'Lee Kuan Yew' the Book

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Karen Elliott House, A Wise Man for the World; Singapore's philosopher-king on an ascendant China, the threat of Islamism and America's entitlements crisis. Wall Street Journal, Feb 26, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 12892469083684.html
(book review on Graham Allison and Robert D Blackwill, Lee Kuan Yew; The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World. MIT Press, 2013)

Quote:

"Beyond Singapore, China has always been Mr Lee's primary focus. China, he says, is determined to be "the greatest power in the world," and it expects to be accepted on its own terms, 'not as an honorary member of the West.' Yet despite China's progress over the past 30 years, Mr Lee says, it has multiple 'handicaps' to overcome, chief among them an absence of the rule of law and the presence of widespread corruption. The biggest fear of China's leaders, he says, is popular revulsion at the corrosive effects of graft.

"The US shouldn't expect a democratic China: 'China is not going to become a liberal democracy; if it did, it would collapse.' In China's 5,000 years of recorded history, he notes, the emperor has ruled by right, and if the people disagree, 'you chop off heads, not count heads.'

"Mr Lee's three political heroes are Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill and Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who launched economic reform in the 1980s. The reason for Mr. Lee's admiration: Each held a weak hand at a critical moment in history and, through guts and determination, managed to win. * * * As with his three heroes, Mr. Lee began with a weak hand in Singapore but, by playing it to maximum effect, made himself a wise man for the world.