Lee Kuan Yew's dangerous legacy

By John Burton

Lee Kuan Yew was the Dorian Grey of the global elite. He represented the secret wish fulfillment of many leaders — East and West — who paid him profuse eulogies after the former Singapore prime minister died last month at 91.

What appealed to his fellow political practitioners and made them envious was his ability to remain in power for 30 years and then retain considerable political influence after that for another 20 years. “If only I had the same powers that he did” was no doubt the wistful thought of many of his foreign counterparts followed by others:

“I wish I was continually elected under a system that had appearance but not the spirit of a democracy. I wish I was blessed with a responsive government bureaucracy that actually performed efficiently. I wish the newspapers and TV stations were state-owned so I could shut up pesky reporters while the courts would always rule in my favor when I sued obnoxious foreign journalists for libel. I wish all the trade unions were under government control so that that labor troublemakers didn’t bother me. And I wish I was being paid more than a million dollars a year for my job as national leader.”

Lee’s greatest achievement was that he made authoritarianism respectable by creating the world’s most perfect dictatorship: one that was wealthy, orderly, efficient and nearly corruption-free. In a world where market forces rule and moral concepts such as civil liberties and justice seem to be falling out of fashion, Lee’s Singapore is seen as the epitome of virtuous government.

If any justification was needed for Lee’s tough-minded actions, historical cliches were trotted out. It is frequently said that when Lee came to power in 1959, Singapore was a “sleepy malaria-ridden colonial city without natural resources” that he subsequently transformed into a gleaming global business and financial capital.

It is true that Singapore was poor by the standards of U.S. and Europe of 56 years ago, but it already had the second-highest income per capita in Asia then after Japan. Moreover Singapore does have one big natural resource: its splendid harbor at one end of the strategic Malacca Straits that has been the main well-spring of the city’s prosperity since the 19th century. And while Singapore’s current per capita of $51,000 is cited as another example of the city-state’s success, less attention is paid to the fact that it also suffers from a huge income disparity that is among the widest for any first-world country.

It is not surprising, however, that Lee had many admirers who see Singapore as a model of meritocratic bureaucratic rule that trumps the messiness of democracy in delivering material benefits. Singapore has been praised by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame as an example to follow. President Xi is borrowing liberally from Lee’s playbook by cracking down on both corruption and the media to strengthen the Communist Party’s rule against growing criticism.

Another fan is President Park Geun-hye who attended Lee’s funeral. Her father, Park Chung-hee, ranks alongside Lee as one of the creators of the authoritarian capitalism model that has since spread to China, Russia and the Gulf States among other places. Both men come to power within two years of each other and are rightly regarded as their countries’ modern founding fathers.

Park’s achievement in many respects was even greater than that of Lee. He took a war-devastated country that was poorer than Singapore and confronted with an on-going and serious military threat and set it on the path to become one of the world’s leading industrial economies.

The dangerous legacy of Lee is that his example may persuade other leaders that authoritarian rule may be the best and quickest way to achieve prosperity. But Lee’s achievements were due to a unique set of circumstances that are difficult to replicate elsewhere.

For one, Singapore is small place and Lee essentially was the mayor of a city half the size of New York. Moreover, Lee built on a rich tradition left by the British colonial rulers. It was the British that established Singapore’s free-trade policy in 19th century that proved to be the key ingredient in the city-state’s growing wealth as it took advantage of the globalizing economy of the late 20th century.

In addition, the British colonial service in Singapore was regarded as among the finest in the British Empire and Lee borrowed wholesale its best practices. Finally, Lee as a lawyer recognized the commercial strength of Anglo-Saxon law that the British bequeathed to Singapore.

Lee was smart enough to realize that British had given him the essential tools needed to transform Singapore into what it is today. However, Lee ignored the practice of democratic rights that British also championed. That oversight may be soon corrected, however. At the last election, Lee’s ruling party still managed to lose 40 percent of the vote. A shift in the paradigm away from authoritarian capitalism is emerging.

John Burton, a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Seoul-based independent journalist and media consultant. He can be reached at john. burton@insightcomms.com.