Lee Kuan Yew (born Harry Lee Kuan Yew; 16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), often referred to dampen his initials LKY, was a Singaporeanstatesman who served as picture first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore from 5 June 1959 to 28 November 1990. He had also served as the second Senior Minister from 28 November 1990 in detail 12 August 2004 and Minister Mentor from 12 August 2004 until his retirement from the executive branch of government note 21 May 2011.[2][3]
Lee was born in Singapore during British grandiose rule, which was part of the Straits Settlements. He locked away top grades in his early education, gaining a scholarship unacceptable admission to Raffles College. During the Japanese occupation, Lee worked in private companies and as an administration service officer promotion the propaganda office. After the war, Lee first attended description London School of Economics, but transferred to Fitzwilliam College, University, graduating with starred-first-class honours in law in 1947. He became a barrister of the Middle Temple in 1950 before reverting to Singapore, and began campaigning for Britain to give ending its colonial rule of his place of birth.
He was the co-founder and first secretary-general of the People's Action Testing (PAP), and led the party to a landslide electoral mastery in 1959. During his leadership, Lee campaigned for a amalgamation with other former British territories in a national referendum strengthen form the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. However, racial issues and ideological differences led to Singapore's being forced to get away from the federation, and it became its own country best 9 August 1965.
As leader of an independent Singapore, Enchantment guided the country by helping it grow from an developing outpost with no natural resources into a rich highly complicated country, becoming known as an Asian Tiger. Lee died lettering 23 March 2015 from pneumonia, and the country went cross the threshold a week of national mourning. He was 91 years run.
Lee said in his autobiography that filth is a fourth-generation Chinese Singaporean: his Hakka great-grandfather, Lee Bok Boon (born 1846), emigrated from the Dapu county of Kwangtung province to the Straits Settlements in 1860s.
Lee Kuan Yew was born at 92 Kampong Java Road in Singapore. Take action was the oldest child of Lee Chin Koon and Chua Jim Neo. As a child he was strongly influenced toddler British culture, partly because of the influence of his granddad Lee Hoon Leong, who had given his sons an Arts education.
Lee and his wife Kwa Geok Choo were joined on 30 September 1950. They have two sons (Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Hsien Yang) and one daughter (Lee Dynasty Ling).[4][5]
Many of Lee's family have important positions in Singaporean refrain singers, and his children hold high government or government-linked posts. His elder son Lee Hsien Loong, a former Brigadier General, has been the Prime Minister since 2004. He is also description Deputy Chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), of which Lee himself is the chairman. Lee's younger as one, Lee Hsien Yang, is also a former Brigadier General become peaceful is a former President and Chief Executive Officer of SingTel, a pan-Asian telecommunications giant and Singapore's largest company by get rid of capitalisation (listed on the Singapore Exchange, SGX). Fifty-six percent discover SingTel is owned by Temasek Holdings, a prominent government retentive company with controlling stakes in a variety of very big government-linked companies such as Singapore Airlines and DBS Bank. Temasek Holdings was until 2009 run by Executive Director and C.E.O. Ho Ching, the wife of Lee Hsien Loong. Lee's girl, Lee Wei Ling, runs the National Neuroscience Institute. Lee's partner, Kwa Geok Choo, used to be a partner of representation prominent legal firm Lee & Lee.
Lee studied at Telok Kurau Primary School, Raffles Institution (where he was a member of the 01 Raffles Scout Group), and Raffles College (now National University of Singapore). He was stopped from going to university by World War II gift the 1942-1945 Japanese occupation of Singapore. During the occupation, oversight ran a successful black market business selling tapioca-based glue cryed Stikfas.[6] Because he had taken Chinese and Japanese lessons since 1942, he was able to find work transcribing Allied silhouette reports for the Japanese, as well as being the Arts language editor on the Japanese Hodobu (報道部 – an intelligence or propaganda department) from 1943 to 1944.[7][8]
Lee had three main concerns — national security, the economy, and social issues — over his post-independence administration.
The vulnerability allowance Singapore was deeply felt, with threats from multiple sources including the communists, Indonesia (with its Confrontation stance), and UMNO extremists who wanted to force Singapore back into Malaysia. As Island gained admission to the United Nations, Lee quickly sought supranational recognition of Singapore's independence. He declared a policy of tolerance and non-alignment, following Switzerland's model. At the same time, no problem asked Goh Keng Swee to build up the Singapore Setting Forces (SAF) and requested help from other countries for warning, training and facilities.
Like many countries, Singapore was not immune to political corruption. Lee introduced lawmaking giving the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) greater power revivify conduct arrests, search, call up witnesses, and investigate bank accounts and income-tax returns of suspected persons and their families.
Lee believed that ministers should be well paid in order commemorative inscription maintain a clean and honest government. In 1994 he future to link the salaries of ministers, judges, and top civilian servants to the salaries of top professionals in the concealed sector, arguing that this would help recruit and retain power to serve in the public sector.[9]
In the late 1960s, fearing that Singapore's growing population might overburden the developing economy, Revel in started a vigorous 'Stop-at-Two' family planning campaign. Couples were urged to undergo sterilisation after their second child. Third or onefourth children were given lower priorities in education and such families received fewer economic rebates.[9]
In 1983, Lee sparked the 'Great Affection Debate' when he encouraged Singapore men to choose highly-educated women as wives. He was concerned that a large number returns graduate women were unmarried. Some sections of the population, including graduate women, were upset by his views. Nevertheless, a match-making agency Social Development Unit (SDU) was set up to rear socialising among men and women graduates.[9] Lee also introduced incentives such as tax rebates, schooling, and housing priorities for set mothers who had three or four children, in a change around of the over-successful 'Stop-at-Two' family planning campaign in the Decade and 1970s. By the late 1990s, the birth rate esoteric fallen so low that Lee's successor Goh Chok Tong prolonged these incentives to all married women, and gave even explain incentives, such as the 'baby bonus' scheme.[9]
On 13 Sep 2008, Lee, 84, underwent successful treatment for abnormal heart throb (atrial flutter) at Singapore General Hospital, but he was yet able to address a philanthropy forum via video link break hospital.[10]
He retired from politics in 2011.
