lee was diagnosed with dyslexia in adulthood.^[383]

Lee was a founding member of the Fondation Chirac's honour committee, which was launched by former French President Jacques Chirac to promote world peace.^[384] He was also a member of David Rockefeller's "International Council", which included Henry Kissinger, Riley P. Bechtel, George Shultz and others. Additionally, he was one of the "Forbes' Brain Trust", along with Paul Johnson and Ernesto Zedillo.

Discover more about Personal life related topics

Kwa Geok Choo

Kwa Geok Choo

Kwa Geok Choo was a Singaporean lawyer. She was the wife of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the mother of current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. She was also the co-founder and partner of law firm Lee & Lee.

First language

First language

A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term native language or mother tongue refers to the language or dialect of one's ethnic group rather than one's first language.

Japanese occupation of Singapore

Japanese occupation of Singapore

Syonan , officially Syonan Island , was the name for Singapore when it was occupied and ruled by the Empire of Japan, following the fall and surrender of British military forces on 15 February 1942 during World War II.

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong

Lee Hsien Loong is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991.

Lee Hsien Yang

Lee Hsien Yang

Lee Hsien Yang is a Singaporean businessman. He is the son of Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore. His is also the younger brother of Lee Hsien Loong, the third prime minister of Singapore.

Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore

Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) is Singapore's civil aviation authority and a statutory board under the Ministry of Transport of the Government of Singapore. Its head office is located on the fourth storey of Singapore Changi Airport's Terminal 2.

Ho Ching

Ho Ching

Ho Ching (Chinese: 何晶; pinyin: Hé Jīng; Wade–Giles: Ho2 Ching1; Cantonese Yale: Hòh Jīng; born 27 March 1953) is a Singaporean businesswoman who has been serving as the director of Temasek Trust since 2021. She is the wife of incumbent Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Benedictines

Benedictines

The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict, are a monastic religious order of the Catholic Church following the Rule of Saint Benedict. They are also sometimes called the Black Monks, in reference to the colour of their religious habits. They were founded by Benedict of Nursia, a 6th-century monk who laid the foundations of Benedictine monasticism through the formulation of his Rule of Saint Benedict.

Laurence Freeman

Laurence Freeman

Laurence Freeman OSB is a Catholic priest and a Benedictine monk of Monastery of Sta Maria di Pilastrello, in Italy, a monastery of the Olivetan Congregation. He is the Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation and of its Benedictine oblate community.

Fondation Chirac

Fondation Chirac

The Fondation Chirac was launched by former French President Jacques Chirac, after having served two terms in office between 1995 and 2007. Since 2008, this foundation strives for peace through five advocacy programmes:conflict prevention access to water and sanitation access to quality medicines and healthcare access to land resources and preservation of cultural diversity

Jacques Chirac

Jacques Chirac

Jacques René Chirac was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.

David Rockefeller

David Rockefeller

David Rockefeller was an American investment banker who served as chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Corporation. He was the oldest living member of the third generation of the Rockefeller family, and family patriarch from 2004 until his death in 2017. Rockefeller was the fifth son and youngest child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and a grandson of John D. Rockefeller and Laura Spelman Rockefeller.

In 1979, oil painter Chua Mia Tee depicted Lee's return from London after the Merdeka Talks.^[385] In 1991, Chua presented an oil painting of Lee to the Minister himself, depicting him against a backdrop of Singapore's transformation.^[386] In 1992, artist Lai Kui Fang presented historical oil paintings of Lee's 1959 swearing-in ceremony as prime minister, which are now part of the National Museum of Singapore's collection.^[387]

In 2008, artist Ben Puah unveiled Hero, a solo exhibition of Lee portraits at Forth Gallery.^[388]

In 2009, artist Richard Lim Han presented Singapore Guidance Angel, a solo exhibition of Lee portraits at Forth Gallery.^[389] In the same year, freelance designer, Christopher "Treewizard" Pereira, began making caricature figurines of Lee which range from 12 cm to 30 cm. Comics artist and painter Sonny Liew depicted Lee as part of the series Eric Khoo is a Hotel Magnate at Mulan Gallery.^[390][391] In addition, Cultural Medallion recipient Tan Swie Hian also began a painting of Lee and his late wife titled A Couple. The painting, which took Tan five years to complete, was partially damaged by a fire in 2013. It depicts Lee and Kwa in their youth, is based on a 1946 black-and-white photograph of the couple in Cambridge University, and incorporates in its background Tan's poem in memory of Kwa. A Couple was purchased by art collector Wu Hsioh Kwang.^[392]

