Q: "May I start asking you about Singapore, about the country itself, the new generation, the younger generation, the younger people -- are you worried about them as they step into the next millennium, how they will cope?"

Mr Lee: "I don’t think so. Each generation has to reflect its own experiences and to adjust to a new environment and the expectation of more changes to come. They face more changes in technology, in the way the world does business, the way the world interacts with each other, than my generation did. My generation saw tumultuous changes in the political sphere, empires broke up after World War II and revolutions and communism and guerilla insurgencies. But the world economy did not begin to change so dramatically.

Q: "But are you worried that because of things like Internet and the access to satellite television, the young ones are harder to control, in a sense?"

Mr Lee: "I’m not worried about it being harder to control. I think the problem the society faces -- and this is regardless of the form of government we have, or what kind of government -- is how to preserve basic core values, the integrity of the family, the relationship between man and wife, parents and children, children between themselves, the relationship between friends, that sense of fidelity of trust, of confidence. The human being is not a bird or an animal that grows naturally by itself. He is imbued with certain attitudes and values, what is good or bad. Don’t do this, do this, help him, that is cruel, this is kind. That cannot be taught just in school, by textbooks, or by computers. That has to be transmitted from mother and father to child, but mostly mother to child. In this new society, mothers are working and the children are left to their own devices, watching television. The results can be damaging for social stability and cohesion. We have already seen the emergence of an underclass in America and single-parent families. The state gives the money, but that does not bring up the child.

"These are fundamental question to which the next generation has to find answers. It’s got nothing to do with rigid political controls. It has to do with the integrity of certain ways of bringing up people so that you are a good man not a bad man. There is such a thing as a good man and a bad man. But if you have a constant barrage of television and computer images which blurs the line between good and bad, then you have the kind of problems that Americans are facing. These are fundamental problems. You will notice that American President and ex-presidents are appealing to Hollywood, "Please, stop this". We will all be exposed to that."

Q: "And you don’t think it will change society in a way that makes Singapore more vulnerable for the years to come, vulnerable to live?"

Mr Lee: "Well, if it goes really wrong, if the younger families decide that their careers count for more than their children’s upbringing, we will have a very different generation that will not be as good; and it’s irreversible."

Q: "You have succeeded in the bid to get the best and the brightest of your country in politics by attracting them that the job is nice, the salary is good. Will the competition for other jobs both within Singapore...?"

Mr Lee: "The competition is on all the time. We can’t get all the people we want in politics; they are doing well outside, and we have to have some in the private sector too. But if we do not have good men in politics, in a place like Singapore, we will collapse. If you have a big country like the United States where the political system is stable, the economy is almost on auto-pilot, then anybody can be in charge as President; the economy will carry on. Bright people become heads of big empires like Microsoft or Cisco or Dell or whatever. They can do that, we can’t."

Q: "So, the two guys I saw yesterday on the front page of the Straits Times are two examples of people who get the President’s Scholarships?"

Mr Lee: "It’s not just being bright and doing well in school, sports and National Service. The critical factor is character. You are bright, you can do things faster than other people, that’s wonderful. Have you got the dedication, the fidelity the trustworthiness, the willingness to do something for other people and not simply for your family’s benefit? Those are not measurable, and you’ve got to look for those qualities."

Q: "And if you have very smart people, they might decide to go in to politics but take the opposition. Will that be a scenario that is possible?"

Mr Lee: "If the Government is foolish enough to exclude them because they’re different."

Q: "But if they are smart enough to say, "I have a very nice plan to do it in a different way"?"

Mr Lee: "Do you want to stay in the opposition for two, three, four terms to build up an organisation when you can join a ready-made one? This is the key factor for the Government’s, the PAP’s continuation in office. We have not excluded people because they’ve disagreed with us. We have co-opted them, their ideas and, in the process, they have also modified their ideas because they see that it has to be made compatible with what has gone before. If you exclude a capable man, you have the beginnings of a real clash of ideas and ideals. Ideas must change, or we will not progress.

