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Lee Kuan Yew: America must Strike a Balance

Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀), Singapore’s founding father and minister mentor, warned the US on Thursday that it risked losing global leadership if it did not remain engaged in Asia to balance China’s military and economic might. US President Barack Obama should make sure that America stayed engaged not just in China but in the whole of East Asia and India.

In a keynote address to a US-Asean Business Council’s 25th anniversary meeting, Lee also said that “unlike US-Soviet relations during the Cold War, there is no bitter, irreconcilable ideological conflict between the US and a China that has enthusiastically embraced the market” and that competition between the two countries was inevitable, while conflict was not.

Lee met Obama in Washington on October 29.

It was probably Lee’s call on America which “sparked controversy” among  Chinese internet users (引起的中国网民争议), according to Singapore’s Morning News. On an advance briefing for the press in Singapore on Friday, ahead of state chairman Hu Jintao‘s visit next week, Chinese assistant foreign minister Hu Zhengyue (胡正跃) said that Lee, as a statesman, had expressed his views on international affairs, and that it was natural that all kinds of comments appeared on newspapers. Beijing didn’t wish to get involved in the discussion.

Lee seems to be treading a fine line between authoritarian harmony (a concept of his own, neither totalitarian, nor democratic), and a need he sees for a strategic balance between America and China which would leave sufficient space for all other regional stakeholders, including ASEAN.

Posted on Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 7:17 am in America, China, Confucianism, human rights, India, international, media, military, press review, South-East Asia, Taiwan   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL

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12 Responses to “Lee Kuan Yew: America must Strike a Balance”

    
  1. despicable
    Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 8:13 am

    The “American Economy,” is no longer small individual enterprises of rugged individualists competing to become bigger than they were!
    To survive and compete in todays global market, you have to lose your individualist identity, and become a part of a large conglomerate, a Global Multi National Corpotation. You have to become a part of a global enterprise that is larger and more powerful than most governments, in order to be a player in the world of “Free Enterprise!”
    You can believe that you are a small businessman opperating a small business and that you and your kind are the foundation that makes America great. You can believe that, and the world will continue to laugh at you. You Libertarians are lost inside the no longer existing past! Wake up and face our present day global reality.
    Every educated person knows, or should know, that everything on the planet is structured to evolve so as to survive inside a changing environment. If anything or anyone does not or cannot make a necessary adjustment to a changing environment, that what exists will no longer be able to exist into the future!
    Capitalism has grown into the stage of “Globalism,” because it is the only way that capitalism can evolve and grow, and not die and not realize it’s full potential.
    Capitalisim cannot move back into the way it was during the early history of America, just like a old man cannot recapture his youth.
    If you allow yourself to view the world scientificaly, you cannot help but come to the conclusion that the only possible alternative to a Free Market Economy is a Controled Market Economy, and the only possible alternative to a “World Controled Market Economy is a “World Planned Market Economy” that is designed to profit the entire planet without discrimination!
    http://despicable.wordpress.com/

    Like

  2. DavidLeong
    Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 10:46 pm

    Obviously MM Mr. Lee Kuan Yew is well qualified being the greatest Asian Politician if not the world as well as one of the Greatest Stateman on earth who can used the international language (ENGLISH) without much difficulty yet at the same time carrying the weight of Oriental Cultural Value to communicate & interact with the existing & present super powers (USA & EUROPE) on earth. He knows very well what he is speaking about & what his goal is or intention is in order to bring the whole world in harmony & well balance manner for the mankind to live for the next 30 or 50 or 100 years to come.

    Like

  3. justrecently
    Monday, November 9, 2009 at 8:28 am

    Hehe. Thanks for calling Europe a super power.

    Like

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