In 2010, Valentine Willie Fine Art gallery asked 19 local artists to imagine a future without Lee. The resulting exhibition, Beyond LKY, included artist a triptych of Lee as a father figure looming over a tiny kneeling figure with the words, "Papa can you hear me"; an installation of a broken piano with a tape recorder playing a crackling version of Singapore's National Anthem; white ceramic chains hanging on a wall; and an installation of hammers smashed together.^[393][394] That year, Korean artist Kim Dong Yoo depicted Lee in Lee Kuan Yew & Queen Elizabeth II (2010), an oil-on-canvas portrait of Lee using small images of Queen Elizabeth II's head, a reference to Singapore being a former British colony and current member of the Commonwealth.^[395] Indian-Swiss novelist Meira Chand's A Different Sky, published by UK's Harvill Secker in 2010, features Lee in his early years as a lawyer and co-founder of the People's Action Party.^[396]

In 2011, the iris image of Lee's eye was captured and artistically rendered to resemble a sand art gallery piece. His eye image with his autograph was auctioned off to raise funds for the Singapore Eye Research Institute.^[397] In 2012, urban artist Samantha Lo depicted Lee in her controversial Limpeh series, featuring his image in Shepard Fairey-inspired stickers, mirrors and collages.^[398]

In 2013, poet Cyril Wong published The Dictator's Eyebrow, a poetry collection revolving around a Lee-like figure and his eyebrow's thirst for recognition and power.^[399] In the same year, a group of Tamil poets from three countries, including Singapore Literature Prize winner Ramanathan Vairavan, produced Lee Kuan Yew 90, a collection of 90 new poems celebrating Lee's legacy.^[400] Artist Sukeshi Sondhi also staged An Icon & A Legend, a solo exhibition at featuring 20 pop art style paintings of Lee.^[401] Speed painter Brad Blaze was commissioned to craft a portrait of Lee, Trailblazer: Singapore, to raise funds for Reach Community Services Society.^[402][403] In August, a bronze bust of Lee, cast by contemporary French artist-sculptor Nacera Kainou, was unveiled at the Singapore University of Technology and Design as an early birthday present to Lee from the Lyon-Singapore Association and the municipality of Lyon.^[404]

In 2014, Bruneian painter Huifong Ng landed an exhibition after painting a portrait of Lee.^[405] In May of that year, illustrator Patrick Yee produced the children's picture book A Boy Named Harry: The Childhood of Lee Kuan Yew, published by Epigram Books. The series was later translated into Mandarin.^[406] Chinese artist Ren Zhenyu also created expressionist portraits of Lee in electric hues as part of his Pop and Politics series. Vietnamese artist Mai Huy Dung has crafted a series of oil painting portraits of Lee.^[407][408] Ukrainian artist Oleg Lazarenko also depicted Lee as part of his painting Lion of Singapore.^[409] In October 2014, cartoonist Morgan Chua released LKY: Political Cartoons, an anthology of cartoons about Lee published by Epigram Books, featuring a 1971 Singapore Herald cartoon of Lee on a tank threatening to crush a baby representing press freedoms.^[410] The Madame Tussauds Singapore museum also unveiled a wax figure of Lee and his late wife, Madam Kwa Geok Choo seated and smiling together against a backdrop of red flowers formed in the shape of two hearts. The statues were created based on a photograph that was taken by Madam Kwa's niece, Ms Kwa Kim Li, of the pair on Valentine's Day in 2008 at Sentosa.^[411][412] Another wax figure of Lee Kuan Yew resides at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong.

In February 2015, weeks before Lee's death, Helmi Yusof of The Business Times reported on how "In the last few years, artworks featuring Lee Kuan Yew have turned into a flourishing cottage industry".^[413] Artworks included Jeffrey Koh's seven LKY Pez candy-dispenser sculptures, paintings of Lee in the manner of Van Gogh, and Korean sculptor Park Seung Mo's three-dimensional image of Lee made using stainless steel wires.^[414] In the same month, illustrator Patrick Yee launched the second title in his picture book series about Lee, called Harry Grows Up: The Early Years of Lee Kuan Yew, at an exhibition at the National Library, Singapore.^[415] On 24 March 2015, the National Parks Board named a Singapore Botanic Gardens orchid hybrid called the "Aranda Lee Kuan Yew" in honour of Lee's efforts work in conservationa and environmentalism.^[416] In March 2015, a portrait of Lee by Ong Yi Teck, comprising Lee's name written about 18,000 times, went viral on social media. The portrait was made in tribute to Lee, who was then critically ill.^[417]

