ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのWEF2020: A Conversation with Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore

Børge Brende: Welcome to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Prime Minister, it is a great honour for us to have you here. The story of your country is remarkable. As you know, Singapore gained his independence in 1965, the year I was born, 55 years ago. Since then, it has grown from a small British trading colony to one of the more world's most sophisticated economies in the span of a generation.
Back in 1965, per capita in Singapore was US$500. Today, per capita is US$65,000. That represents around 9% annual growth. You became Prime Minister in 2004, you are the third Prime Minister of your country – also shows the stability. I have been living in the country for 16 years. We know that there are a lot of things happening in the region but this is definitely Asia’s century. For the first time, 50 per cent of the global GDP is coming from Asia, and Singapore’s leadership is crucial. So I think all the people coming here are looking forward to hearing your views, Prime Minister, on the geopolitical outlook aspirations for Singapore. The floors is yours.

PM Lee Hsien Loong:  Thank you, Brende. Thank you for your very generous remarks on Singapore. We have done reasonably well over the last half century. We worked hard for that but there were some external factors which are very important to us and I will just mention three of them – the United States, China, and globalisation.
The United States was critical because it generated peace and stability and security throughout the Asia Pacific over this last half century. The Vietnam War, notwithstanding, it has been a benign, constructive influence, generating an environment where countries like Singapore – small ones – can participate, prosper，compete and have our place in the sun. At the same time, the United States was also a major source of investments and a major market for us, because they kept their economy open, and they believe that by being open and by being welcoming of the growth and prosperity of others, the US gained.

China was also a major factor in our success because over the last 40 years as China reformed，opened up and grew steadily, even faster than Singapore, our engagement with them deepened. Trade volumes increased dramatically, investments in China grew hugely. Singapore, according to the Chinese statistics, is the biggest source of foreign investments in China – through Singapore. I think some of them must be other companies based in Singapore, but nevertheless it shows the depth of the relationship. Tourism numbers grew. The engagement generated confidence, lift and a certain vibrancy throughout the whole region, which Singapore benefited hugely from.

Thirdly, we benefited from globalisation because world trade was buoyant and because people did business with one another, became increasingly openly. There were trade rounds, there was a Uruguay Round. The WTO played a constructive role although not always effortlessly. But we plugged into the global economy and that enabled a small country to be productive, and so the policies we made could work.
Now we are at a turning point, all three of these factors are changing. The United States, in terms of security. The strategic balance in the region is shifting because China has become more influential and more substantial a participant, and other countries too – the North Koreans are a major preoccupation because they have nuclear capabilities. America itself is asking the question whether they are carrying too much of a burden for this and wanting their allies to take on more of a responsibility, at least for financing the cost of this common security.

On economics too, the Americans have shifted their attitudes. I think that much more concerned about the impact on American workers, much more concerned about other countries taking advantage of America, seeing this as a free rider problem rather than one where America is holding the rein and being open, benefiting others but in the process benefiting itself. So that is a major change, we do not know that it is irreversible but it is certainly a very fundamental shift of stance.
The Chinese position has also shifted because as they have grown, they have become much more influential and much more advanced in their development. Their role in the international economy has changed substantially. Their influence has grown and their relations with other countries, in particular with the United States, has become more difficult to manage. And therefore, where as it was previously effortless to say, “I am friends with everybody and including friends with the United States and with China”, now we still want to be friends with everybody but you are pushed to be better friends with one side or the other. So that is a change in the world.

Brende: I think a lot of Europeans understand that.
PM Lee:  The smaller you are, the better you understand it.
The third factor – globalisation – is also shifting. You discuss it all the time here because people worry about the impact on disadvantaged groups; people worry about the impact on the environment; people worry about the uncertainties which are generated because we are so interrelated; and people are anxious about the ups and downs, which we no longer have a buffer to protect ourselves against.
In this environment, Singapore has looked forward for more than another 50 years, and find a way forward to navigate them. What do we do?
With America, we remain very good friends. They are a major security cooperation partner with us. I think we continue to believe that they have an important role in the region to foster stability and security – no longer alone, but still an indispensable role, because the Chinese cannot play the role the Americans do, the Japanese neither. And so we would like to continue to work with America, we would like to continue to work with China. From time to time, you will find yourself being pressed to choose sides. When we do have to make a stand, I think it is very important that people understand that Singapore's choices are on its own behalf because we are making decisions for Singapore and not because we are a cat’s paw for one side or the other. That means you must have the courage to stand up and call things as they are, and from time to time you will incur at least a raised eyebrow, and sometimes more than one raised eyebrow from one side or the other, and occasionally both. But it is necessary to do that because once people no longer think that you are a serious interlocutor calculating on your own behalf, you are written off, you are finished.

