Lee Kuan Yew was the first Prime Minister of Singapore (1959–1990). A founding member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he is often credited for transforming Singapore from a third-world to a first-world country. He was known for practising political pragmatism in his governance of Singapore, but has been criticised for using authoritarian and heavy-handed policies. However, others argue his actions as having been necessary for the country's early development, and that he was a benevolent dictator.
Lee was elected Prime Minister of Singapore for 31 years, making him the longest-serving prime minister in the world at the time.
Many world leaders have affirmed Lee's political knowledge as being insightful. Such supporters include former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher, who remarked that Lee was "never wrong", and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Former President of the United States Barack Obama stated that he "personally appreciated [Lee's] wisdom." Former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe stated that Lee was "one of the greatest leaders of modern times that Asia has ever produced."
Foreign policy
Malaysia
Lee initially believed that Singapore and Malaya were culturally, politically, economically, and socially similar, stating that "my generation had always believed that Singapore and Malaya were one". This led him to campaign for merger with Malaya from 1959 to 1963, including delivering a series of radio talks from 13 September to 9 October in 1961 defending the concept of merger, later dubbed the Battle for Merger. Subsequently, however, racial tensions between the ethnic Chinese and Malays led Lee to announce Singapore's separation from Malaysia on 9 August 1965, citing Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman's statement that "Singapore had to leave Malaysia or there would be bloodshed". Lee said that this was "a moment of anguish" for him because "all my life... I have believed in merger and the unity of these two territories. You know, it's a people, connected by geography, economics, and ties of kinship".
Since 1965, Lee criticised Malaysia's race-based policies such as the enshrinement of Malay privileges, which he argues has "place[d] the country at a disadvantage", citing the country's failure to retain Malaysian Chinese businesspeople and talent. Lee wrote that "Singapore and Malaysia have chosen two entirely different ways of organising our societies", and in 2013 argued that the coexistence of both states "separately but amicably" was the inevitable course of their relations.
Hong Kong
Lee believed that the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984 was the best agreement possible for Hong Kong. Lee said Hong Kongers had to come to terms with the reality that there would be "nothing to stop Beijing from doing what it wanted" after the 1997 handover. He advised British diplomats stationed in Singapore in July 1989 following the Tiananmen Square protests that Beijing would reject any assertion of a separate and democratically based Hong Kong identity. In his memoir, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, he stated that there was a "wide and deep gap" between what Hong Kong people wanted and expectations of China's leaders. He reinforced this view in One Man's View of the World when he stated that, in contrast to the Hong Kong people, "I don't believe the Chinese people themselves believe that with 1.3 billion people you can have one man, one vote for a president".
Europe
Lee observed that the United Kingdom wanted a European Union more focused on the economic aspect of the single market, and not as a political integration project. Lee was also pessimistic about the euro and the European Union when he was interviewed for One Man's View of the World, stating that without real fiscal integration, the euro was doomed, and that without deeper integration into a United States of Europe, "Europe will be reduced to the role of supporting actor". Lee added that the EU was likely to fail because of "too fast an enlargement" and that the euro in its "present form" cannot be saved because “you cannot have monetary integration without fiscal integration”.
Wikileaks
In 2010, WikiLeaks released classified communications documents from Lee to US leaders. In the documents, Lee described the North Korean regime as "psychopathic", described then Vice-President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping as a "princeling" and expressed his belief that the Japanese government may develop nuclear technologies in the future.