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NOT RELEASED

EXCERPTS OF AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PRIME MINISTER

LEE KUAN YEW, BY MR. ROBERT KROON OF

TV TROS, 17 SEPTEMBER 1976

ROBERT KROON: Mr. Prime Minister, how do you feel about this move which the Dutch Labour Party had a very strong hand and which finally led to the withdrawal of the People’s Action Party from the Socialist International?

PRIME MINISTER: It’s not really relevant to our problems here. And if we are going to be constantly plagued by rather quaint, quixotic ideas about what socialism ought to be in Southeast , that we must adopt West European standards of tolerance and permissiveness, well, perhaps, we will be better off not to be a member. And they would also be better off not to be associated with us because, on the one hand, they are ashamed that we have not adopted their standards, on the other hand, there are many things which West Europeans do which will lose me a lot of votes is I were to copy to them.

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ROBERT KROON: I understand that there is a mission coming out under the former Primer Minister Wilson to look into this situation. Are they trying to bridge the gap again?

PRIME MINISTER: I don’t really know. Our position is quite clear. I think we face real problems. In Southeast Asia, they are not theoretical, make-believe illusory issues. This is a very different world. Once we had Watergate -- collapse of the American effort in Vietnam and Cambodia -- the American withdrawal from Thailand, I think a new situation has emerged which presents real, new challenges.

ROBERT KROON: You said “challenges” in the sense of dangers?

PRIME MINISTER: Yes, there are threats in the new situation. There are also opportunities to strike a new, realistic -- ‘realistic’ in the sense that the situation has become worse for the West and for the non-communist states generally and especially in Southeast Asia. But, perhaps, if China and Vietnam -

- the Socialist Republic of Vietnam recognise that there is a long-term interest in not exporting their particular way of life or system of government into each contiguous country, then maybe we’ll find a rational, reasonable living in relative ease and comfort.

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ROBERT KROON: If I may take you on that, Mr. Prime Minister, the

Vietnamese, the new Vietnam, now has been showing quite a bit of interest lately in its surrounding neighbours, in its non-aligned neighbours. A lot of people in the West explained this as a new kind of aggressiveness, that they have an awful lot of weapons, as you know, left over from the Americans, the war, and so on.

How do you see that? Is there a more imminent danger there now that Cambodia being a rather totalitarian country?

PRIME MINISTER: Nobody knows what they really will do. What they officially have said, and we must accept what they said officially as their real intention is that: first, people-to-people, they have a duty or they said they fully support the struggles of the people of Southeast Asia to genuine independence, sovereignty, and so on and so on -- which means their brand of sovereignty.

Then they said, subject to four conditions -- equal relations, non-interference, and so on -- they will maintain good government-to-government relations. So, on the one hand, you have people-to-people, on the other hand, you have government- to-government. And I think what we must try and get across to them is that you can’t have your cake and eat it. If you want good government-to-government relations, good economic relations, which will help their rehabilitation, then you

lky/1976/lky0917.doc 4 can’t, at the same time, be saying: “Ah, well, but I know certain people in your country who like to learn about revolution and they are going to teach them.”

ROBERT KROON: To what extent can they separate the government from the people when they have such a strong totalitarian grip on their own people. I can’t see any dualism there.

PRIME MINISTER: We will have to wait and see. A lot depends upon the kind of relationship, a kind of balance which they must reach, not only between them and the countries of Southeast Asia, but between them and China.

ROBERT KROON: I found a great amount of disquiet -- disquiet in

Indonesia especially in security, after the passing of Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

You, Mr. Prime Minister, being one of the last statesmen, and certainly an expert statesman, as you know, China -- you speak Chinese -- to have seen the late

Chairman. What is your view of the shape of things to come in China now?

PRIME MINISTER: I don’t think anybody really knows. It’s all guess work because no expert predicted that Teng Hsiao-peng would be removed so peremptorily and unceremoniously so soon after the late Premier Chou En-lai died. But I think certain things are fairly solid in that. Nobody can imagine any

lky/1976/lky0917.doc 5 leader or group of leaders being able to swing policies around quickly from an anti-hegemonism to camaraderie and solidarity. I think that is too difficult to do for any leader because it seeped right down over the last 10-15 years, since 1959, when they fell out.

