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  Channel NewsAsia 30 Aug 07
S'pore will be back to where it started if it loses govt machinery: MM Lee

Straits Times 31 Aug 07
MM Lee's interview with IHT
S'pore must stay connected globally to grow
At home, Govt needs to strike balance between two opposing needs
By Aaron Low

Today Online 31 Aug 07
World leaders must wake up
Many do not realise danger their populations face from global warming: MM Lee
Jasmine Yin

THE dangers of rising sea levels may not have sunk in yet for some world leaders but Singapore, for one, is taking no chances with global warming.

Referring to ongoing talks with the Dutch to build dikes, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said, in an interview with the International Herald Tribune conducted last week and published yesterday: "We are too vulnerable. If the water goes up by one metre, we can have dikes and save ourselves.

"But if the water goes up by three, four, five metres, what will happen to us? Half of Singapore will disappear. The valuable half — the seafronts!"

There are several projects running into billions of dollars that are currently underway all around the island-state's waterfront, such as the new Marina Bay downtown and the upscale Sentosa Cove residences.

Illustrating the possible mammoth upheaval to people's lives in the event of glaciers in the Himalayas melting and rivers like the Mekong drying up, Mr Lee said: "What will happen to the hundreds of millions? Where do they go? Where can they go? This will be a very serious problem.

"It scares me because many world leaders have not woken up to the peril that their populations are in."

This issue has been put on the backburner because "it's not an election issue", he said.

"You know maybe (in) 50 years, a hundred years, most of us would be dead. Leave it to the next president."

But instead of cutting down reliance on energy, Mr Lee argued that implementing green technologies was a more realistic approach to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.

The pro-active stance that Singapore is taking towards the predicted rise in sea levels has much to do with its survival instinct as a young and small immigrant nation. From attracting multi-national corporation investments to the push for English as the working language, Singapore has to "go in whatever direction world conditions dictate if we are to survive and to be part of this modern world".

He cautioned: "If we are not connected to this modern world, we are dead. We'll go back to the fishing village we once were."

Mr Lee also touched on the rise of China and India, reiterating that these two emerging powerhouses present more of an opportunity than a challenge for the region.

He added: "I believe it will be conflict-free between big powers because it's too costly for them. But between big powers against small powers, the squeezing of small powers, that will go on. Between small powers themselves, the small will squeeze the smaller.

"But I do not believe hostilities are worth anybody's while."

Straits Times 31 Aug 07
MM Lee's interview with IHT
S'pore must stay connected globally to grow
At home, Govt needs to strike balance between two opposing needs
By Aaron Low

MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has warned against taking Singapore's success for granted, saying that the day it stops providing foreign investors with stability and security, the money will stop flowing in.

In an interview with the International Herald Tribune (IHT), he stressed that the city state must stay connected and keep up with global changes.

At the same time, it must take a balanced approach in addressing both its cosmopolitan citizens' desire for greater openness and HDB heartlanders' concerns over the fast pace of change.

During the wide-ranging interview, Mr Lee also shared his views on climate change, China and India's growth, and Singapore's future.

The IHT interviewers suggested to Mr Lee that for Singapore to keep abreast of global developments, it needed to further open up its society and allow a free press, free speech and political competition.

Mr Lee said that was the Western, liberal approach, but he would give 'the answer of a pragmatist'.

The top 20 per cent of Singaporeans are educated abroad and keep up with global developments through travel and the Internet, he noted. Every year, about 50 per cent of Singaporeans travel abroad.

So, Singapore is not a closed society, he said. 'But at the same time, we try to maintain a certain balance with the people who are not finding it so comfotable to suddenly find the world changed, their world, their sense of place, their sense of position in society.

'We call them the heartlanders,' he said, referring to the people who live in three- and four-room HDB flats.

'And so we have this dichotomy. You can read the analysis by our academics who wrote that we are using the heartlanded to keep progress in check.'

Noting that they write it from abstract analysis, Mr Lee said with a laugh: 'But they have not governed the place.'

He cited the homosexual issue as an example of how the Government had to try to maintain a balance between the interests of both groups. It thus adopted 'an ambiguous position' by keeping a law banning homosexual sex on the books but not enforcing it, and not allowing gay parades.

'Yes, we've got to go the way the world is going. China has already allowed and recognised gays, so have Hong Kong and Taiwan. It's a matter of time,' Mr Lee said. 'But we have a part Muslim population, another part conservative older Chinese and Indians. So, let's go slowly.'

Mr Lee also emphasised Singapore's vulnerability as a nation. While it might have the superstructure of a modern city, he said its base remained 'very narrow and could easily disintegrate'.

He laughed off the IHT's suggestion that Singapore's longstanding ties with foreign investors would provide 'permanent institutional channels of money, jobs and growth'.

'That means you don't understand. They are here because we've provided for security, stability and predictability. 'If that sense of security and predictability is gone, the money will stop flowing in and will flow out,' he said.

On climate change, he warned that if sea levels rose by 3m to 5m, half of Singapore might just disappear. That was why the Government was already consulting Dutch company Delft Hydraulics, to learn how to build dykes, he said. 'It scares me because many world leaders have not woken up to the peril that their populations are in,' he added.

Channel NewsAsia 30 Aug 07
S'pore will be back to where it started if it loses govt machinery: MM Lee

SINGAPORE: Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has stressed that Singapore will go back to the days of where it started if it loses the system of government machinery that has evolved all these years.

In a wide-ranging interview with the International Herald Tribune, he explained that Singapore's leaders knew that if the country were like its neighbours, it would die as Singapore had nothing to offer against what they had. Singapore had to produce something which was different and better than what its neighbours had, and that is, a system of government that is incorrupt, efficient, meritocratic and one which works.

Mr Lee noted that the Singapore system works regardless of race, language or religion. Otherwise, the country would have divisions.

He said: "We are pragmatists. We don't stick to any ideology. Does it work? Let's try it and if it does work, fine, let's continue it. If it doesn't work, toss it out, try another one.

"We are not enamoured with any ideology. Let the historians and the Ph.D students work out their doctrines. I'm not interested in theories per se."

Minister Mentor Lee also covered topics concerning the effects of global warming. He said Singapore is already in consultations with Delft in Holland to learn how to build dikes.

He said: "It scares me, because many world leaders have not woken up to the peril that their populations are in. This melting ice cap. I expected great consternation!

"What would happen to this earth? But, no. Has it triggered off emergency meetings to do something about this? Earth warming, the glaciers melting away? Never mind the Swiss Alps and skiing resorts having to manufacture snow.

"When the glaciers in the Himalayas and Tibet melt away, the Ganges, the Yangtze, the Irrawaddy, the Mekong, may dry up, except for rainy seasons. What will happen to the hundreds of millions? Where do they go? Where can they go? This will be a very serious problem."

Mr Lee also touched on the economic challenges, with the rise of China and India. - CNA /ir
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