Going it alone

There are books to teach you how to build a house, how to repair engines, how to write a book. But I have not seen a book on how to build a nation out of a disparate collection of immigrants from China, British India, and the Dutch East Indies, or how to make a living for its people when its former economic role as the entrepot of the region is becoming defunct. I never had expected that in 1965, at 42, I would be in charge of an independent Singapore, responsible for the lives of its 2 million people. We had been asked to leave Malaysia and go our own way with no signposts to our next destination.

Malaysian Ties

Malaysia's leaders continued to treat us as though we were still in the early 1960s, seeking merger. For their convenience, we were out of their Parliament and their politics. Now, although Singapore was independent and sovereign, the Tunku [Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister of Malaysia] believed that his one battalion in Singapore and his ability to cut off our water supply or close the Causeway to stop all trade and travel would compel us to comply.

[Tun Abdul] Razak, who took over as prime minister in September 1970, was a different leader from the Tunku. He did not have the Tunku's warm personality or his large and commanding presence. By comparison he appeared less decisive. Razak had been my contemporary at Raffles College from 1940 to 1942. He was bright and hardworking. He was also a good hockey player, but ill at ease with people unless he knew them well. During Malaysia, when we were competing for the same votes, he eyed me with suspicion and unease. He probably considered me a danger to Malay dominance and political supremacy.

Razak was preoccupied with getting the country back to normal after the trauma of the [1969 racial] riots, and with fleshing out his New Economic Policy [to address uneven advancement between ethnic communities, in particular the Malays], so we had a relatively trouble-free few years. However, from time to time we had problems over both trivial and important matters.

Hussein Onn succeeded Razak as prime minister. He was a practicing lawyer in 1968 when Prime Minister Razak brought him into active politics. They were brothers-in-law, married to two sisters. Hussein did not look the typical Malay. He had a Turkish grandmother, spoke with a strong voice and was unusually fair for a Malay. He was very careful in his work. At formal meetings, he would have his brief before him with important passages neatly underlined in color, and would go through his brief methodically. He did not believe in trusting only to his memory. He was open and direct when he dealt with me, coming straight to the point, unlike Razak. I liked him.

When Hussein Onn appointed [Dr Mahathir Mohamad] as his deputy prime minister and minister for education I decided to hold out a hand of friendly cooperation for the future, regardless of our profound differences in the past. Through Devan Nair [former unionist and later Singapore president], who knew him well from his years in the Malaysian Parliament, I invited Mahathir to Singapore in 1978. I expected Mahathir to succeed Hussein as prime minister and wanted to put our old antagonism behind us. I knew he was a fierce and dogged fighter. I had seen the way he had fought the Tunku when the Tunku was at the height of his power. He had been expelled from UMNO but that did not deter him from carrying on the fight. I was not unwilling to clash with him when we were in Malaysia, but feuding between two sovereign states was different. I initiated this dialogue to clear away the debris of the past

Despite my differences with him, I made more progress solving bilateral problems with Mahathir in the nine years he was prime minister from 1981 to 1990, when I stepped down, than in the previous 12 years with Tun Razak and Hussein Onn as prime ministers. He had the decisiveness and political support to override grassroot prejudices to advance his country's interest. He had the courage to say in public that a female doctor using [only] a pencil to examine a male patient (which the Muslim religious leaders wanted) was not the way to treat patients. He had educated the younger Malays, opened up their minds with the vision of a future based on science and technology, especially computers and the Internet, which his Multimedia Super Corridor symbolized. The majority of all the Malays and all the Chinese and Indians in Malaysia want this future, not a return to fundamentalist Muslim practices based on shariah law.

Three decades after separation, the close ties of family and friends still bind the two people. At the end of the day, whatever the deep-seated differences, both sides know that if they lash out at each other without restraint, there is a risk of unscrambling the interracial harmony that holds each country's multiracial society together. Malaysia needs multiracial tolerance as much as Singapore does. A younger generation of leaders will soon be in charge in both countries. Free from the personal traumas of the past, they can make a fresh start at a practical working relationship.