Days after Lee died in 2015, 16-year-old blogger Amos Yee released a video, Lee Kuan Yew is Finally Dead!, which criticised Lee and compared him to Jesus Christ. Yee also posted on his blog a stick-figure cartoon depicting Lee having sex with Margaret Thatcher, a personal and political ally of Lee's.^[418] For his actions, Yee was charged with insulting religious feelings and obscenity, and sentenced to four weeks imprisonment despite his youth.^[419] In April 2015, an exhibition of 300 oil paintings on Lee and Singapore opened at Suntec City. Presented by art collector Vincent Chua, The Singapore Story featured 80 portraits of Lee and a life-size statue of Lee shaking hands with Deng Xiaoping when the Chinese statesman visited Singapore in 1978.^[420][421]

In July 2015, veteran actor Lim Kay Tong portrayed Lee in the historical film 1965, including a re-enactment of the iconic press conference when Lee announced that Singapore would be separated from Malaysia^[422] That same month, actor Adrian Pang played Lee in The LKY Musical opposite Sharon Au's Kwa Geok Choo.^[423] In October 2015, sculptor Lim Leong Seng exhibited a 75 cm bronze sculpture he made of Lee, entitled Weathering Storms As One.^[424] In November 2015, the Singaporean Honorary Consulate General in Barcelona unveiled a bust of Lee at Cap Roig Gardens in Costa Brava.^[425] In 2015, the Asian edition of Time featured the late Lee Kuan Yew on its cover.^[426] Lee is also central to the 2015 graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye.

Discover more about Cultural depictions related topics

Chua Mia Tee

Chua Mia Tee

Chua Mia Tee is a Chinese-born Singaporean artist known for his social realist oil paintings capturing the social and political conditions of Singapore and Malaya in the 1950s and 60s. Chua was involved in the Equator Art Society, an artist group founded in 1956 whose social realist works sought to instil a distinct Malayan consciousness by representing the realities and struggles of the masses. For his contributions to the visual arts in Singapore, Chua was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 2015.

Lai Kui Fang

Lai Kui Fang

Lai Kui Fang is a Singaporean artist who studied on a French Government scholarship at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

National Museum of Singapore

National Museum of Singapore

The National Museum of Singapore is a public museum dedicated to Singaporean art, culture and history. Located within the country's Civic District at the Downtown Core area, it is the oldest museum in the country, with its history dating back to when it was first established in 1849, starting out as a section of a library at the Singapore Institution as the Raffles Library and Museum.

Cultural Medallion

Cultural Medallion

The Cultural Medallion is a cultural award in Singapore conferred to those who have achieved artistic excellence in dance, theatre, literature, music, photography, art and film. It is widely recognized as Singapore's pinnacle arts award.

Majulah Singapura

Majulah Singapura

"Majulah Singapura" is the national anthem of the Republic of Singapore. Composed by Zubir Said in 1958 as a theme song for official functions of the City Council of Singapore, the song was selected in 1959 as the nation's anthem when it attained self-government. Upon full independence in 1965, "Majulah Singapura" was formally adopted as Singapore's national anthem. By law, the anthem must be sung with Malay lyrics, but there are authorised translations of the lyrics of the anthem in Singapore's three other official languages: English, Mandarin and Tamil.

Meira Chand

Meira Chand

Meira Chand is a novelist of Swiss-Indian parentage and was born and educated in London.

Harvill Secker

Harvill Secker

Harvill Secker is a British publishing company formed in 2005 from the merger of Secker & Warburg and the Harvill Press.

People's Action Party

People's Action Party

The People's Action Party is a major conservative centre-right political party in Singapore and is one of the three contemporary political parties represented in Parliament, alongside the opposition Workers' Party (WP) and Progress Singapore Party (PSP).

Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey

Frank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989 he designed the "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker campaign while attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

Cyril Wong

Cyril Wong

Cyril Wong is a poet, fiction author and literary critic.

Singapore Literature Prize

Singapore Literature Prize

The Singapore Literature Prize is a biennial award in Singapore to recognise outstanding published works by Singaporean authors in any of the four official languages: Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. The competition is organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) with the support of the National Arts Council and the National Library Board.

Pop art

Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid- to late-1950s. The movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane mass-produced objects. One of its aims is to use images of popular culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony. It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques. In pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, or combined with unrelated material.

