Transcipt of MM Lee Interview with Bloomberg News (29 Apr)
TRANSCRIPT OF MINISTER MENTOR LEE KUAN YEW'S INTERVIEW WITH HASLINDA AMIN OF BLOOMBERG NEWS ON 29 APRIL 2008 AT ISTANA *Selected Gems*
On Recession
AMIN: Do you agree with the assessment that the global economy could be in the worst recession in 30 years?
LEE: No, I'm not sure that's going to be the position. That's one of the scenarios. There's tremendous argument about how to approach this credit crunch crisis, when it will end, and how it can end.
If you increase liquidity and run the risk of higher inflation, then you will postpone the problem, perhaps to a later date, when it may become more complicated or easier to resolve. We're not sure.
The Federal Reserve in America has decided to increase liquidity, take over some of these questionable subprime and other collateral debt obligations and make the banks and even the brokerages, Bear Stearns and others, solvent again. Not everybody in America agrees with that.
AMIN: Do you agree?
LEE: I think there's a risk but it's better than doing nothing. If we do nothing, we might trigger a real worldwide credit crunch and confidence crisis, and we'll have a recession, a worldwide recession, which may be very difficult to reverse. So I think it's better to take this risk and have the fallout later. The same thing is happening in Britain, where the Bank of England is putting in $100 billion and rescuing Northern Rock, which is a mortgage bank. But the argument against it is you are pumping in money.
I'm not sure, having gone this far. I just read a piece by a Danish economist, who's working in Singapore, where he argues that the problem is similar to that of the 1930 crisis, where all currencies were pegged to gold, and they were overvalued. That caused deflation, and economies, trade collapsed, and everything came to gridlock.
Therefore, he says, if we stick to this hard line, that you must have discipline, and you must punish those who acted imprudently and they go bankrupt, you're risking the whole economy getting frozen. For better or for worse, both the chairman of the Fed, Bernanke, and Treasury Secretary Paulson, they've got to expand the rules, or stretch the rules, in a way that has never been done before, and just rescue these brokerage houses.
Will it work? It has checked the fall in the American stock market. Will it cause contagion in other banks, like UBS, or German banks that have got some of these subprime mortgages? I think it's better to take the risk and pump in the money and restore liquidity and get the economy going. To do nothing is surely the run into a gridlock.
I think Paulson and Bernanke, I will support them, that this is the lesser of the two evils. That, perhaps, despite what Alan Greenspan has said, he should have taken the punchbowl away earlier and not allow low interest rates to go on and the housing frenzy and consumption frenzy to go on, that you might have a softer landing. It's not possible to foresee how this will end. He was in charge, he had his board, he carried the majority of his board.
So, seven, eight wise men, well versed in these arcane matters, went along with him, that this was the best course and let the markets decide. The markets haven't gone wrong. The traders were too clever, so they immediately cut the deal and they pushed it on, got their bonus, and carried on, and finally, everybody thought was safe, so the big banks bought it, and held on to it. Now, they're not sure which ones are worthless and which ones are not, so that is the problem. If you make people lose confidence, generally, banks also lose confidence, the system will seize up, and we get a 1930 crisis.
AMIN: The moves that you mention are also aimed at boosting and propping the U.S. economy, which is currently also seeing a weak dollar. Is that weak dollar helping at all?
LEE: There are two views on that. The weak dollar is forcing the European Central Bank to decide whether they can stay on their high and mighty platform and say, we are not affected, we are going to fight inflation. And then they find their exports, and Airbus is not going to sell. Because the 380s and 340s and 320s are sold in the market in dollars. So they can't meet their costs and are going to shift parts of their operations to America.
The U.S. exports are expanding. Germany is the biggest exporter of all the European countries. Theirs have held up. They export very specialized machinery, which has inelastic demand, so they're holding it up. But sooner or later, the disparity in exchange . . . I think the euro is now 157, 158 to the dollar, so it's a tremendous jump. So there are two schools of thought. At the moment, I'm persuaded more by the school that says let's do something.
AMIN: GIC and Temasek have made substantial investments in troubled financial institutions. Given the risk of a financial meltdown, do you think they could have been more conservative? Should they have been more conservative?