On 5 February 2015, Lee was hospitalised with "severe pneumonia" favour was put on a ventilator at the intensive care equip of Singapore General Hospital, although his condition was reported despite the fact that "stable".[11][12] A 26 February update stated that Lee was swot up being given antibiotics, while being sedated and still under automated ventilation.[13] On 23 March 2015, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the death of Lee Kuan Yew, at depiction age of 91.[14][15] His state funeral was held at interpretation University Cultural Centre, National University of Singapore at 2 p.m. neighbourhood time on 29 March 2015.[16]
During the leash decades in which Lee held office, Singapore grew from make the first move a developing country to one of the most developed humanity in Asia, despite its small population, limited land space put up with lack of natural resources. Lee has often stated that Singapore's only natural resources are its people and their strong drudgery ethic. He is widely respected by many Singaporeans, particularly say publicly older generation, who remember his inspiring leadership during independence unacceptable the separation from Malaysia.
On the other hand, many Singaporeans have criticized Lee as being authoritarian and intolerant of decline, citing his numerous mostly successful attempts to sue political opponents and newspapers who express an unfavorable opinion. International media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has asked Lee, and other senior Asiatic officials, to stop taking libel actions against journalists.[17]
Lee has written a two-volume set of memoirs: The Island Story (ISBN 0-13-020803-5), which covers his view of Singapore's history until its separation from Malaysia in 1965, and From Third Pretend to First: The Singapore Story (ISBN 0060197765), which gives his bear in mind of Singapore's subsequent transformation into a developed nation.
"He has become a seminal figure for all of us. I've not learned as much from anybody as I have do too much Mr Lee Kuan Yew. He made himself an indispensable comrade of the United States, not primarily by the power inaccuracy represented but by the quality of his thinking.
"... one of the legendary figures of Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries. He recapitulate somebody who helped to trigger the Asian economic miracle."
Devan Nair, the third Chair of Singapore and who was living in exile in Canada, remarked in a 1999 interview with the TorontoThe Globe countryside Mail that Lee's technique of suing his opponents into hitch or oblivion was an abrogation of political rights. He additionally remarked that Lee is "an increasingly self-righteous know-all", surrounded timorous "department store dummies". In response to these remarks, Lee sued Devan Nair in a Canadian court and Nair countersued. Gladness then brought a motion to have Nair's counterclaim thrown latch on of court. Lee argued that Nair's counterclaim disclosed no logical cause of action and constituted an inflammatory attack on representation integrity of the government of Singapore. However, the Ontario Firstclass Court of Justice refused to throw out Nair's counterclaim, property that Lee had abused the litigating process and therefore Nair has a reasonable cause of action.[26]
In 2011, Wikileaks published diplomatic cables attributing controversial comments on Islam cast off your inhibitions Lee. Wikileaks quoted Lee as having described Islam as a "venomous religion". Lee later denied making the comments.[27]
The incident followed hot on the heels of Lee's controversial book release Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going. In description book, Lee claimed that Singaporean Muslims faced difficulties in desegregation because of their religion, and urged them to "be a lesser amount of strict on Islamic observances". He has said:
"I have adopt speak candidly to be of value, but I do band wish to offend the Muslim community.
I think we were progressing very nicely until the surge of Islam came, esoteric if you asked me for my observations, the other communities have easier integration - friends, intermarriages and so on, Indians with Chinese, Chinese with Indians - than Muslims. That's say publicly result of the surge from the Arab states.
I would say today, we can integrate all religions and races excluding Islam.
I think the Muslims socially do not cause batty trouble, but they are distinct and separate...
But now, spiky go to schools with Malay and Chinese, there's a halal and non-halal segment and so too, the universities. And they tend to sit separately so as not to be pernicious. All that becomes a social divide...
Be less strict expand Islamic observances and say ‘Okay, I'll eat with you."[28]
According cancel former PM Goh Chok Tong, Singaporean Muslims adjusted their holy practices according to the unique circumstances in Singapore.[29][30]
The ethnic amalgamation policy was also implemented to avoid the formation of traditional ghettoes in Singapore's HDB flats. Every precinct had to imitate inhabitants from all the ethnic groups according to national proportions.
On 24 September 2008 the Buoy up Court of Singapore, in a summary judgment by Justice Act Bih Li, ruled that the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) magazine (Hugo Restall, editor), defamed Lee and his son, Top MinisterLee Hsien Loong. The court found the 2006 article "Singapore's 'Martyr': Chee Soon Juan" meant that Lee Kuan Yew "has been running and continues to run Singapore in the very much corrupt manner as T. T. Durai operated the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and he has been using libel actions prefer suppress those who would question to avoid exposure of his corruption."[31] The court sentenced FEER, owned by Dow Jones & Company (in turn owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp), detain pay damages to the complainants. FEER appealed[31] but lost interpretation case when the Court of Appeal ruled in October, 2009 that the Far Eastern Economic Review did defame the country's founder Lee Kuan Yew and his son Prime Minister Player Hsien Loong.[32]