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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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### A: "I mean one of the things, what is the value of past place like Singapore? Several people actually use the same metaphor, it's interesting, I have two movies in my head, I have the movie of the world that I grew up in, and I have the movie of the way things are now. One in my head is getting very frayed of the past and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about."### B: "I used to cycle to school. Empty roads, when it rains, I have got to have a raincoat. Now it's just not done, with all these huge buses and cars, so my grandchildren are advised not to travel by bicycles. London has lost a lot of its ancient buildings but it's got enough solid buildings of stone like St Paul's Cathedral or Westminster Abbey or the Houses of Parliament which are very costly to maintain and they keep that as icons. Well, also the Oxbridge Colleges, they are very uncomfortable to live in, I mean you want a brand name, you try and get there but choose a nice new building annex that they have built, if you are put into one of the old rooms, then you are cold and it's several centuries old."
### A: "I mean they didn’t have central heating then."### B: "Now, they have put in some central heating, I mean they are piped."
### A: "Never so cold as I was in London."### B: "But that's a trade off. So we keep a few along the riverside and amongst the better buildings which are worth preserving because it's not so expensive and they are also architecturally interesting. So there are few landmarks. In my own constituency, I've got two streets which have been kept up and the rest have just gone high rise but they have been kept up and used for other purposes, no longer domestic but boutique restaurants, studios and so on. Otherwise, you can't justify the economic costs of maintaining them."
### A: "As you get older, do you get more sentimental?"### B: "Sorry."
### A: "As you get older, do you feel more sentimental and nostalgic or do you manage to avoid that? I mean I know you are a pragmatist."### B: "No, it was a nice leisurely place, large spaces, I would travel along what is called now Mountbatten Road, used to be called Grove Road and there was a swamp on one side and now we have all built up areas, it was an airport, now the airport is gone, the British flying boats used to land on the river which I remember. I mean look, do you want to, if we were the size of let's say the US, lots of empty spaces, then you might be able to keep more of it. But I see New York hasn’t kept much of it either."
### A: "Well, it's a mix. In Manhattan, it's true."### B: "You have kept the churches because they are made of stone."
### A: "The Empire State Building is still there."### B: "But the Empire State Building now looks tacky compared to the others….”
### A: “It looks great!”### B: “It looks old fashioned."
### A: "Well, the view, I mean the Chrysler Building is a work of art. Most of the buildings they've built since then are not works of art."### B: "That's what you think but the architects. Their grandchildren would say what a wonderful architect that was. I mean aesthetic taste varies with each generation."
### A: "I don’t know. I think there's a kind of, did you see that building, a picture from China and the building just fell over. I know you don’t have that kind of construction processes here."### B: "You see the Chinese are nouveou riche and the contractors want to be part of the nouveou riche, so they …"
### A: "I mean how does it feel if you were living in a building next door, I feel I have got to move."### B: "They are in a very fast transition and they see their neighbours getting very wealthy and they say I must get wealthy too because my children, the money that I have got a house, got a car and so on. So they take these shortcuts at the expense of public safety. Bridges have fallen down, when they built this enormous barrage up the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges, Jiu Rongji had a very hard time knocking heads together. It's the process of getting rich in transition and watching your neighbours get rich and you say I must get there too quick or I lose my opportunities. That's that."
### A: "I don’t want to take more of your time. Let me just ask you a couple more things. How would you like to be remembered?"### B: "I don’t think I can decide that. I live my life in accordance to what I think is worth doing. I never wanted to be in politics. I wanted to be a lawyer and make a good living, to be a good advocate but I was thrown into it as a result of all these political earthquakes that took place. So I was saddled with the responsibility and I just have to be responsible to get the place going. That's all and I mean we’ve got here and I can't decide what posterity is going to do. I studied law and in the law, the British said you can will yourself, you can will your property, the longest you can do it is life and lives in being and 21 years thereafter. After that, you can't control your trust. So in my case, I can't go that long. All I can do is to make sure that when I leave, the institutions are good, sound, clean, efficient and there's a government in place which knows what it has got to do and is looking for a successive government of quality. That's all I can do."
### A: "If you were to leave the stage in the larger sense, and say in ten years, I think you are seen as a cult figure as you have just said about the casino thing, I mean does it have to be somebody like you to keep the place going or …"### B: "No, I mean look America got going long after Jefferson, George Washington and all that."
