LEE STILL JET-SETS all over the globe, making speeches and accepting awards and generally giving Singapore an image of cosmopolitan polish. Interestingly, the questions he is asked to answer rarely relate to domestic issues but world concerns instead, especially China. So he scarcely needs to live his life through the eyes and ears of his son, Hsien Loong, the current prime minister. He has his own life.
I am not sure how to raise the issue of the perceived nepotism. I know this is a delicate matter. What’s more, as an American, I have to reflect that family is a powerful force in all politics, including ours. Our Rockefellers did quite well in elected politics. The presidency of the very qualified George H. W. Bush, who had only one term, gave birth to the presidency of the much less qualified George W. Bush Jr. It might not be too much of an exaggeration to suggest that compared to the latter, the current prime minister of Singapore can seem like Albert Einstein.
I plunge on anyway: “Well, it’s inevitably a tricky business. When John Kennedy was president, as you know, he appointed his brother, Bobby, to be attorney general, and at the first press conference after the appointment, reporters raised the question of whether the young Bobby wasn’t rather inexperienced to be head of the Justice Department. But Jack [his oft-used nickname] Kennedy deflected the issue, fencing off serious criticism with his great sense of humor, replying, well, I just thought I would give my brother Bobby a little legal experience before he goes into private practice. But now, you know, hey, your son is prime minister of Singapore. Don’t people sometimes say, ah hah, there you go again, Chinese shogun system.”
Once again, your interviewer is making a weak joke. The shogun concept is Japan-specific, of course, but we are playing with the idea of a Chinese-style family succession ritual.
Very quickly I feel, coming at me like little waves, different emotions inside Lee even as the coughing continues. Maybe anger, defensiveness, but most of all, pride—powerful pride for his son.
Immensely proud, obviously, but then a little defensively, perhaps: “But I kept him out [of the job when Goh Chok Tong was PM] for 14 years and he was on display for 20-plus years. So, everybody has a chance, including the MPs in parliament, to judge him for what he is. Every minister knows that whatever he does, whatever they do, he improves on it, in the presentation, queries and points when he was not prime minister. I mean, he has a very comprehensive mind. Have you met him?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Three, I think, two or three.”
“Where?”
“Here. I’ve interviewed him two or three times. No, twice. Once before he was prime minister and then after he’s prime minister, and Goh Chok Tong once.” I decide not to mention a column a few years ago—published, among other places, in Singapore’s Straits Times—that coined a phrase to describe PM Jr: ‘Prime Minister Google.’ You punch in any question, and in a matter of nanoseconds out pops the relevant facts and figures.
Lee has forgotten this and mulls over whether to insist that I take an extension course about his son, then lets the matter drop, saying: “My wife once asked me about something. My granddaughter was there. I said, I don’t know the answer. She said my father [now the PM] will know, and he does.”
He pauses to see if the story has an effect on me.
He continues: “I had a friend in LA, who was a real estate man. He is a Harvard graduate in English literature and went to Cambridge in England to do a DPhil or BPhil, and he ran a university paper called Grant or something.”
“Granta, I know Granta. Terrific magazine, actually.”
“So, we became friends. When I did an official tour of the U.S. in 1967 October, I asked to see him. He had moved to LA and I saw him. Then my son did a tour—he did a spell in Fort Worth, he was in artillery—and my friend said, come stay with me, young man. So, my son stayed with him. He then wrote to me. He said, my God, this chap is really comprehensive, he is a mathematician, but his knowledge of English is superb. And this is an English scholar making the judgment. So, one day, my friend comes here and I gave him dinner and he put out a riddle, what word is it that means so and so, so and so, so and so. My wife Choo knows a lot of words, she couldn’t think of it. I don’t know as many words as my wife, so I didn’t even try. My son came up with the right word. It just floored him. It was not his specialty. I mean, the capacity was, I don’t know, what is the latest hard computer disk around? What can it hold? Whatever, he’s got that kind of a hard disk [in his head].”
I say, honestly: “Well, I will tell you. If I had been founding prime minister of a country, which I haven’t been and never would be, and then my son at some point took over and was doing well, I would be God damned proud.”
He considers this: “Yeah, but at the same time, I must be very careful that he is not going to smudge the record.”
“Well, what is the surveillance system there?”
“No, I think he is okay, he is measuring up to the job.”
“But it is a tough time now for Singapore and for everybody else.”
“Well, he has got a tough time, but he has got more resources than I had when I started.”
Lee is referring to the relatively bare cupboard left him and his government when the British left. Now, despite the global economic downturn, Singapore may be the wealthiest country per citizen in Asia—and one of the wealthiest in the world. People here are thankful for their blessings, but sometimes wonder if they have the happiness formula right. It is almost as if they are thinking: Singapore is the little country that has a lot of everything, but is everything enough?