Indonesian Friends

It was our good fortune that the character, temperament, and objectives of President Suharto allowed me to develop good personal relations with him. He is a quiet man, courteous and punctilious on form and protocol. His character is in keeping with the way he carefully probed and assessed my position before my visit to Jakarta.

He made few promises, but delivered whatever he had promised. His forte was his consistency. He is three years older than me, broad-faced, broad-nosed, with a somewhat taciturn expression until he got to know one, when he would smile frequently and easily. Although he speaks calmly and softly, he becomes quite animated once he gets going on an important subject.

He is not an intellectual, but he had the ability to select able economists and administrators to be his ministers. He chose Berkeley-educated economists like Professor Dr Widjojo Nitisastro and Ali Wardhana, who opened up Indonesia to foreign trade and investments and gradually made it one of the successful emerging economies.

No one expected the Indonesian rupiah crisis. When the Thai central bank stopped defending the baht on July 2, 1997, the contagion spread to all currencies of the region as panic swept fund managers into a sellout of the region's shares and currencies. Wisely, the Indonesian finance minister called upon the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help.

[But] the [rupiah's] improvement was undermined when President Suharto reinstated some of the 14 major infrastructure projects that had been cancelled as agreed with the IMF. They included a power station in which his eldest daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana (Tutut), had an interest. Also, one of the 16 insolvent banks that had been closed (it was owned by the president's son) was allowed to be revived under a different name. The market reacted by selling off the rupiah.

Alarmed at the rapid decline of the value of the rupiah, I told our ambassador in Jakarta to ask Tutut if she could meet me in Singapore to convey my views to her father. Prime Minister Goh and I met her in Singapore at the Istana villa on Christmas Day, 1997. We explained the grave situation for Indonesia if confidence was not restored, first in her father's health and next in his willingness to implement the IMF conditions. I strongly urged her and her siblings to understand that international fund managers in Jakarta had focused on the economic privileges the president's children were enjoying; during this period of crisis, it was best if they withdrew completely from the market and did not engage in any new projects. I asked her point-blank whether she could get this message understood by her siblings. She answered with equal frankness that she could not.

General Benny Murdani, his trusted, loyal and long-serving head of the armed forces intelligence agency and later commander in chief of the armed forces, told me in the late 1980s that he had advised Suharto to rein in his children's endless demands for more business privileges. Had he listened to Murdani, Suharto would not have had this tragic end.

Suharto's last major military and ministerial appointments in February and March 1998 were the most disastrous misjudgments of his life. He appointed B.J. Habibie as vice president because, as he said 48 hours before he resigned, nobody would want Habibie as president. The most grievous error of all was his balancing act in appointing General Wiranto as chief of the armed forces while promoting his son-in-law Prabowo Subianto to be lieutenant-general and chief of Kostrad (the Strategic Forces). He knew that Prabowo was bright and ambitious, but impetuous and rash.

I had met Gus Dur [Abdurrahman Wahid] in Jakarta in 1997 when he addressed a private meeting where he explained the role of Islam in Indonesia and assured investors that it was not of the Middle East variety. He was a good speaker, fluent in English, well-read in Arabic, and highly intelligent. It did not occur to me then that he would become president and inherit Suharto's Indonesia after a Habibie interregnum.

My first meeting with Gus Dur as president of Indonesia was warm and constructive. His sense of humor was matched by a realistic appreciation of self. He joked, "The first president of Indonesia [Sukarno] was crazy about women; the second president [Suharto] was crazy about money; the third president [Habibie] was just crazy." His daughter who accompanied him asked, "What about the fourth president?" Without missing a beat, he said, "Wayang" (a performance, theater). In one word, he summed up his role in Indonesia. He was confident he could play the part of president of Indonesia in the new era of openness to the media and the NGOs (non-government organizations) that wanted reformasi and democrasi.

