Political positions of Lee Kuan Yew

Australia and Singapore are fellow Commonwealth countries that has consistently engaged in high levels of economic and military cooperation. However in the 1980s, Lee had famously predicted that Australia was at risk of becoming the "white trash of Asia" due to high unemployment, inflationary pressures and government debt.[15] It stirred a reaction in Australia, and at the time of the comments, Bob Hawke, who was Australia's prime minister, stated that the comment was "not an overstatement" and that there was "probably some truth into that". The "white trash" quote is still used today, but mostly in domestic Australian politics when compared to other Anglosphere countries.[16]

Lee believed that the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984, was the best agreement possible for Hong Kong. Lee said Hong Kongers had to come to terms with the reality that there would be “nothing to stop Beijing from doing what it wanted” after the 1997 handover. He advised British diplomats stationed in Singapore in July 1989 following the Tiananmen Square protests that Beijing would reject any assertion of a separate and democratically based Hong Kong identity. In his memoir, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story he stated that there was a “wide and deep gap” between what Hong Kong people wanted and expectations of China’s leaders.[17]

Lee observed that the United Kingdom wanted an European Union more focused on the economics aspect of the single market, and not as a political integration project. Lee was also pessimistic about the euro and the European Union when he was interviewed for One Man’s View of the World, stating that without real fiscal integration, the euro was doomed, and that without deeper integration into a United States of Europe, “Europe will be reduced to the role of supporting actor”. Lee added that the EU was likely to fail because of “too fast an enlargement” and that the euro in its “present form” cannot be saved because “you cannot have monetary integration without fiscal integration”.[18]

In 2010, WikiLeaks released classified communications documents from Lee to US leaders. In the documents, Lee described the North Korean regime as "psychopathic", described then Vice-President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping as a "princeling" and expressed his belief that the Japanese government may develop nuclear technologies in the future.[19]

Under Lee's tenure as prime minister, the judicial system was revamped, with trials by jury being abolished in 1969.[20] Lee was a critic of jury systems, stating that he had "no faith in a system that allowed the superstition, ignorance, biases, and prejudices of seven jurymen to determine guilt or innocence."[21]

Lee was criticised for his use of the Internal Security Act (ISA), a statute that allows for detention without trial of any individual deemed dangerous to society. In response, he has stated that Singapore has "to lock up people, without trial... [or] the country would be in ruins."[12] In 1963, he initiated Operation Coldstore, a security operation that utilised the Preservation of Public Service Security Ordinance, a precursor to the ISA, to arrest 113 suspected communists and communist sympathisers. Today, the legacy of Coldstore remains contentious and is openly debated, with historian PJ Thum stating in a parliamentary committee that "Coldstore was fundamentally motivated by political, not security, reasons." This was subsequently disputed by the governing PAP.[22]

It is said that Lee's policy in the 1960s and 1970s (stop at two) worked too well and the birth rate declined at a rapid rate and resulted in an ageing population.[23]

In 2008, Lee said he was 'not quite sold' on idea of 6.5 million population for Singapore in a news article published in The Straits Times on 2 February 2008. He said he felt a population of 5.5 million would be the maximum that could live comfortably in the available space.[24]

So when people say, 'Oh, ask the people!' It's childish rubbish. We are leaders. We know the consequences. You mean that ice-water man knows the consequences of his vote? They say people can think for themselves? Do you honestly believe that the chap who can't pass primary six knows the consequences of his choice when he answers a question viscerally on language, culture and religion? —Lee Kuan Yew, 1998.[25]

Lee was an outspoken critic of full liberal democracy, stating that it was incompatible for Asian countries and that "with a few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to developing countries."[26] He believed in the state occasional interference of the media and personal lives of citizens for their own good. However, he commonly waged defamation lawsuits in court that ultimately bankrupted his political opponents, as in the case of J. B. Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan.[5] Francis Seow, the former solicitor-general of Singapore, has described Lee as such:

[T]he prime minister uses the courts… to intimidate, bankrupt, or cripple the political opposition. Distinguishing himself in a caseful of legal suits commenced against dissidents and detractors for alleged defamation…, he has won them all.[27]

Under Lee's tenure as prime minister, a law dating back from 1938 when it was under the colonial administration of the British Empire (Penal Code, s. 377A) which banned sexual relations between men was not repealed. It is however not actively enforced, and is still isn't today. Sexual relations between women is legal.

While Lee did not support the decriminalisation of homosexual intercourse throughout his life nor the legalisation of same-sex marriages due to a conservative electorate, his personal beliefs of homosexuality was positive, believing that it was genetic, and that it would not bother him if any of his children was homosexual.[28]

During a CNN radio interview in 1998, Lee was asked about LGBT rights in Singapore. The question was posed by an unnamed homosexual man in Singapore who asked about the future of LGBT people there. Lee replied that it was not for the government to decide whether or not homosexuality was acceptable but for the Singaporean society to decide. He also said he did not think an "aggressive gay rights movement" would change people's minds on the issue. He added that the government would not interfere or harass anybody, whether heterosexual or otherwise.[29]

At a Young PAP meeting in 2007, Loretta Chen, an openly lesbian young PAP member and a theatre director in Singapore, asked Lee if the current censorship rules in Singapore were too equivocal and where censorship was headed in the next two decades. Chen referred to a controversial play about Singaporean porn actress Annabel Chong which explored pornography and alternative sexuality. Lee was then asked if he believed homosexuality was a product of nature or nurture. He stated that he reaffirmed his beliefs by asking doctors about homosexuality and had been told that it was caused by a genetic random transmission of genes.[30][31]

In Lee's book Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going. Lee stated that if one of his grandchildren turned out to be homosexual, he would accept his grandchild because he believed that homosexuality was genetic.[28] He also stated that LGBT people were suited to bringing up a child as they have no maternal instinct aroused by the process of pregnancy.[32]

In May 2019, Lee's grandson and son of Lee Hsien Yang, Li Huanwu (Chinese: 李桓武), who is homosexual, married his partner in South Africa.[33]