LEE: Nobody knows how it's going to turn out. Will these banks that we have invested in, with very good franchises, brand names, good managements, but led astray over these subprime mortgages, will they not recover? Will the economy not recover? Will there be another Swiss bank like UBS for wealth management? I doubt it. We doubt it. That's why we invested in it. Will it get back to its pre-crisis prices? May be not immediately. Five years, seven years, 10 years, with good management, good conditions? We will know in five to 10 years. And GIC is a long term investor.
Similarly for Citigroup. It's got an enormous spread worldwide as a retail bank. It's gone into other kinds of banking services. Will it always be down? Is the management that bad? Did Chuck Prince, was he so fundamentally wrong? Goldman Sachs did well and Citigroup did badly, so the CEOs have paid for it. But the franchise of the banks, the expertise that they have, under proper leadership, they will be able to recover and rise again.
AMIN: Warren Buffett is also a long-term investor. But he's choosing to buy into companies like Wrigley instead. He's keeping away from banks.
LEE: No, no, no. He has a different view. He has to give returns to his investors year by year. We don't have to. We have to think in terms of the next 10, 20, 30 years. We are buying into something which we intend to keep for the next two, three decades and grow with them.
When will we get this chance? Maybe we're wrong, and we pay for it. But so far, we've grown this fund, so, on the whole, we've been right eight cases out of 10, so we're not so bad. We may be wrong. These may be the two cases out of the 10 we're wrong, but that would be very sad for us.
On Olympics
AMIN: Now, Mr. Lee, the Olympic torch relay has been plagued with protests every leg of the way. What do you make of that?
LEE: Not every leg of the way. Let's be fair, protests were most vigorous in London, Paris. Would have been in San Francisco, but the mayor decided to change the route suddenly and beat the protestors. It had no trouble in Buenos Aires, Islamabad, nothing in Karachi, after that, it was Bangkok, very little. In fact, the supporters overwhelmed the protestors. Because by then, the Chinese had got their supporters organized, and everybody was waving the Thai flags and the China flags, the five pointed star.
Nothing in Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, nothing happened. Japan, very little, except the one Buddhist temple that decided to opt out and created news like Spielberg pulling out of the Olympic opening and closing ceremony advice. South Korea, very little, Seoul little, Pyongyang nothing. They expect something in Hong Kong, because Hong Kong's got different rules. So I hear Mia Farrow is going to turn up.
But it makes no difference, the Chinese are going to do the best they can to show the world that they are unfazed. They're going to run this Olympics properly, there will be no terrorism.
There may be a few flags, Tibetan flags or banners in the stadium, nobody knows. You can't frisk everybody and the cameras will train on them and try to sideline the carefully choreographed presentation of synchronized calisthenics, which would have taken them months and months of rehearsing.
But at the end of the day, the people who matter will know that they are dealing with a very determined China and a China with the people solidly behind the Olympics and fiercely resentful of this putdown. I'm not sure that all this is a plus for the anti-China group. They've decided to hold talks with the Dalai Lama, they've offered to his closest representatives. They are showing flexibility.
They've learnt to ride with the punches. First they were shocked, and then, they reorganized, and they had their own teams waving flags and in many places they had more Chinese students and supporters turning up than the protestors. Because they've got numbers: 1,300 million people, with just about half a million of them or more abroad studying in many big cities of the west, and cities in Asia, too.
Let me give you this example of how at the end of the day leaders take away impressions. They have invited leaders to the opening ceremony. It'll be meticulously timed and presented in the best showbiz tradition. There may be a few protestors waving Tibetan flags, `Free Tibet' banners and the western media will play that up. I mean we have to expect that. If I were them I would expect that and say, `so what?' Will there be a free Tibet if no nation in the world says there will be an independent Tibet? When the Dalai Lama himself says there will not be an independent Tibet?
Unfortunately they are still in the old set in the way they react, but they're learning. But the way they do things leaves a very solid impression at the end of the day. I will give you an example: they've invited Asean heads of government to an Asean meeting in Guangxi, Nanning, that's west of Guangzhou. It's a backward province. But they've got the capital really up to the mark and the heads of governments were there.
I wasn't there but I heard a report and I personally spoke to the ministers who were there, the prime minister, the minister for foreign affairs and the minister for the economy. And they put on a show. The place was spruced up, modern, and then they put on a show, with their performers showing songs and dances of each Asean country, carefully rehearsed. They took all the leaders one by one a long time to forget it.
