One Man's View of the World pdf

Lee Kuan Yew (born 16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015) was a Singaporean politician and the first General Secretary and founding member of the People's Action Party. The first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, which he ruled for three consecutive decades, is famous as the founder of the country and its transporter from the Third World to the First in less than a generation. In 1990, Lee Kwan left the post of prime minister and the post of general secretary of the political party, but he remained its honorary president and an important political figure. Lee eschewed populist politics in favor of long-term practical social and economic measures. And he took the eligibility and multi-ethnicity as the main principles of his rule. Lee adopted English as the lingua franca to integrate the spectrum of Singaporean society and to facilitate trade with the West. However, he ordered bilingualism in schools so that students would not forget their native language. Lee's ruling was criticized, particularly in the West, for allegedly curtailing civil liberties by filing defamation suits against political opponents. For his part, he said that these disciplinary measures along with the rule of law are essential to political stability and economic progress. On August 12, 2004, his son, Lee Hsien Loong, became the third Prime Minister of the Government of Singapore, and he appointed himself as an adviser to the position of Minister Guru to the Government during several successive ministerial positions over 50 years. After the 2011 general elections, Lee Kuan Yew announced his departure from the government and making way for the new young blood before his death at the age of ninety-one.

One Man's View of the World pdf by Lee Kuan Yew

Born in 1923, Singapore's former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has spent a lifetime being intimately involved in international affairs. He has met every major Chinese leader from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping and hobnobbed with American presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama. In this book, Lee draws on that wealth of experience and depth of insight to offer his views on today's world and what it might look like in 20 years. This is no dry geopolitical treatise. Nor is it a thematic account of the twists and turns in global affairs. Instead, in this broad-sweep narrative that takes in America, China, Asia and Europe, he parses their society, probes the psyche of the people and draws his conclusions about their chances for survival and just where they might land in the hierarchy of tomorrow's balance of power. What makes a society tick? What do its people really believe? Can it adapt? In spare, unflinching prose that eschews political correctness, he describes a China that remains obsessed with control from the centre on its way to an unstoppable rise; an America that will have to share its pre-eminence despite its never-say-die dynamism; and a Europe that struggles with the challenges of keeping its union intact. His candid and often startling views - on why Japan is closed to foreigners, why the Arab Spring won't bring one man, one vote to the Middle East, and why preventing global warming is not going to be as fruitful as preparing for it - make this a fresh and gripping read. Lee completes the book by looking into the future of Singapore - his enduring concern - and by offering the reader a glimpse into his personal life and his view of death. The book is interspersed with a Q&A section in each chapter, gleaned from conversations he had with journalists from The Straits Times.