In remarks on recent developments in Thailand and Malaysia, MM Lee said - in response to a question on the future of the Asian region - that he is filled with 'dismay' that these two countries have run into severe problems:
'It fills me with dismay because these were potentially promising countries, promising economies, but now they've run into some very severe problems.
Why? Because in Thailand, they say corruption. So to stop the corruption, they have a coup. Then they have another election. But the election does not solve the problem of getting (former) prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's influence removed. So they have all kinds of new rules and laws to disqualify his party or the new party...So as a consequence, you look at the stock markets, it's gone down. The economy is sound, the politics is a problem.
You look at Malaysia. The economy. It is one of the wealthiest countries in the region. It's got oil, it's got gas, it's got palm oil. All the commodities it has. It's also got a manufacturing sector.
But suddenly, it's trapped in some political-cum-personal difficulties of charges and counter-charges which can only be bad for the economy. I think the KL Stock Exchange has gone down by some 20 per cent. I don't track it, but I know it's down.
If you have confidence that this will be resolved in six months or one year, then you buy. If it's not resolved and it goes down another 20 per cent, then you've lost...
But I see all these problems as man-made. It's not economics. It is lack of a certain integrity in the system that you are entrusted with and you therefore run it properly.
People can say anything they like: Singapore is undemocratic, we trip our opposition down, this, that and the other. But if you say that this Government is corrupt or has mismanaged the country's resources, I'll sue you!
And they still do that. And the Western press supports the people who say that because they want to see us down.
But because we sue them again and again, nobody in Singapore believes that anybody is doing anything that's criminal, corrupt or improper. So we can make a mistake - and everybody knows you can't be 100 per cent right every time - but nobody has profited from that mistake.'
The Straits Times
Singapore
10/07/08
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