One leader said, `you know we could never produce such an array of girls all same size, same movements and so on. And, singing their songs, not Chinese songs, but the songs of the Asean country.' And another leader said, `yes, what you need to grow is order, investments and hard work, not democracy.' (Laughs) What the propaganda says, what the media says, and what the impressions leaders and top officials take away, are two different things.
The Asian leaders will be there. There is no reason for them to offend the Chinese. I'll be there personally and I've said so. I know what to expect because I've been there almost every year since 1976, sometimes twice a year. Those who go there, they talk about the pollution; the marathon would be disastrous for the runners, etc.
I was there for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the republic, the People's Republic. 1949, so that was '99. And the sky was blue. So I asked our ambassador, I said `how is that so?' He said `Oh, for two weeks, all factories stopped for this great occasion.' And there was a great parade.
I have no doubts that it will meet world standards, the venues will be world class, the airport, I was watching the discovery channel, bits of it, about how it will the biggest airport in the world, Terminal 3 or whatever they call it. It's a construction marvel: British design, British architects, but their construction. Their building contractors, their engineers, executing British plans. And it's breathtaking. And compared to Terminal 5 in London, it will not be like that. I'm quite sure of it.
They will have rehearsals and rehearsals, soft openings and when the great day comes, it will breeze through and they will come back and say `God, what discipline, organization, mobilization of the population can do.'
So, yes the media will go and say what human rights, this dissident arrested, that dissident put down, this fellow arrested, this chap disappeared, but people in the developing world, I can't speak for westerners, but westerners at the very top are also getting to become quite sophisticated. But in Asia and in Africa, and in the developing world, they are asking themselves, how did this country, in 30 years, from such backwardness, suddenly make this great big leap into modernity. When all the western nations say, `the system is , wrong, how is it?' That is what they are going to register.
There is now growing, a certain Beijing consensus that is different from the Washington consensus: what is it you need to grow? Order, certainty, consistency, hard work, market-friendly policies, savings and investments, trade, education, and training. And they are conveying that message to all the leaders around the world and the Olympics will be another occasion.
When they called a meeting of African leaders, all the Africa leaders turned up in Beijing and I watched it on their CCTV with great interest -- carefully choreographed. Yes, it is done Soviet style, almost everybody, so many segments, everyone turns up, big, small countries, all the same, shake hands, smile, photo ops, move on, then big reception, great speech is made. They went back with a clear impression that this is not a country you can ignore. So, the same thing will happen with this Olympics.
AMIN: What's the biggest challenge for China right now?
LEE: It is to get out of this mindset. I'm ethnically Chinese, but I'm not Chinese in my thinking and my mental outlook. Because I'm a Singaporean, I've been exposed to a British colonial education and a British education and exposed to American education and everything. So my outlook, my mental approach is different from theirs. I would laugh at the west. Just like you know, they say `Singapore is a fine city.' Everything is fine, no chewing gum, no litter in the streets, it's antiseptic, it's sterile. I don't take offence.
People come here, people stay. It's safe, 3 a.m. in the morning, you can go jogging by the marina, nothing happens to you, no rape, and no muggings. News gets out. We are dull. Now, we are not dull, we are quite cool.
On Singapore's Leadership Succession
AMIN: Minister Mentor, lets take the discussion back home to Singapore. Why has it been difficult to find a replacement or successor for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong?
LEE: Nobody can predict who is his successor. I did not predict or appoint Goh Chok Tong. What I had to do, which I think Goh Chok Tong in turn did and what I think Lee Hsien Loong as prime minister is now doing, is to get a group of 6, 8, 10, able, upright, experienced, committed people, committed to Singapore.
Get them in, they've got to learn not just how to do things, but also how to connect with people and persuade people. That's the hard part. So you've got to start fairly early, at about 30 plus. I started at 20 plus, because at the end of the day, not only must your policies be right, you must persuade people that your policies are right, because you have to stand for elections and you must carry them.
If they have been working together for 5, 10 years, they get to know each other, they will choose a man whom they think will lead them to success. That's the way it is done. It's not me choosing Goh Chok Tong. I was able to bring together, with the help of my colleagues, eight able people. And they chose Goh Chok Tong. He, in turn, got together 10 able people and they chose Lee Hsien Loong.
