In a Politico op-ed, Jon Huntsman Jr. relates the three core lessons he learned as a young ambassador to Singapore 25 years ago from the statesman and nation-builder Lee Kuan Yew.
Writes Huntsman:
Mr. Lee created an ownership society at a time when the rest of the world was moving in the opposite direction. His visionary leadership, based on the rule of law and a clean government, generated the world’s most recent example of a country going from third world to first world under a single generation of leadership.
Along the way, mistakes were made. By his own account, he regretted some of the decisions taken but also argued that everything was done for “honorable purposes” to keep Singapore stable during those early years. With today’s secure economic foundation, I suspect Singapore will further expand its creative class and existing civil society and people inevitably will demand more of a representational government.
The lessons of Lee Kuan Yew’s formidable leadership and success will be a case study for generations to come.