However, Indonesia has undergone a sea change. Power is no longer centralized in the hands of a president backed by an all-powerful ABRI, the armed forces. The election had thrown up a large number of small Islamic parties but together they did not form the majority. Suharto had kept Islam in check until the late 1980s when he started to cultivate the Muslims to counter ABRI's influence. Habibie, as president, actively nurtured and helped them mobilize support for his re-election. Having entered the corridors of power, political Islam is now a major force in Indonesia and will remain so. The challenge for Indonesia is how to maintain a balance that will enable its people of diverse races and religions to unite as one nation based on the credo of their founding father, President Sukarno, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (unity in diversity), enshrined in their national crest.

Exit Marcos

When [US Secretary of State George] Shultz earlier discussed the matter with me, I said [Philippine president Ferdinand] Marcos was the problem, not the solution. He asked me to speak frankly to [President Ronald] Reagan who was most unhappy at the prospect of abandoning an old friend. So, as gently as I could, I described to Reagan how Marcos had changed from the young anticommunist crusader of the 1960s to become a self-indulgent aging ruler who allowed his wife and cronies to clean up the country through ingenious monopolies and had put the government heavily in debt.

The Philippines blew up on February 15, 1986, after the Marcos reelection was challenged as fraudulent. The American ambassador, Stapleton Roy, was instructed to seek my views. The next day, February 16, Corazon Aquino claimed victory and announced a program of nationwide nonviolent protest to bring down the Marcos regime.

I told Ambassador Roy that Marcos should know the door was open for him to leave. If he felt he had no place to go, he might fight it out. On February 25, Roy told me his government agreed with my views and asked whether I would be willing to undertake the task of coordinating an ASEAN approach to offer Marcos asylum. Raja [Sinnathamby Rajaratnam], our foreign minister, said it would be difficult to get all five ASEAN members to agree. I immediately sent Marcos, through our ambassador in Manila, an invitation to come to Singapore. It was an offer that, if accepted, would help diffuse the dangerous situation that then prevailed. At the same time, Reagan sent a private message to him not to use force and said he had arranged for him, his relatives and associates to be given asylum in Hawaii.

A few days after he arrived in Honolulu, Marcos had his baggage, which included cases of new peso banknotes, inspected by American customs. He sensed trouble and sent me a message that he wanted to come to Singapore. Aquino, who had already taken over as president, objected. Marcos stayed on in Hawaii to face multiple lawsuits.

Mrs Aquino was sworn in as president amid jubilation. I had hopes this honest, god-fearing woman would help regain confidence for the Philippines and get the country back on track. She was a sincere, devout Catholic who wanted to do her best for her country by carrying out what she believed her husband would have done had he been alive, namely, restore democracy to the Philippines. Democracy would then solve their economic and social problems. [But] there were more coup attempts, discouraging investments badly needed to create jobs. This was a pity because they had so many able people, educated in the Philippines and the United States. Mrs Aquino's successor, Fidel Ramos, whom she had backed, was more practical and established greater stability.

Myanmar's Junta

[In 1993] I asked [Khin Nyunt, then strongman of the junta] to reconsider his policy toward Aung San Suu Kyi. She had returned to Myanmar to lead a movement against the military government [But] they could not lock her up forever; she would be a continuing embarrassment to their government.

The West, especially the United States, believed that economic sanctions could force the government to hand power to Aung San Suu Kyi. I did not think this was likely. The army has been Myanmar's only instrument of government since Ne Win took power in 1962.

But unless the United States or the United Nations is prepared to send in armed forces to hold the country together, as it is doing in Bosnia, Myanmar without the army would be ungovernable. The West is impatient with ASEAN's constructive engagement and was puzzled when its leaders admitted Myanmar as a member in July 1997. But what better way was there to have the country develop, open up and gradually change?

Tragic Cambodia

I met Hun Sen in Singapore in December [1993]. He was a tough survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a prime minister appointed by the Vietnamese in the 1980s but agile enough to distance himself from them and be acceptable to the Americans and West Europeans. He understood power, that it came from the barrel of the gun, which he was determined to hold. Once the Khmer Rouge were on the decline, and Ranariddh could no longer team up with them to challenge him, Hun Sen ousted him in 1997 and took complete control, while remaining nominally second prime minister.