"I’m not an ideologue, I’m a pragmatist. You can call me a Social Darwinist. I believe you cannot prove any theory right or wrong until it is over. Does the dodo survive, doesn’t it survive? You know, the Americans are emphatic about democracy and human rights. If democracy and human rights will bring peace and plenty to everybody, then it will happen without their pushing it because that’s an inexorable law of nature, by elimination of less efficient systems. Communism failed after 70 years because they were on the wrong track. We do not have the answers to everything, but we watch and see, "Look, this one looks good, let’s try. If it doesn’t work, change"."

Q: "Well, you’ve been critical of the US in the sense that they have this evangelistic view of the world...?"

Mr Lee: "Yes. They believe after they have defeated the communists that they’ve got all the answers for all time. I would put a question mark in there. Nobody has. You believe that you have one man, one vote, a free press in Kosovo, that the Albanians and the Serbs are going to live peacefully together in a multiracial society? I heard President Clinton on CNN, he believes it. Well, it’s good to be idealistic, but the Americans may have to be there for the next 100 years. Are you willing to be in Bosnia for 100 years, in Kosovo for 100 years? Will you not get tired? Or do you accept that there are certain deep-seated antagonisms, maybe history, maybe religion, I don’t know what it is. But you can have democratic freedom? Serbs and Albanians together will be not a happy community. I wish them well, but if you ask me to try, I’ll say, "No, please don’t"."

Q: "In a broader sense, the Americans tried to solve the Asian crisis and I think many people in the world thought, "Ah, please let the Americans do their way of solving it. Their PR is fantastic, they come in with a flair". But they make quite a bit of mistakes, in your opinion, in handling the crisis. Do they understand Asia well enough?"

Mr Lee: "If they did, they wouldn’t have got into Vietnam."

Q: "But they might have learnt something from that?"

Mr Lee: "They might have learnt about Vietnam, but there are so many other places to learn about. Each country has it own history, its own set of unique problems. I did not think it was a good idea to bring Suharto down. You look at the misery and the suffering it’s caused to the people. The economy will take five to ten years to get back to where it was. That’s assuming that there is no breakdown in the society -- Muslims versus Christians, churches burnt, mosques burnt, Dayaks and Malays kill Madurese, Acehnese Muslims kill Javanese Muslims. It is not one country. It is 17,000 islands speaking several hundred different languages. They were beginning to speak one language only since 1949, or perhaps earlier since the Dutch started propagating Bahasa, the Riau language. So, it takes a long time. And this economic collapse has done serious harm to the fabric of the society."

Q: "And you think the West in general has underestimated it?"

Mr Lee: "I think they did not expect this."

Q: "No? If you look into the next millennium, what would be the best thing for both Europeans and Americans and on the other side, Asians, to change in their relationship or their view towards each other?"

Mr Lee: "Europeans or Americans will be what they are. We in Asia, have to recognise that technological change cannot be stopped. It’s like stopping the steam engine, electricity and telephones. Question is how do you absorb this technology without destroying the culture system that preserved certain core values from generation to generation. That is the problem. The deepest imbedded system is religion. This is the most troubling part, that one religion is resolute and refuses to give in. This is Islam. Some Muslims have refused. "I reject technology. I accept my life as it was". So the Talebans in Afghanistan. That is not an effective response to technology.

"If you believe everything, then I think you are in trouble. I listen to what the Europeans have to say. They have more wisdom, because they’ve got a longer history. They don’t believe all problems can be solved, which is the beginning of wisdom. Test out the ideas and see how it works."

Q: "And then, what will be the examples for Asia? Will Japan, for example, be an example for Singapore, but will there be examples in the West to change and organise the societies?"

