Excerpt from PM Lee Hsien Loong's Interview

Image Credit: Trusted Reviews

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sat down with four journalist on 10 May 2024 to discuss his views on various issues covering regional to global issues.

PM Lee was interviewed by Melissa Manuel (Seithi MediaCorp), Tham Yuen-C (The Strait Times), Dawn Tan (Channel News Asia) and Hadi Saparin (Berita Harian).

Below are some of the key issues covered from the entire interview:

1. Singapore’s Role on The Global Stage

PM Lee talks about the role Singapore plays at a global scale and cites Climate Change Minister Grace Fo’s important role at the UN Climate Change Conference.

2. Singapore’s Foreign Policy With ASEAN

PM Lee shares about the how ASEAN is the Raft to which Singapore’ is connected to, and cornerstone of Singapore’s foreign policy.

3. Dealing With US-China Relationship

PM Lee shares the complex relationship with US and China and between them. Singapore relationship with both countries are very warm and Singapore is not against them.

4. Foreign Talents On The Economy

PM Lee talks about the importance of Foreign talents to develop new things, bring experiences and new perspective on things, though there are reasonable concerns about foreign talents too.

5. Opportunities for Singapore Young People

PM Lee shares about the opportunities that Singapore’s younger generation have and the exposure that they have at a young age, which the previous generations didn’t have.

6. Importance of Uplifting Older Generation

PM Lee talks about that first generation that brought them to Singapore. The Pioneer and Merdaka generations struggled to build Singapore enabling the later generation to move further. They were an exceptional generation because of the challenges they faces and courage showed.

7. Dealing with various Issues in Singapore as PM

PM Lee talks about the various challenging issues and incidents occurring in the region and globally like SARS, Financial crisis, LGBT, abortion etc.,

This also included the sensitivity after the 9/11 incident fallout and Bali bombing in 2002, where Singapore is a multi-racial community. This involved working with various religious groups in Singapore. A

And going through all the experiences has helped bring Singapore together.

8. Foreign Interference in Singapore

Black Operation by foreign players against Singapore dating back to 60’s and 70’s.

But what is new is that Back Operations are at the doorstep because of Internet and social media and AI (potential to misleading people) to a large extent.

This was one of the reason to pass the ‘Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act’ (FICA).

9. Rise of Opposition Voices

The rise of opposition in Singapore politics has led to more intense debates on issues and quality of debate has improved. over the years.

But the caveat of that, according to PM Lee, sometimes, is that it gets difficult to take the political colour out and debate, and focused solely on debating and improving the policies.

10. Importance of Self Reliance

PM Lee stress the importance of low tax in Singapore is low compared to Europe. Hence, there is a need to use the reserve judiciously and not become a welfare state, which often results in high taxation.

PM Lee also acknowledge that social net is necessary but how far does one go and what can be afforded and the government has a role balancing between incentive to achieve and safety in case of hard times.