In a wide-ranging interview with German publication Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday (Feb 3), Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke about integrating new citizens, religious harmony and the South China Sea conflict.
Mr Lee is in Germany for an official visit to mark 50 years of diplomatic ties between Singapore and Germany, and to discuss ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation.
Here are some excerpts from the interview:
ON THE GOVERNMENT’S ROLE IN INTEGRATION
“We set the tone. In terms of our social policies, we make it an objective to facilitate this integration. For example in our public housing estates, which is where 80-plus per cent of the population live, we make sure there are no pure neighbourhoods. We enforce integration, enforce diverse neighbourhoods, and integration in terms of race, also integration in terms of proportion of non-citizens so that you will not have an enclave. So you force people to have to live together.
“When the British built the colony their policy was to keep the different groups apart. To go from that to a modern Singapore where they are all integrated together, where every neighbourhood is integrated, was active social policy. We could do it because we had public housing programmes. We cleared the old villages and slums. We resettled the whole population, so in that process we had the opportunity to cause everybody to mix together.”
ON RELIGIOUS HARMONY
“All the major religions of the world are in Singapore. So we have to get along together and one of our basic principles is that there has to be tolerance and compromise. If you insist on absolute requirements, then we are not going to be able to live peacefully together. That means in terms of your practices, your customs and your celebrations.
“We are also not purists on freedom of speech, so if you say things which go out of your way to denigrate or attack some other faith, that is an offence.”
ON LIFELONG LEARNING
"In Germany, the employers have a model. They look for people, they work with them in the institutions, they work with them on an apprenticeship programme, and the people who are employed after that, completing their apprenticeship, expect to work for quite a long time with the company. They do not go and wander off straight away because somebody else is paying them another 5 or 10 per cent more.
“We do not have such a culture in Singapore. We are trying to move in that direction and get the employers more engaged in the training of the people, even in the institutions and have internships and immersions as a person graduates. We are making some progress, but it’s a long way to go.”
ON CHINA AND THE SOUTH CHINA SEA CONFLICT
“Between countries, not everything can be win-win, but overall if you take the relationship as a whole, I think we are much better off with a prosperous China than a problematic one.
“We have a declaration of conduct, which was agreed between ASEAN and China, and it says all the things the parties promised to abide by and to some extent, they do. From time to time, people do things. That happens.
“We are trying to work towards a code of conduct which is going to be binding and which will be more effective. We are in the process of talking about this code of conduct with the Chinese but I think it will take some time. I do not think any of the countries will likely agree to bind themselves.
"But if we can achieve a code of conduct, that will be a positive development. It does not mean we solve the problem, but at least we minimise the chance of that leading to a real showdown.”
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