Mr Lee: "Well, we have learnt. When we became independent in 1965, for the economy, we studied Hongkong, how they, like us, a city-state, were able to make a living by trading, manufacturing, servicing other economies, tourism and so on. When we had to start an army, we studied the Swiss and the Israelis and decided to combine the two and have a citizens’ army. So, we do not have a heavy defence burden. When we had to run airports or container ports, we studied the world -- Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Dallas, London, Paris -- came back, looked at our condition because we are tropical, they are not tropical. We adjusted the buildings, not the runways or the docks, the wharves or the machinery; adjusted for a different climate, heat and humidity. Because we did that, the learning curve was not costly.

"I do not believe in reinventing the wheel. Whatever problems we face, some countries, some people, somewhere else must have faced it, maybe successfully, maybe half-successfully. Better study them, then sit down and think, "Can we do it better?" That’s the reason why we have not made so many mistakes. I tell my ministers and my officials, every time they bring some new solution, I ask, "Where have you learnt this from?" If they say it’s their own, I say, "Just look elsewhere first. See how they have done it, come back and put up your new draft." Inevitably, it improved."

Q: "Do you think... I think you said it before recently that there will be in the Pacific a bipolar Pacific, it’s built-in?"

Mr Lee: "No, I have not said that. I have said that there could a balance between the Americans and the Japanese, on the one side, and the Chinese, on the other side. It’s not bipolar."

Q: "Well, the interviewer called it "bipolar", I have read."

Mr Lee: "And in 20, 30 years, the Russians will come back."

Q: "Will they ever come back?"

Mr Lee: "I think they will. They are not a stupid people. If you look at the Sputnik, look at their space capsule in the air, it’s been a long time. No money to maintain it, but they’re still improvising and sending capsules to dock in and they have come back. You cannot ignore their capabilities. You look at their grand chess masters. The world’s champion chess master is still a Russian."

Q: "But what about the role of China in that...?"

Mr Lee: "China will take 30 to 50 years to grow into an industrial power."

Q: "China, so many things if you look at the past three, four years. It looked like it was going to be stable. Then something happened. We’ve had the Embassy bombing, now the Taiwan issue. It seems to be the place with the most risk for instability for the world as a whole?"

Mr Lee: "No, I don’t think that is a risk the Chinese have created. Taiwan is a leftover from the unfinished civil war of 1949. If the Chinese had not attacked South Korea in 1950, the Americans would already have abandoned Taiwan. China entered that Korean war and clashed with the Americans and so the Americans drew the line across the Taiwan Straits. That has a possibility to derail China’s climb up the economic ladder. On that issue, the Chinese will be less cold and calculating. They will be more..."

Q: "Emotional?"

Mr Lee: "The nationalistic factor will be very strong."

Q: "And that’s something the Americans seem to underestimate, like they underestimated the reaction on the bombing?"

Mr Lee: "But it’s not just the bombing. It was the way in which the Americans just went on instead of acknowledging the potential great power and making the right apologies. It was just a casual apology over the radio or over the television. It was a big slap to Chinese dignity and their sense of national dignity in front of their people."

Q: "I find there still big mistakes of the West in not knowing how to react to the East. On the other hand, the East could do a different thing, but this was a good example of how the West mistreated the East?"

Mr Lee: "Yes, it was unnecessary. That came on top of Clinton’s rejection of Zhu Rongji’s offer for WTO in Washington. So, there were two insults, two rebuffs."

Q: "How important will it be that China becomes a member of the WTO, in your view?"

Mr Lee: "If they did not think it important, they wouldn’t have made that gesture in Washington. It is important for the world that China should be brought into the WTO rules of trade because if you keep them out, they will learn how to grow, breaking the rules -- reverse engineering, no copyright -- and you live with a spoiler, like the Russians used to be. Do we want that? Put it simply like this: if the Germans and the Japanese did not have GATT and the IMF and could not export their goods and services, they would have had to build empires because Germans from the east and the south went back into a smaller Germany and Japanese from Korea, China, Taiwan went back to a smaller Japan. But they were able to use their energy within their own smaller territory and grow prosperous. If you block that, then they must have their own sphere of influence where they can trade, get what they want and sell what they want, which was why the British had their empire, the Dutch their empire and even the Germans, before World War I, had their empire, and so had the Americans. Do you want that? If the Chinese are kept out, they must build their sphere of influence. That’s dangerous for us."

