The world is a diverse place. Nobody has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom.
Lee Hsien Loong
You have to have a sense of what it looks like, not from the point of view of the policymaker but from the point of view of those who are at the receiving end of your policies.
The Chinese go around with lollipops in their pockets. They have aid. They have friendship deals. They build you a Prime Minister's office or President's office or Parliament House or Foreign Ministry. For them, trade is an extension of their foreign policy.
Basically, if you become president, you must swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and what the Constitution says.
The tactics we were able to use in the 1960s, 1970s - let's have a campaign, mobilize everybody and, therefore, social pressure - stop littering, or stop spitting, or be courteous to one another: I am not sure that kind of approach will work anymore.
Overall, we think religion is a good thing. I mean, if we were godless society, we would have many other problems; the communists found that out.
My infrastructure must run brilliantly. My whole system must be different from what you can get anywhere else in Asia.
Maybe Americans feel they don't need the rest of the world anymore, and they wish it would go away. We don't have that option.
Just as our forefathers saved and invested to build what we, the current generation, are enjoying today, so, too, we must plant trees so that our sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters, can enjoy the shade.
When people say they don't want a nanny state, they are, in fact, in a conflicted state of mind. On the one hand, they want to do whatever they want and not be stopped. On the other hand, if something goes wrong, they want to be rescued.
If you make a defamatory allegation that the Prime Minister is guilty of criminal misappropriation of pension funds of Singaporeans, that's a very serious matter.
We do have to watch to see how the foreign workers and immigrants are fitting in with our community, and you have to watch them mix so that you don't overbalance the numbers or the tone of our society.
It has to be good to live in Singapore because otherwise, nobody will stand for it.
Everybody has his place; everybody is equal. Treated equally, equal standing, equal rights and status.
It's never easy to be a small country next to a big neighbor.
I don't have farmers I can convert into factory workers.
If you look at the young people today, they are passionate about all kinds of courses. We have dog-lovers, nature-lovers, those who are pursuing arts; we have quite many who are involved in religious activities through their church.
My colleagues went on the Internet, went on Facebook, and they found it helpful, and they persuaded me that I should try, so I did. It's quite fun provided you keep it in balance and... from time to time slip in a serious message.
There will always be frictions when you have a foreign worker population or immigrant population in the country, and we have to manage that, and that requires good behaviour and adjustment both on the part of the foreign workers and the immigrants as well as on the part of the Singaporeans.
What we can do in Singapore may not be doable elsewhere. Some things you know you need: you want efficient government, you want clean government, you want to do away with corruption, you must educate your people. You want to get housing and so on. All these are not such secrets, not so special to Singapore.
The key thing in Northeast Asia is North Korea. They are unpredictable; they are developing their nuclear capabilities and their missiles.
I think every administration has a settling-in process. And there's always an adjustment between what you can say during a campaign and what you find are the possibilities and the imperatives when you win the election and you enter the Oval Office.
I think we are paying a lot of attention to China one way or the other. They are a big factor in the world. They are successful; they are growing. They want to grow their influence, and all the countries in Asia want to be their friend and want to benefit from China's development and success.
We have long depended on an America which has got a clear sense of its stakes in the world and how much it depends on the world as well as how much the world and its allies and friends depend on the United States of America, and we hope this will continue.
One of the reasons America is welcome in Asia is because with America... there is a certain idealism and a certain bigness of soul. You want the region to prosper; you want countries to do well, and you are prepared to help them.
The Chinese are quite clear what their interests are and very consistent on pushing their interests.
You need people who have their own views, whose views you respect, whom you can have a productive disagreement with, and work out ideas which you might not have come up with, or who improve on ideas you had.
No country can be an island unto itself or world unto itself. Not even the biggest country.
We are looking for ways where you can have a sandbox, where you have a restricted environment within which people can try new things, and I can try new rules. And depending on what works, then I open up the sandbox, and it becomes the new rule for the whole system.
The U.S. is not a claimant state in the South China Sea or in the China-Japan dispute over the Senkaku Islands. But, of course, the 7th Fleet has been a presence in the region since the Second World War, and it is the most powerful fleet in the region.
With Singaporeans, you speak English, you're well-educated, the doors open everywhere.
In every American election, crazy things are said. Positions are taken which the winners try very hard to forget afterwards.
I hope to develop our relationship with the Trump administration and with the United States. It's a very sound relationship that's based on the basic strategic congruence of views about the world, about the region.
You need to have good people: honourable, capable, committed in politics, standing in public office. It's not a guarantee, but it's the ideal we have to aim for.
Every time you make a rule, somebody will think of a way to operate around the rule.
If you interview world leaders, everybody will say they are for free trade. But what they mean by it and what they do when they say they are pro free trade, you have to watch and see.
I would not say that the North Koreans will do anything that the Chinese want them to do.
If there are tensions between America and China, we will be asked to pick a side. It may not be directly, but you will get the message that, 'We would like you to be with us, and are you with us? If not, does that mean you're against us?' And that's to put it gently.
You look at the Americans. They don't lack fervour in moral causes. They promote democracy, freedom of speech, women's rights, gay rights, sometimes even transgender rights. But you don't see them applying that universally across the world with all their allies.
If you asked a Singaporean, on the one hand they'll say, 'Let us do our own things.' On the other hand, when an issue comes out, they'll ask, 'What is the government doing about it?'
No government prospers by saying, 'I don't need to do anything. Just by being there, we have made the country thrive.'
You have to have an idea of what you need to do, what needs to be fixed, what can be improved, what we should now imagine together which we didn't previously imagine. And having thought of it, decide to go it. And that's the government's role.
We are all in favor of the U.S. taking an active and constructive interest in Asia.
We want the U.S. to have constructive and stable relations with China. That makes it much easier for us. Then we don't have to choose sides.
We stand stoutly against all forms of terrorism, and cross-border terror is a particular problem that India has. Singapore has a problem with cross-border terror, too, because we are a very small country, and it is quite possible for an attack to be mounted on Singapore from beyond our shores.
The old model for India was to be self-sufficient. It was the ideal India became independent with, that you spin your own thread, make your own clothes.
It is never helpful to point at sticking points, but it is always helpful to encourage one's partners to take a more active and forward-looking approach.
We know India is very focussed on black money; it is a very high-focus subject and we have been very careful to make sure the investments into India are legitimate. There is no 'round-tripping' or hot money or bad money being funnelled through Singapore.
We are not in a situation where the minorities are demanding something and the majorities are pushing back saying 'We don't want it.'
There can only be one government, and the president has certain roles and duties, which are to hold the second key on money and on people but not to go and check the government or tell the government what it is supposed to do.
