Taking on the Western media

Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s candid views on democracy and development were often cited and criticised by international media, particularly those from the West. He was seen as the main proponent of the “Asian values” debate, as it was dubbed in the 1980s and 1990s. These special Asian characteristics meant that Western democracy, law and order — human rights, in other words — could not be universally applied. The divide between East and West sharpened particularly after the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on student protesters.

For Mr Lee, this meant taking on his detractors — and he had many — in a long-running battle with Western news organisations and academics. He took umbrage particularly at cases where he perceived them as interfering in Singapore politics. Among his notable critics were American journalist William Safire and British journalist Bernard Levin from the Times, whom Mr Lee challenged to a face-to-face interview on the BBC after Levin wrote a scathing article on Singapore and Lee in the United Kingdom press. After Levin declined, Mr Lee took out full-page paid advertisements in several British newspapers to lay bare the facts and reveal that Levin had refused to take part in the televised debate.

Mr Lee put it best in a 1988 address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, DC: “Singapore’s domestic debate is a matter for Singaporeans. We allow American journalists in Singapore in order to report Singapore to their fellow countrymen. We allow their papers to sell in Singapore so that we can know what foreigners are reading about us. But we cannot allow them to assume a role in Singapore that the American media play in America, that of invigilator, adversary and inquisitor of the administration. If allowed to do so, they will radically change the nature of Singapore society, and I doubt if our social glue is strong enough to withstand such treatment.”