Hun Sen's coup caused Cambodia's admission into ASEAN to be postponed. It was eventually admitted in April 1999 because no country wanted to spend $2 billion for another UN operation to hold fair elections. Cambodia had had 27 years of war since Lon Nol's 1970 coup. Its present leaders are the product of bitter, relentless struggles in which opponents were either eliminated or neutralized. They are utterly merciless and ruthless, without humane feelings. History has been cruel to the Cambodians.

SEOUL Searching

As president-elect [in 1997], Kim Dae Jung agreed to Kim Young Sam's pardon of the two former presidents then serving long terms of imprisonment for treason, bribery, and, in the case of Chun [Doo Hwan], murder. The trials not only destroyed Chun and Roh Tae Woo, they also diminished the men who had helped to create modern Korea. Chun and Roh had played by Korean standards of their time, and by those rules they were not villains. Pressured by American public opinion against having another military man as successor, Roh had allowed power to go into the hands of Kim Young Sam. These events have sent the wrong signals to military leaders in charge of other countries, that it is dangerous to hand power to civilian politicians who seek popular support.

Deng Xiaoping
Singapore,1978

ASEAN governments regarded radio broadcasts from China appealing directly to their ethnic Chinese as dangerous subversion. Deng listened silently. He had never seen it in this light. I said it was most unlikely that ASEAN countries would respond positively to his proposal for a united front against the Soviet Union and Vietnam and suggested that we discuss how to resolve this problem. Abruptly he asked, "What do you want me to do?" I was astonished. I had never met a communist leader who was prepared to depart from his brief when confronted with reality.

He was a five-footer, but a giant among men. At 74, when he was faced with an unpleasant truth, he was prepared to change his mind. Two years later, after they had made alternative arrangements for their fraternal communist parties in Malaysia and Thailand, the radio broadcasts stopped.

Beijing, 1985

He bantered about his advanced age of 81 compared to my 62. I assured him that he did not look old. He repeated he was already 81, ready to meet Marx, that it was a law of nature and everyone should be aware of it, except Mr Chiang Ching-kuo [the president of Taiwan]. He asked when I had last met Chiang and whether he had solved the leadership problem. Only then did I realize that his opening remarks on age were not casual banter but a lead to Chiang and Taiwan.

Deng wondered aloud whether Chiang had made any personnel arrangements after him. As best as I could see, he had, I replied, but could not say who would replace him eventually. Deng feared chaos and confusion in Taiwan after Chiang's departure. At the moment, at least both sides shared a common feeling that there was only one China. Chaos could lead to the emergence of two Chinas.

Knowing that Chiang Ching-kuo and I were good friends, he then requested me to convey his personal regards to "Mr Chiang" when I next met him. I agreed. He hoped to be able to cooperate with Chiang as both had been in the same university in Moscow in 1926 although not in the same class. Chiang was about 15 or 16 and Deng was 22 in 1926. (A month later I personally passed Deng's message to Chiang in Taipei. He listened in silence and did not reply.)

Jiang Zemin
Beijing, 1990

Although I had been well-briefed, Jiang was a surprise. I had not expected so extrovert a Chinese communist leader. When Jiang spent two weeks in Singapore in 1980, Ng Pock Too, an EDB [Economic Development Board] director, was his liaison officer. After Jiang was made general secretary, Ng gave me a thumbnail sketch. He was surprised Jiang had been placed in this top position. He remembered him as a serious, hardworking, conscientious and thorough official: Jiang would study every problem in detail, take notes, and ask searching questions. Ng thought highly of him because, unlike other Chinese officials who stayed in five-star hotels, Jiang chose a three-star hotel off fashionable Orchard Road. He traveled modestly - in Ng's car, by taxi or on foot. Jiang was a thrifty, honest official, but did not appear to be a political animal.