### A: "But I think …(indistinct)… who did big things."### B: "Nobody, Charles de Gaulle says nobody, I am not indestructible. When I read his biography, I read in English, and he said that, I said that is a wise man. So I remembered that and I know that come a certain time, and I didn’t expect to live so long either, it's just good medicine and good surgery that has kept me here."
### A: "We used to have a joke, if I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."### B: "Well, it so happened and I just do what I think I can contribute to make the place, to consolidate what has been gained and it can still go to waste. It can still spiral down."
### A: "Through no fault of anybody's?"### B: "Look, I once had to make an impromptu speech in Sydney, I've just come from New Zealand. So in the end they said no speech, no speeches and the Premier of the state made a very well-prepared speech so I had to respond. So what do I say off the cuff? I said I've just come from New Zealand and I'll tell you what my thoughts were. In 100 years from now, I go back to New Zealand and there will be the grass, the sheep, the cows, the tornados or hurricanes at Wellington, and there will always be this green pleasant place and not industrially developed because it's the last stop in the bus line and in 100 years from today, I'm not sure that there'll be a Singapore. It depends on what my successors do. I mean that's the cards we were handed. So it's not up to me. What is up to me is make sure the place is ticking, make sure the institutions are there, the systems are in place, make sure there is a government that is fit for the job and then it is up to them to ensure continuity. That's that."
### A: "Do you feel satisfied that that's moving along quite well? Or do you worry?"### B: "I think for the next ten years, with this team in charge, it is going to be fine. Whether they will do well for the next 10-15 years depends on whether they get a younger team in place, well imbibed into the methods of the government, integrity, ability, and making decisions for the public good, and not for your personal benefit. That's all. It is difficult because it means sacrificing privacy and sacrificing pay. Now we solved the pay problem or semi-solved it by giving them 80 per cent of the average of six major salary earners."
### A: "Is that how you arrived at it?"### B: "Yeah, but we are always lagging behind because whenever there's a downturn, we don’t give the rise. Whenever there's an upturn, the private sectors goes up, shoots up suddenly and we can't keep pace because the public says no, this is too much."
### A: "Well, when people are getting US$16 billion bonuses for bringing the country into the ground, it is hard to keep up."### B: "I was once asked about the enormous, the best paid ministers in the world. I said you should look at the wives. The lowest-paid ministers have wives who are glittering with jewels and with big mansions."
### A: "So that means they are corrupt."### B: "No, I didn’t say that."
### A: "That was pretty way to be said."### B: "But it's true. So Singaporeans have to decide. Do you want to underpay a minister and you have the kind of shenanigans as you have in the British Parliament? You know they repair their homes in the country and in London and charge it to their account. Or you pay them a proper wage and said after that, look after everything. Nobody gets any special perks. That's your salary, you buy your car, you do what everything is yours. Official entertainment, you have got an expense account. Your secretary monitors it and audits channel clears it. So everything is above board and the public knows that. So whatever they grumble, they know that they are not being shortchanged."
### A: "There are grumbles but there are always grumbles."### B: "There must be. Singaporeans are champion grumblers."
### A: "Thank you so much.### B: "You're Welcome".
### A: The political and economic center of gravity is moving from the West towards the East. Is Asia becoming the dominant political and economic force in this century?### B: I wouldn't say it's the dominant force. What is gradually happening is the restoration of the world balance to what it was in the early 19th century or late 18th century when China and India together were responsible for more than 40 percent of world GDP. With those two countries becoming part of the globalized trading world, they are going to go back to approximately the level of world GDP that they previously occupied. But that doesn't make them the superpowers of the world.
### A: Their leading politicians have publicly discussed the so-called "Asian Century".### B: Yes, economically, there will be a shift to the Pacific from the Atlantic Ocean and you can already see that in the shipping volumes of Chinese ports. Every shipping line is trying to get into association with a Chinese container port. India is slower because their infrastructure is still to be completed. But I think they will join in the race, build roads, bridges, airports, container ports and they'll become a manufacturing hub. Raw materials go in, finished goods go out.
