It was during this time that some of Singapore’s top diplomats, Mr Kishore Mahbubani, Professor Tommy Koh and Professor Chan Heng Chee, found themselves invited to lunch from time to time with founding prime minister and then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
“It was a new time and he wanted to test out his ideas. He didn’t want people just to agree with him,” said Prof Chan of the lunches with Mr Lee, adding that they did not go for the food, which was “very spartan”.
“What was remarkable was Mr Lee actually listens, but he also pounces on the ideas he disagrees with and argues back, because he is a lawyer and he wants to win the argument,” said the political scientist. “So if you melt, that’s the end of it.”
Prof Chan was speaking at a short discussion during the launch of Mr Mahbubani’s autobiography, Living The Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir, at the Fullerton Hotel on Aug 15.
The three veteran diplomats, together with eminent historian of the Chinese diaspora Wang Gungwu, were reminiscing about their interactions with Singapore’s founding leaders, shedding some light on how the old guard leadership would solicit the views of intellectuals – including those who disagreed with them.
Prof Wang, who was vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong when he was recruited by former deputy prime minister Goh Keng Swee in 1995 to head what is now called the East Asian Institute, recalled that Dr Goh was “very much an intellectual” whose interest in something was not necessarily because it was practical.
Mr Mahbubani’s own first encounter with Dr Goh was anything but propitious.
After he graduated from university in 1971, he was invited to the office of Dr Goh, who offered him a job. He told the then Defence Minister that “I cannot join the Ministry of Defence; I’m a pacifist”, whereupon he was shown the door.
Still, after he had completed his master’s degree specialising in German philosopher Karl Marx, he was invited by Dr Goh in 1975 to give a series of six lectures on Marxism at the Defence Ministry. The minister sat through all the lectures himself.
Mr Mahbubani joined the foreign service in 1971 and stayed for 33 years, before becoming dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He became known for his admiration for China even as the West got increasingly wary of the Asian giant’s ambitions.
Prof Chan, meanwhile, was an early critic of Singapore’s political system – as an academic at the University of Singapore in 1975, she wrote a paper saying Singapore was turning into “an administrative state”, with its citizenry increasingly depoliticised while power concentrated in the hands of the ruling People’s Action Party.
Still, she was invited to join the foreign service, going on to become Singapore’s longest-serving ambassador to the US.
Nostalgia was palpable in the hall, where the discussion with the veteran diplomats – all of whom have served as Singapore’s ambassador to the United Nations at one point or another – was held.
Said Prof Koh of the lunches Mr Lee had with him, Mr Mahbubani and Prof Chan: “I miss them... he would brainstorm ideas with us. He was eager to learn from us.”
He added ruefully: “After Lee Kuan Yew, no Singapore leader has ever invited the three of us (together).”
To which Mr Mahbubani quickly pointed out with a laugh: “Our standing went down, lah.”
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What was clear was how these intellectuals’ sometimes contrarian views did not stop the leaders from picking their brains and tapping their talents.
Prof Chan said: “It is important, for any society that seeks advancement, innovation and resilience, to allow the articulation of different ideas. Others can criticise and come down hard on the idea if there is disagreement. And the author of the idea should expect a fierce rebuttal and stand up to it.”
After the launch, she told The Straits Times: “Back then, we had dissenting views, but they took the effort to listen to us, to cultivate and co-opt us. That process made me more patriotic, and to want to continue serving. I’m not sure if the same is happening today.”
As Singapore’s political and intellectual leadership undergo generational shifts, such consultation is likely to continue to take place, given Singapore’s constant need to take on board the insights of its best and brightest.
And, in today’s world, these conversations are more imperative than ever.
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