Our personal chemistry was good. Jiang was gregarious. I was open and direct. Whereas with Li Peng I had to be careful not to speak even half in jest, Jiang knew I meant well and did not take offense. He also had a very un-Chinese habit of holding his guest's forearm and looking him earnestly in the eye when he asked a direct question. His eyes were his lie detector.

Many, myself included, underrated Jiang's staying power because of his bonhomie and his penchant for quoting poetry at every opportunity. But there must be the tough infighter side of him which his opponents would have discovered to their cost when they thwarted him.

China's Future

In the next 50 years, the Chinese will have to complete three transitions: from planned to a market economy, from a rural to an urban base, from a tightly controlled communist to an open, civic society. Several factors can derail China from its present track of catching up with the industrial nations.

The first and most important is Taiwan. If Chinese leaders feel that Taiwan is going to go independent, they could act with unpredictable consequences. The next factor is rapid urbanization. By 2050, [the urban portion of the population] will be 80 percent, well-informed and able through electronic means to mobilize for mass action. They will be able to do this with more ease than the Falungong, a cult that, through the Internet, organized some 10,000 of its followers to gather peacefully in Beijing in April 1999, around Zhongnanhai, the residence of the Communist Party leaders. China's political structures must allow its citizens more participation and control over their lives or there will be pressures that could destablilize society.

A third factor would be the widening differences in incomes, growth rates and quality of life between the wealthy coastal and riverine provinces and the disadvantaged inland provinces. The fourth and most profound factor will be the different values and aspirations of the next generation. Better education and wider global exposure will result in a people who are knowledgeable about the world, with frequent links with their counterparts in other societies. They will want Chinese society to be equal to other advanced countries in standard of living, quality of life and individual freedoms. In particular, how Japan, Korea and Taiwan are governed will have a great influence on the thinking of the Chinese intelligentsia.

Smart Marriages

What decided me to make that [1983] Great Marriage Debate speech was a report on my desk analyzing the 1980 census figures. Our best women were not reproducing themselves because men who were their educational equals did not want to marry them About half of our university graduates were women; nearly two-thirds of them were unmarried. The Asian man, whether Chinese, Indian, or Malay, preferred to have a wife with less education than himself. Only 38 percent of graduate men were married to graduate women in 1983.

This lopsided marriage and procreation pattern could not be allowed to remain unmentioned and unchecked. I decided to shock the young men out of their stupid, old-fashioned, and damaging prejudices.

I urged them to marry their educational equals, and encouraged educated women to have two or more children. Graduate women were upset that I had spotlighted their plight. Non-graduate women and their parents were angry with me for dissuading graduate men from marrying them. I was attacked in a flood of comments and letters to the press for being an elitist because I believed intelligence was inherited and not the result of education, food, and training.

The open discussion made some difference. [But] it would take many years to reverse the trend. By 1997, 63 percent of graduate men married fellow graduates, as against 38 percent in 1982. Also, more graduate women were marrying non-graduates rather than remaining single. It is difficult to override a deep-rooted cultural bias.

A new phenomenon is the increasing number of Caucasian men marrying our women, especially the tertiary-educated. Singapore graduate men were fearful of marrying them but Caucasian graduates were not. Many of these women were forced to emigrate by our rules that allowed a Singapore male citizen to bring in a foreign bride, but not the other way round. We gave that permission only if the foreign husband had regular employment. We changed this policy in January 1999: This will add to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Singapore. Furthermore, quite a number of our men who were educated abroad have married Caucasian, Japanese, and other Asian girls they met at university. Their children are invaluable additions to our talent pool. We have to change our attitudes and take advantage of what was once considered foreign and not assimilable talent.

Wiring Up

But while I spearheaded the early drive for computerization and payments by electronic transfer, I did not myself use a PC although they had become common. When they younger ministers e-mailed each other in the mid-1990s, I had my e-mail printed out and responded by fax.