With China, we also have a big account. In fact, China is our biggest trading partner as it is for everybody else in the region, including all of America's allies. We hope that when we see that it is possible for China to adjust its position, taking into account its new very strong influence in the world, in order to integrate in a peaceful and constructive way into the global order, which it depends upon, whether it is through the Belt and Road initiative, whether it is through the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank or other diplomatic initiatives. I think China will have a major role to play and Singapore hopes that we will be able to cooperate with them, participate and encourage them to engage in a way which leaves space for other countries to prosper, to set their own path, and in the long term to welcome a new major player and not feel that this is an elephant in the room, which may not notice who else is there and what may be under foot.

On globalisation, I think, notwithstanding the pressures and the problems, we have no choice but to continue to bet on countries cooperating closely with one another. Because if five and a half million or six million people in Singapore have to grow our own food and make our own computers and make our own banking and living, I think we will starve, it is not possible. But to prosper in such a new globalised but troubled environment, we have to up our game, raise our capabilities, bring in new investments which will connect us to centres of vibrancy and prosperity all over the world –Europe, America, Japan, China, Latin America and Africa, because there are many spots of vibrancy and future growth there, and link us in in a way where we make a contribution because we can do things in Singapore, which is not so easy to be done, all together in one place, any other single place.

That means we have to upgrade our companies, upgrade our people, education, skills, and have the environment where we can welcome in very high quality investments, operations, R&D centres, places where high quality people want to live, want to work, and want to be. It is not just costs, but it is also the whole environment – safety, security, confidence, opportunities, vibrancy. That is what Singapore needs to be.
Amidst all of this, we have to look after our own people, make sure that all these good things, which happen in the world, benefit not just Singapore but benefits Singaporeans across the board. So that they are able to take advantage of the jobs we create, so that they are able to fend for themselves against global competition. So that if one industry is declining which will happen from time to time, the people there are given the help, the support and the time to gain new skills and transfer their employment to another industry, another job and be able to make a living for themselves and not feel that they are fending for themselves on their own and that the system is not on their side.
This system has to work for them because if it does not work for them, the system will fail. And in Singapore, it must not fail because we only have one chance to succeed.

Brende:  Thank you Mr Prime Minister, thank you very much for this tour d’horizon. There are so many questions that could be raised.
Let me start with the Global Risk Report that WEF does every year. The top concern by experts and business leaders in the survey that we just published last week, short term was geopolitical polarisation and trade wars having also a negative impact on global growth. IMF came out with their adjusted numbers for global growth this year and were more bearish than in the last report.
Mr Prime Minister, do you feel that there are still challenges related to geopolitical confrontations and competition, or do you see that maybe, it has peaked with the signing of the first part of the trade agreement by US and China in DC last week?

PM Lee:  We are relentlessly optimistic but not that much so. I do not think it has peaked at all. It is a very serious issue. How does an incumbent hyper power like the United States accommodate a rising new power – China – which is going to grow as a percentage of the world's GDP, which is going to grow and develop in terms of the sophistication of its economy, and which in absolute size is going to become larger than the United States, although not more advanced than the US for many years to come? But it will become larger very soon, if it has not already.
How do both sides make the adjustments in order to accommodate each other, and head-off what Graham Allison calls the Thucydides’s trap? And it is not at all obvious that it is easy to do because both sides have domestic pressures, both sides are primarily calculating the next election, or the next domestic political succession. Those domestic pressures do not naturally factor in a global strategic stable balance. Already you have seen the consequences because the tariffs and counter-tariffs have reduced trade, reduced welfare and the uncertainty of the conflict has meant that investments have been affected and business decisions are being put off because you do not know and you cannot count on the future. The prospect of bifurcation in technology, whether it is on 5G or on the whole supply chain that will cause ‘I don't trust you therefore you don't trust me, therefore I cannot rely on your products and therefore you must develop your own supply chain.’ It will take a long time for that process to come, to run its course but it is a very expensive process, which is going to hurt us.

I was talking to one industrialist yesterday and he said, “Well, we make, say, medical equipment – MRI machines. In an ideal world, you make it in one place and you supply the whole world. If we bifurcate, we can put one manufacturing centre for Asia and China, one manufacturing centre for America and it costs us and that we will not die.” I said that is fine if you are making the same MRI machine in both places. But if they need different chips and different software, and if the next time I find an MRI breakthrough, I am not going to share with you because that is a national security threat to me, then I think it will cost us. I think you are not there yet, but you are not heading away from that direction.