Q: "Yeah, for the whole of Asia it is, for the whole world?"

Mr Lee: "Exactly. So, do we want that? Americans don’t think in those terms. They think in terms of, "Oh, Trent Lott, Senate leader, has got textile plants in his Missouri state. So, he would oppose. So, let’s not upset him. If it is steel, then they will lose votes in Detroit. So, no". Do you decide an issue of war or peace in the next century on this basis? But Americans don’t calculate in these terms. They calculate for the next election, every two years. They say democracy brings peace? I have a question mark against that."

Q: "But that’s the US democracy and the Asian democracy, what would that...?"

Mr Lee: "I do not know how it’s going to develop, but I do know that every government requires the approbation of their people to succeed. You can’t succeed in the new knowledge based economy if your people are against you. To succeed, you must have high productivity, to use the machines to maximum effect. Be inventive, cut costs. Your workers must be cooperative. If the workers are against you, against the bosses and the government, that society cannot succeed."

Q: "Not in Asia or nowhere else?"

Mr Lee: "No, not anywhere. The West calls us authoritarian. Some call me a dictator, like Saddam Hussein. I ask one simple question -- if we do not have the support and the cooperation of our people, can we run the world’s best service airline, or the most efficient airport and container port? You need not just machines and computers, but also people who are improving day by day the programme and its productivity. It’s the human factor. Because they feel this is their company, this is their country, if it goes down, they and their family are in trouble. We built that spirit."

Q: "You know that spirit only grows in the next century. I think my last question I’ve got here was how important will the Year of the Dragon be? But will Asia in the new millennium step out to become the world’s leading region?"

Mr Lee: "No, I don’t think so. You cannot predict what will happen at the end of the 21st Century because we’re at the beginning of the 21st Century. The present signs show the Americans well ahead because they have pioneered information technology. Whether they will be able to maintain that lead for 50 years is another matter. They introduced mass production, but the Japanese caught up and overtook them. After some time, the Europeans and the Japanese will catch up in IT.

"The difference here is language. English is now so pervasive. Americans have the biggest data banks. The Japanese have their own difficult language and so have the Chinese. It’s difficult for them to copy because the world language now is English. European banks all use English, and many Europeans executives, when I meet them, talk to me in English, including the French. If this carries on, then the Japanese and the Chinese will be at a disadvantage. They have to switch to English because the IT and the Internet are in English."

Q: "Good lord, I think time has really run out. I thank you very much. It was a pleasure to listen to you. I could have listen to you even another hour, but is there anything you want to add which you think you should say in the context of the interview tonight?"

Mr Lee: "No, except that by an accident of history, a Dutchman was crucial to us, Albert Winsemius. Without him, we may have not succeeded so well."

Q: "That’s right. Yes, I’ve met him."

Mr Lee: "He was a practical, able man, a good man. He understood the Western economy, including the American economy, because his son was working for McKinsey at that time. He explained to us how they do business, why we should do these things a certain way. That made it easier for us."

Q: "I know. I visited him before I went to Singapore in his time. I saw all the Straits Times there."

Mr Lee: "He read it everyday. He had a great interest in us. Up till 1984, he used to come twice a year to review our progress. We used to give him quarterly reports from the Finance Ministry, EDB and so on. He’d come, spend two, three weeks, meet the Europeans and the American employers, discuss problems with our unions and give me a report. We’d have lunch to discuss it. We were able to solve many problems before they became big."

Q: "This is not a job offer. Are you ever going to retire although you...?"

Mr Lee: "I hope not because if I retire, I will atrophy. I’ve got to keep going. If I pull the plug out, I will degenerate. I will not do that."

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