Left "out of the loop," I decided at the age of 72 to take instructions. For the graying generation, it was not easy. It was many months before I could work my MS Word and e-mail without help every now and again from my secretaries. Even much later I would lose a file into a black hole because I had clicked on the wrong icon. Or the PC would accuse me of having "performed an illegal operation" and threaten to shut down. At the office my secretaries would help out. At home, I could ring up Loong, who after listening to my tale of woe, would guide me step by step on the phone to retrieve my hours of hard work that had been lost. When this failed Loong would come on Sunday to search through my C disk for the missing file or to solve some other mystery . Now I would not travel without my laptop to access my e-mail.

Financial Liberalization

I decided in 1997 to break the old mold [of inward-looking domestic banks]. Singapore banks needed an infusion of foreign talent and a different mindset. If these three big banks would not move, then the DBS Bank, in which the government had a stake, should set the pace. After talent scouting in 1998, DBS Bank engaged John Olds, an experienced senior executive who was about to leave J. P. Morgan. He took over as deputy chairman and CEO to make the bank a major Asian player. Soon, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation appointed as CEO a Hong Kong banker, Alex Au.

For over three decades, I had supported Koh Beng Seng on restricting the access of foreign banks to the local market. Now I believed the time had come for the tough international players to force our Big Four to upgrade their services or lose market share. There was a real risk that they may not be able to compete, in which case we may end up with no Singapore-owned and managed banks to depend on in a financial crisis.

Gradually I concluded that Koh, deputy managing director of the banking and financial institutions group in the MAS [Monetary Authority of Singapore], was not keeping up with the enormous changes sweeping the banking industry worldwide. He was too protective of our investors. Major financial centers such as New York and London concentrated on protecting not the different market players or the individual investors, but the system itself.

As I did not want to revamp the MAS myself, early in 1997, with the prime minister's permission, I involved Loong in the work. He began meeting bankers and fund managers and mastered the workings of our financial sector. On January 1, 1998, when the prime minister appointed him chairman of the MAS, he was ready to move.

Family

[The children] were a source of joy and satisfaction. [Choo] brought them up well-mannered and self-disciplined, never throwing their weight around although they had grown up as the prime minister's children . . . Choo used a cane when the children were particularly naughty or disobedient. I did not physically punish them; a stern rebuke was effective enough. Having a violent father turned me against using physical force.

In November 1990, when I resigned as prime minister, Loong was appointed deputy prime minister by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. Many of my critics thought this smacked of nepotism, that he was unduly favored because he was my son. On the contrary, as I told the party conference in 1989, the year before I resigned, it would not be good for Singapore or for Loong to have him succeed me. He would be seen as having inherited the office from me when he should deserve the position on his own merit.

As Chok Tong's deputy, Loong has established his standing as a political leader in his own right - determined, fast, and very versatile. I could have stayed on a few years longer and allowed him to gather support to be the leader. I did not do so.

Yang preferred the challenge of the private sector, and opted to join SingTel. When he was promoted to CEO, my critics again alleged nepotism. The officers he served with and his peers knew better. So did the fund managers. SingTel shares did not weaken.

Ling, a neurologist, is a deputy director (clinical services) of the National Neuroscience Institute at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. She is unmarried, like many other graduate women of her generation. She lives with us, as is normal in Asian families, and travels extensively to conferences on neurology, pursuing her interest in epilepsy and learning disabilities in children.

The family has remained close. When they come for lunch on Sundays, the younger boys work each other up and create boisterous bedlam in the dining room. Most people dote on their grandchildren, spoiling them in the process. We are fond of ours, but feel that their parents are overindulgent. Perhaps we were too strict with their parents, but it has served them well.

Epilogue

What does the future have in store for Singapore? City-states do not have good survival records. Will Singapore, the independent city-state, disappear? The island of Singapore will not, but the sovereign nation it has become, able to make its way and play its role in the world, could vanish.

The future is as full of promise as it is fraught with uncertainty. The industrial society is giving way to one based on knowledge. We must learn and be part of that knowledge-based world. That we have succeeded in the last three decades does not ensure our doing so in the future. However, we stand a better chance of not failing if we abide by the basic principles that have helped us progress: social cohesion through sharing the benefits of progress, equal opportunities for all, and meritocracy, with the best man or woman for the job, especially as leaders in government.