ROBERT KROON: You think Mao’s impact would easily survive Mao

Tse-tung himself?

PRIME MINISTER: For a long time, yes.

ROBERT KROON: So, in other words, you don’t see, for instance, a certain rapprochement with Moscow again?

PRIME MINISTER: You might over a fairly longish period of time

take out the personal animosities and antagonisms, but the suspicions, the lack

of trust, is difficult to remove.

ROBERT KROON: They also have rather rigid state structures and party structures too. Russia is governed by fairly old people and the Chinese don’t have young aggressive ‘tigers’ either at the moment today. I mean to say this might perhaps indicate the continuation of old policies for a while.

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PRIME MINISTER: Definitely, for a while.

ROBERT KROON: Now, there has been this antagonism between the radicals and the so-called capitalist roaders, you refer to Teng Hsiao-peng and

Hua Kuo-feng. Do you think that, now that the Chairman has gone, this might erupt again?

PRIME MINISTER: Nobody really knows. What is fairly clear was that, not many other capitalists roaders besides Teng Hsiao-peng was identified by name and removed. So, only one was sacrificed. He could not have been the only one who believed in the policies of Chou En-lai. And therefore, I think there must be some accommodation between the new Prime Minister and the radicals and the supporters of, if not Teng Hsiao-peng, the supporters of the former Prime Minister, Chou En-lai.

ROBERT KROON: Did Hua Kuo-feng strike you as a sufficiently strong

figure in his own right?

PRIME MINISTER: Nobody knows. You know, they conduct their activities behind a screen. It’s when there’s no agreement that you find out about

lky/1976/lky0917.doc 7 it. If there is agreement, then you never find out. You never know about the rows that took place before agreement was reached.

ROBERT KROON: How does Hua Kuo-feng strike you as?

PRIME MINISTER: I would say a strong man.

ROBERT KROON: Really?

PRIME MINISTER: But without the charisma which -- I think anybody after

Mao will face that problem because Mao governed not only because he was an undisputed leader but the capacity to frame ideas in crisp aphorisms. You know, these slogans which he coins using classical forms. It has been a style of government for 27 years. You might get ghosts writers to help, but it isn’t the same.

ROBERT KROON: The little ‘Red Book’, of course, still exists.

PRIME MINISTER: You meet new situations. You’ve got to coin new aphorisms -- to symbolise things.

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ROBERT KROON: Mr. Prime Minister, how did Hua Kuo-feng strike you -

- as a strong personality, as a -- too much of a new-comer to getting the idea out -

- when you were in China?

PRIME MINISTER: I don’t think we can compare Chinese leaders or

China’s leaders to European leaders because they are not elected by a mass electorate. You don’t have to be a film star or you don’t have to have the kind of attractiveness. But I would say within a party system, undoubtedly he is a man with considerable strength of character.

ROBERT KROON: What, to the stability of Southeast Asia, particularly to

ASEAN nations, do you see as a greater potential threat -- a change in the make- up of China or from Hanoi?

PRIME MINISTER: I think it’s very difficult to define this potential threat.

The threat is, if there is to be competition, whether it is from two or more quarters in exporting revolution, all the countries of Southeast Asia have their own social, economic, political and insurgency problems. Insurgency exploiting the social, economic and political problems.

ROBERT KROON: You mean , Malaysia ...

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PRIME MINISTER: Well, all the way up to Burma, to Thailand. But it is when outside forces inject arms, instructors, and support moral, financial and otherwise, then, insurgency becomes acute. And I think the policy of ...

ROBERT KROON: Is that happening? In Indonesia, I was told frankly that they are still rounding up a considerable number of people being sent in to re- vitalise the remnants of the old Partai Komunis Indonesia.

PRIME MINISTER: I think we must assume that what communist parties say publicly, they will do. Communist parties in government saying publicly what they will do must be taken seriously.

ROBERT KROON: And they are saying that they won’t interfere?

PRIME MINISTER: Yes. They are saying that people-to-people. They will come ...

ROBERT KROON: They will help revolution?

PRIME MINISTER: Yes, because that is the official line.

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ROBERT KROON: Liberation Movement.