Lee receives the Order of Friendship from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on 15 November 2009 in Singapore

• Lee received a number of state decorations, including the Order of the Companions of Honour (1970), Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (1972), the Freedom of the City of London (1982), the Seri Paduka Mahkota Johor (1984), the Order of Great Leader (1988) and the Order of the Rising Sun (1967).^[427]
• In 1999, Lee was named one of Time's Most Influential People of the 20th Century.^[56]
• In 2002, Lee became a fellow of Imperial College London in recognition of his promotion of international trade and industry and development of science and engineering study initiatives with the United Kingdom.^[428]
• In 2006, Lee was presented with the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
• In 2007, Lee was conferred an honorary Doctorate in Law at the Australian National University in Canberra, albeit amid protest from 150 students and staff.^[429]
• In October 2009, the US–Asean Business Council conferred upon Lee its first Lifetime Achievement award, at its 25th anniversary gala dinner in Washington, D.C. His tribute, the former United States Secretary of State and 1973 Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger.^[430] A day later he met United States President Barack Obama at the Oval Office in the White House.^[431][432]
• On 15 November 2009, Lee was awarded the Russian Order of Friendship by President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of APEC Singapore 2009.^[433]
• On 29 April 2010, Lee was named in the Time 100 list as one of the people who most affect our world.^[434]
• On 14 January 2011, Lee received the inaugural Gryphon Award from his alma mater, Raffles Institution, given to illustrious Rafflesians who have made exceptional contributions to the nation.^[435]
• On 19 October 2011, Lee received the Lincoln Medal in Washington DC—an honour reserved for people who have exemplified the legacy and character embodied by Abraham Lincoln.^[436]
• On 21 February 2012, Lee was conferred the Kazakhstan Order of Friendship by Ambassador Yerlan Baudarbek-Kozhatayev, at the Astana.^[437]
• On 10 September 2013, Lee was conferred Russia's Order of Honour by Ambassador Leonid Moiseev for his contributions for forging friendship and co-operation with the Russian Federal and scientific and cultural relations development.^[438]
• On 22 May 2014, the title of Honorary Doctor of the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was presented by the Russian government to Lee.^[439]
• In 2016, Lee was conferred the Order of the Paulownia Flowers. The award was backdated to 23 March 2015, the date of his death.^[440]
• In December 2018, China conferred a posthumous China Reform Friendship Medal on Lee for his "critical role in promoting Singapore's participation in China's reform journey". In former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's southern tour, he urged Chinese leaders to learn from the Singapore model. Alan Chan Heng Loon, Singapore–China Foundation chairman and Lee's chief private secretary, said that Mr. Lee's administration did a lot to build China-Singapore ties.^[441]

Discover more about Awards related topics

Order of Friendship

Order of Friendship

The Order of Friendship is a state decoration of the Russian Federation established by Boris Yeltsin by presidential decree 442 of 2 March 1994 to reward Russian and foreign nationals whose work, deeds and efforts have been aimed at the betterment of relations with the Russian Federation and its people. The design of order was created by Alexander Zhuk. Its statute was later amended by presidential decree 19 of 6 January 1999, presidential decree 1999 of 7 September 2010, presidential decree 1631 of 16 December 2011, and presidential decree 308 of 16 March 2012. It can trace its lineage to the Soviet Order of Friendship of Peoples, also designed by Alexander Zhuk.

Dmitry Medvedev

Dmitry Medvedev

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is a Russian politician who has been serving as the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev also served as the president of Russia between 2008 and 2012 and as the prime minister of Russia between 2012 and 2020.

Order of the Companions of Honour

Order of the Companions of Honour

The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded on 4 June 1917 by King George V as a reward for outstanding achievements. It was founded on the same date as the Order of the British Empire.

Order of St Michael and St George

Order of St Michael and St George

The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III.

Freedom of the City of London

Freedom of the City of London

The Freedom of the City of London started around 1237 as the status of a 'free man' or 'citizen', protected by the charter of the City of London and not under the jurisdiction of a feudal lord. In the Middle Ages, this developed into a freedom or right to trade, becoming closely linked to the medieval guilds, the livery companies. In 1835 eligibility for the freedom of the City was extended to anyone who lived in, worked in or had a strong connection to the City. The freedom that citizens enjoy has long associations with privileges in the governance of the City.

Order of the Crown of Johor

Order of the Crown of Johor

The Most Honourable Order of the Crown of Johor is an Order of chivalry awarded by the Sultan of Johor. It was first instituted on July 31, 1886.

Imperial College London

Imperial College London

Imperial College London is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cultural area that included the Royal Albert Hall, Victoria & Albert Museum, Natural History Museum and royal colleges. In 1907, Imperial College was established by a royal charter, which unified the Royal College of Science, Royal School of Mines, and City and Guilds of London Institute. In 1988, the Imperial College School of Medicine was formed by merging with St Mary's Hospital Medical School. In 2004, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Imperial College Business School.

Australian National University

Australian National University

The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university and member of the Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and institutes.

Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest Australian city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory at the northern tip of the Australian Alps, the country's highest mountain range. As of June 2021, Canberra's estimated population was 453,558.

Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine and Literature. Since March 1901, it has been awarded annually to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Henry Alfred Kissinger is a German-born American diplomat, geopolitical consultant, and politician who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is an American former politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president of the United States. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and worked as a civil rights lawyer before holding public office.