WHEN Robert Kennedy went to the Far East in 1964, Indonesia’s confrontation of Malaysia was still in progress. Senator Kennedy saw Sukarno and later saw Lee. Kennedy, back in the United States, promoted the “let Asians solve Asian problems” solution, and this provoked Lee Kuan Yew into some scathing remarks. “He’s not very bright,” he said. When a Time-Life man asked Lee in 1965 what he thought of Kennedy’s idea (first advocated by the aggressor, President Sukarno) Lee Kuan Yew questioned whether Indonesia’s confrontation of Malaysia was, in fact, an Asian problem. Who gave the Indonesians the guns, the ships, the aircraft and submarines which created this Asian problem? Did Asians give them, or Russians? And what exactly does an Asian solution to an Asian problem mean? “It means the solution provided by bigger Asian powers to smaller Asian powers, because that is what it must mean. If an Asian solution to an Asian problem is applied in South Vietnam, where will Mr Kennedy be in the Senate? How does he defend what President Johnson is trying to do in South Vietnam? Assuming that everybody accepts this is really the American intention—to bring peace, not to conquer South Vietnam, not to colonize it, but just to prevent the erosion of non-communist communist states by the bigger communist powers, how does an Asian solution to an Asian problem there work? It means first, the Americans are out. All right. Are the North Vietnamese out? They are Asians, aren’t they? All right. What about the Chinese and the Indians? Are they in or are they out? They are in, I assume, because they are Asians. So the Indians are going to support South Vietnam, take the role of the Americans? I don’t see them doing that. They are not that way inclined. So who is going to balance up this thing? Who has given the MiGs to the North Vietnamese anyway? Were they manufactured by the North Vietnamese? Is this an Asian problem? So, you see, I think we must be very careful before we start repeating these catchwords and catchphrases.”
In April, 1965, Robert Morse of Time-Life asked Lee Kuan Yew: What should the United States be doing in Southeast Asia?
Lee replied: “Convince Asians that a non-communist group of nations could survive, and can flourish as well as, if not more than, the communist states in Asia. First of all, you’ve got to get Asians to believe that a non-communist Asia is possible, is viable and worth fighting for, for themselves. Asians are not interested in fighting for abstract things like democracy; the ‘free societies of the West’ mean nothing to them. It is when Asians opt out of the fight, as in South Vietnam, that you are in great difficulties because then you have to fight on Asian territory. . . If people are going to believe that non-communist Asia will lose to communist Asia, well then everybody makes their adjustments accordingly, and nobody fights for non-communist states in Asia and that’s the end. That’s the first thing: the will to resist must not be allowed to melt away.
“Secondly, that a positive contribution can be made by America and the more advanced countries, by Europe, by Britain, to help these non-communist countries advance economically. . .
“We don’t want to be recipients of gifts because that’s a waste of time. We want trade, not aid. This is the slogan that’s being pushed forward by Afro-Asians at all U.N. gatherings—how to free trade between the developed and the underdeveloped countries. And I think the Americans and the Europeans and the British have just got to make up their minds whether they want to compete with the communist bloc for world support. In other words, not allow Asian and African countries slowly one by one to be drawn to the other camp by default. . .”
In April, 1967, Lee was questioned by Time magazine on his feelings about the American role in Vietnam, about the United States taking a stand there, and about the United States preserving security in other small states in Southeast Asia.
Lee Kuan Yew replied: “Well, first let me say that I think this was not the best place in Asia or Southeast Asia to have taken a stand. If you had consciously made a choice with the hindsight you now have, I doubt whether you would have drawn the line as you found it in South Vietnam. You have gone in and raised the stakes with every commitment, increasing the price that you will have to pay for failure to live up to your declared objectives. The worry is whether your open society will allow you to conduct the kind of battle the South Vietnamese war is going to become—a protracted, bitter battle with no prospects of spectacular or decisive victory. The danger of popular pressures growing up around your institutions of power, your Presidency and your Congress, for swift and decisive victory, is the greatest danger in your Vietnamese situation. If you can just hold the situation and prevent the other side from winning, you will have made a valuable contribution to the long-term stability of the region. If you cannot resist pressures for more intense effort and quicker results, then I see grave trouble for the whole of Asia, for the whole world.”
“What,” Lee was asked “in the long run, do you think is the proper, permanent role the United States should play in Asia? Is it a permanent presence?”
“Nobody,” replied Lee, “can really prophesy these things—what is to happen in the late 1970s, the mood of the second post-war generation leadership throughout the countries of South and Southeast Asia, and their relationship with other big powers in the world, not just in the region.”
“You don’t see the United States wanting to dominate Southeast Asia, do you?”
“I don’t think, in the 70s, that the problem for Asia is whether you want to dominate Southeast Asia. Your problem is whether you can prevent it from being added on to somebody else’s strength, and the natural desire to prevent it from being swung over to the other scale. The smaller countries in Southeast Asia would prefer the comfort of their own separate selves, which is only possible if there are countervailing forces to enable them not to fall into the orbit of the larger powers in the continent.”
“Is Singapore actively considering membership in one of the regional associations or groupings?”
“Singapore,” declared the Prime Minister, “has nothing to lose in joining any regional association or group, provided it is not based on ethnic or ideological exclusiveness. In fact, in the long term, this is the only way in which the smaller and not very viable countries in Southeast Asia can sustain their separate existence in a world dominated by two or three super powers.”