### A: You've been the leader of a very successful state for a long time. Returning from your time in China, are you afraid for Singapore's future?### B: I saw it coming from the late 1980s. Deng Xiaoping started this in 1978. He visited Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore in November 1978. I think that visit shocked him because he expected three backward cities. Instead he saw three modern cities and he knew that communism -- the politics of the iron rice bowl -- did not work. So, at the end of December, he announced his open door policy. He started free trade zones and from there, they extended it and extended it. Now they have joined the WTO and the whole country is a free trade zone.
### A: But has China's success not become dangerous for Singapore?### B: We have watched this transformation and the speed at which it is happening. As many of my people tell me, it's scary. They learn so fast. Our people set up businesses in Shanghai or Suzhou and they employ Chinese at lower wages than Singapore Chinese. After three years, they say: "Look, I can do that work, I want the same pay." So it is a very serious challenge for us to move aside and not collide with them. We have to move to areas where they cannot move.
### A: Such as?### B: Such as where the rule of law, intellectual property and security of production systems are required, because for them to establish that, it will take 20 to 30 years. We are concentrating on bio medicine, pharmaceuticals and all products requiring protection of intellectual property rights. No pharmaceutical company is going to go have its precious patents disclosed. So that is why they are here in Singapore and not in China.
### A: But the Chinese are moving too. They bought parts of IBM and are trying to take over the American oil company Unocal.### B: They are learning. They have learnt takeovers and mergers from the Americans. They know that if they try to sell their computers with a Chinese brand it will take them decades in America, but if they buy IBM, they can inject their technology and low cost into IBM's brand name, and they will gain access to the market much faster.
### A: But how afraid should the West be?### B: It's stupid to be afraid. It's going to happen. I console myself this way. Suppose, China had never gone communist in 1949, suppose the Nationalist government had worked with the Americans -- China would be the great power in Asia -- not Japan, not Korea, not Hong Kong, not Singapore. Because China isolated itself, development took place on the periphery of Asia first.
### A: Such a consolation won't be enough for the future.### B: Right. In 50 years I see China, Korea and Japan at the high-tech end of the value chain. Look at the numbers and quality of the engineers and scientists they produce and you know that this is where the R&D will be done. The Chinese have a space programme, they're going to put a man on the Moon and nobody sold them that technology. We have to face that. But you should not be afraid of that. You are leading in many fields which they cannot catch up with for many years, many decades. In pharmaceuticals, I don't see them catching up with the Germans for a long time.
### A: That wouldn't feed anybody who works for Opel, would it?### B: A motor car is a commodity -- four wheels, a chassis, a motor. You can have modifications up and down, but it remains a commodity, and the Chinese can do commodities.
### A: When you look to Western Europe, do you see a possible collapse of the society because of the overwhelming forces of globalization?### B: No. I see ten bitter years. In the end, the workers, whether they like it or not, will realize, that the cosy European world which they created after the war has come to an end.
### A: How so?### B: The social contract that led to workers sitting on the boards of companies and everybody being happy rested on this condition: I work hard, I restore Germany's prosperity, and you, the state, you have to look after me. I'm entitled to go to Baden Baden for spa recuperation one month every year. This old system was gone in the blink of an eye when two to three billion people joined the race -- one billion in China, one billion in India and over half-a-billion in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
### A: The question is: How do you answer that challenge?### B: Chancellor Kohl tried to do it. He did it halfway then he had to pause. Schroeder tried to do it, now he's in a jam and has called an election. Merkel will go in and push, then she will get hammered before she can finish the job, but each time, they will push the restructuring a bit forward.
### A: You think it's too slow?### B: It is painful because it is so slow. If your workers were rational they would say, yes, this is going to happen anyway, let's do the necessary things in one go. Instead of one month at the spa, take one week at the spa, work harder and longer for the same pay, compete with the East Europeans, invent in new technology, put more money into your R&D, keep ahead of the Chinese and the Indians.
### A: You have seen yourself how hard it is to implement such strategies.### B: I faced this problem myself. Every year, our unions and the Labour Department subsidize trips to China and India. We tell the participants: Don't just look at the Great Wall but go to the factories and ask, "What are you paid?" What hours do you work?" And they come back shell-shocked. The Chinese had perestroika first, then glasnost. That's where the Russians made their mistake.
### A: The Chinese Government is promoting the peaceful rise of China. Do you believe them?### B: Yes, I do, with one reservation. I think they have calculated that they need 30 to 40 -- maybe 50 years of peace and quiet to catch up, to build up their system, change it from the communist system to the market system. They must avoid the mistakes made by Germany and Japan. Their competition for power, influence and resources led in the last century to two terrible wars.