PRIME MINISTER: Whether it is small help to satisfy their revolutionary conscience or massive help to make a revolution succeed, that we will have to wait and see. There are several other forces at work.

ROBERT KROON: Well, I mean if it comes to that, I suppose it will be a rather massive increase of that kind of support -- communist threat, in other words, to the non-communist nations. Where do we stand in defence posture?

The Chinese seems to be awfully keen that the Americans don’t leave this region.

You are still tied militarily for defence purposes, as I understand, to ANZUK.

AT the same time, Singapore’s principle, for instance, is non-aligned and actively neutral country. Doesn’t that create a little bit of ...

PRIME MINISTER: When our survival is at stake, we cannot afford to be non-aligned. We are non-aligned when two great powers contend and it does not affect us. But when it is a question of life and death for us, it’s absurd to say that we are going to be disinterested observers.

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ROBERT KROON: The criticism, getting back to the Socialist International now for a while, was that, you were keeping communists in jail without trial.

Well, that’s not non-aligned, of course, that you are not putting people in jail from the other side. In other words, the threat does come from that particular part. Could you just briefly explain for the purpose of our audience in the

Netherlands what the issue is? They said: “Alright, we admit that Singapore bans communism like Indonesia doesn’t support is and so on, but you cannot keep people in jail without trial.” What is your response to that, Mr. Prime

Minister?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I am afraid when the British were in charge -- successive British Labour and Conservative Governments used their very laws which they have sent us ...

ROBERT KROON: Mr. Prime Minister, what is exactly the grief that they have against you? They said that you are keeping your political prisoners in jail without trial. Could you please explain for the benefit of our audience?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, you know, the communists have been at work since before the war. In 1933, they formed themselves. During the war, they were the resistance. They got arms. After the war, they launched armed

lky/1976/lky0917.doc 12 revolution and successive British Conservative and Labour Governments are using the same laws and had to use them more massively than we did. They arrested, at one time, a total, in Malaya and Singapore, of over a hundred thousand people. They deported to China an estimated 75,000 to 95,000 people.

You are not dealing with people who makes speeches and say: “We don’t believe in the dictatorship or a proletarian. If we win, there will be further elections. We believe in the multi-party system.” These are men with guns who are determined to assume power -- in Mao’s words: “through the barrel of the gun.” That’s where power comes from. And if you think you are going to have a court trial where people are going to publicly go into the witness box, take the oath, and be cross-examined and then to go out and be marked and to be shot, well, this is madness. It won’t happen. The State will collapse.

ROBERT KROON: How many people you got in jail at the moment?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, at the last count, 40 to 50 plus.

ROBERT KROON: And how can they get out then if there is no trial?

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PRIME MINISTER: There’s a way for that. Just come up and say: “I denounce the use of violent revolution as a means of achieving power. And I condemn that use and I promise not to be a party to it.”

ROBERT KROON: Then you let them go?

PRIME MINISTER: Saves me the trouble of feeding them, clothing them, and antagonising their families and friends.

ROBERT KROON: So the fact they are not doing it convinces you and everybody else that they are communists?

PRIME MINISTER: If they do not want to do it, it is because one day they believe, like Ho Chi Minh, there will be a victory parade. Well, maybe, in which case, I think they will be less kind to me than I am to them.

ROBERT KROON: Isn’t [it], in this context, and that’s my final question, a bit ridiculous, that all these European Socialist Parties are so concerned about this, while Mao Tse-tung received you without any problems and said: “We won't bother, and we won’t get involved in your situation in Singapore”?

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PRIME MINISTER: I think the European Socialists are going through a fashion or phase. They are not interested what happens in Cambodia after the

Khmer Rouge have taken over, who lives or who dies, whether human rights were observed. They are not interested what’s happen to Vietnam. We get refugees every other day taken in by ships, tankers -- shipwrecked. No country wants them for weeks on end. Does anybody say anything? But, of course, if we are not communists, then it’s safe to attack us. If we are communists, then it’s not safe to attack us. And I say: “Well, it’s their privilege because we have to put up with them.” We are in a way a victim of the three-world system, and a beneficiary too.

ROBERT KROON: Thank you, very much.

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