### A: What should the Chinese do differently?### B: They will trade, they will not demand, "This is my sphere of influence, you keep out". America goes to South America and they also go to South America. Brazil has now put aside an area as big as the state of Massachusetts to grow soya beans for China. They are going to Sudan and Venezuela for oil because the Venezuelan President doesn't like America. They are going to Iran for oil and gas. So, they are not asking for a military contest for power, but for an economic competition.
### A: But would anybody take them really seriously without military power?### B: About eight years ago, I met Liu Huaqing, the man who built the Chinese Navy. Mao personally sent him to Leningrad to learn to build ships. I said to him, "The Russians made very rough, crude weapons". He replied, "You are wrong. They made first-class weapons, equal to the Americans." The Russian mistake was that they put so much into military expenditure and so little into civilian technology. So their economy collapsed. I believe the Chinese leadership have learnt: If you compete with America in armaments, you will lose. You will bankrupt yourself. So, avoid it, keep your head down, and smile, for 40 or 50 years.
### A: What are your reservations?### B: I don't know whether the next generation will stay on this course. After 15 or 20 years they may feel their muscles are very powerful. We know the mind of the leaders but the mood of the people on the ground is another matter. Because there's no more communist ideology to hold the people together, the ground is now galvanised by Chinese patriotism and nationalism. Look at the anti-Japanese demonstrations.
### A: How do you explain that China is spending billions on military modernisation right now?### B: Their modernisation is just a drop in the ocean. Their objective is to raise the level of damage they can deliver to the Americans if they intervene in Taiwan. Their objective is not to defeat the Americans, which they cannot do. They know they will be defeated. They want to weaken the American resolve to intervene. That is their objective, but they do not want to attack Taiwan.
### A: Really? They have just passed the aggressive anti-secession law and a general has threatened to use the nuclear bomb.### B: I think they have put themselves into a position internationally that if Taiwan declares independence, they must react and if Beijing's leadership doesn't, they would be finished, they would be a paper tiger and they know that. So, they passed the anti-secession law to tell the Taiwanese and the Americans and the Japanese, "I do not want to fight, but if you allow Taiwan to go for independence, I will have to fight." I think the anti-secession law is a law to preserve the status quo.
### A: Another critical point in Asia is the growing rivalry between China and Japan.### B: It's been dormant all this while, right? But I think several things happened that upped the ante. They possibly coincide with the policy of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. There is this return to "we want to be a normal country." They are sending ships to Afghanistan to support the Americans, they sent a battalion to Iraq, they reclaimed the Senkaku islands, and most recently, they joined the Americans in declaring that Taiwan is a strategic interest of Japan and America. That raises all the historical memories of the Japanese taking away Taiwan in 1895. Then they're applying to be a permanent member of the Security Council. So, I think the Chinese decided that this is too much. So, they have openly said they will object to Japan becoming a member of the Security Council.
### A: Well, the United States said the same to Germany.### B: Exactly. So, the whole process is trying to define the position for the next round, maybe in 10 to 15 years, by which time the world will be a different place.
### A: Can the Chinese convince their North Korean ally Kim Jong-Il to get rid of his nuclear program?### B: North Korea is a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. The leaders in North Korea believe that their survival depends upon having a bomb -- at least one nuclear bomb. Otherwise, sooner or later, they will collapse and the leaders will be put on trial like Milosevic for all the crimes that they have committed. And they have no intention of letting that happen.
### A: Who can stop them? The Americans?### B: Yes, but at a price, a heavy price.
### A: Could the Chinese do it?### B: Possibly. By denying food, denying fuel, so they would implode. But will the Chinese benefit from an imploded North Korea? That brings the South into the North. That brings the Americans to the Yalu River. So, the North Koreans have also done their calculations and know that there are limits.
### A: So Kim is in a strong position?### B: If I were Kim I would freeze the programme, tell the Americans you can inspect, but if you attack me, I will use it. That leaves the Americans with the problem of checking and verifying and intercepting ships, aircraft, endless problems.
### A: Would that save Kim's regime?### B: In the long run I think they will implode sooner or later because their system cannot survive. They can see China, they can see Russia and Vietnam, all opening up. If they open up, their system of control of the people will break down. So they must go.