His problem now is he's got a team all around his age. He's in his mid 50s, the top ministers are all in their late 40s. It's only about seven to eight years difference. He's got to find people in their early 40s, or better still in their late 30s. Let's assume he's got two more elections to go, that's about 10 years. If you can find a group of 8 to 10 people, of whom there may be about two to three already in, then, in the course of the next 10 years, they will decide who is the man who will lead them to success, and lead Singapore to success. That's the way we do it.
On Recession
AMIN: Do you agree with the assessment that the global economy could be in the worst recession in 30 years?
LEE: No, I'm not sure that's going to be the position. That's one of the scenarios. There's tremendous argument about how to approach this credit crunch crisis, when it will end, and how it can end.
If you increase liquidity and run the risk of higher inflation, then you will postpone the problem, perhaps to a later date, when it may become more complicated or easier to resolve. We're not sure.
The Federal Reserve in America has decided to increase liquidity, take over some of these questionable subprime and other collateral debt obligations and make the banks and even the brokerages, Bear Stearns and others, solvent again. Not everybody in America agrees with that.
AMIN: Do you agree?
LEE: I think there's a risk but it's better than doing nothing. If we do nothing, we might trigger a real worldwide credit crunch and confidence crisis, and we'll have a recession, a worldwide recession, which may be very difficult to reverse. So I think it's better to take this risk and have the fallout later. The same thing is happening in Britain, where the Bank of England is putting in $100 billion and rescuing Northern Rock, which is a mortgage bank. But the argument against it is you are pumping in money.
I'm not sure, having gone this far. I just read a piece by a Danish economist, who's working in Singapore, where he argues that the problem is similar to that of the 1930 crisis, where all currencies were pegged to gold, and they were overvalued. That caused deflation, and economies, trade collapsed, and everything came to gridlock.
Therefore, he says, if we stick to this hard line, that you must have discipline, and you must punish those who acted imprudently and they go bankrupt, you're risking the whole economy getting frozen. For better or for worse, both the chairman of the Fed, Bernanke, and Treasury Secretary Paulson, they've got to expand the rules, or stretch the rules, in a way that has never been done before, and just rescue these brokerage houses.
Will it work? It has checked the fall in the American stock market. Will it cause contagion in other banks, like UBS, or German banks that have got some of these subprime mortgages? I think it's better to take the risk and pump in the money and restore liquidity and get the economy going. To do nothing is surely the run into a gridlock.
I think Paulson and Bernanke, I will support them, that this is the lesser of the two evils. That, perhaps, despite what Alan Greenspan has said, he should have taken the punchbowl away earlier and not allow low interest rates to go on and the housing frenzy and consumption frenzy to go on, that you might have a softer landing. It's not possible to foresee how this will end. He was in charge, he had his board, he carried the majority of his board.
So, seven, eight wise men, well versed in these arcane matters, went along with him, that this was the best course and let the markets decide. The markets haven't gone wrong. The traders were too clever, so they immediately cut the deal and they pushed it on, got their bonus, and carried on, and finally, everybody thought was safe, so the big banks bought it, and held on to it. Now, they're not sure which ones are worthless and which ones are not, so that is the problem. If you make people lose confidence, generally, banks also lose confidence, the system will seize up, and we get a 1930 crisis.
AMIN: The moves that you mention are also aimed at boosting and propping the U.S. economy, which is currently also seeing a weak dollar. Is that weak dollar helping at all?
LEE: There are two views on that. The weak dollar is forcing the European Central Bank to decide whether they can stay on their high and mighty platform and say, we are not affected, we are going to fight inflation. And then they find their exports, and Airbus is not going to sell. Because the 380s and 340s and 320s are sold in the market in dollars. So they can't meet their costs and are going to shift parts of their operations to America.
The U.S. exports are expanding. Germany is the biggest exporter of all the European countries. Theirs have held up. They export very specialized machinery, which has inelastic demand, so they're holding it up. But sooner or later, the disparity in exchange . . . I think the euro is now 157, 158 to the dollar, so it's a tremendous jump. So there are two schools of thought. At the moment, I'm persuaded more by the school that says let's do something.
AMIN: GIC and Temasek have made substantial investments in troubled financial institutions. Given the risk of a financial meltdown, do you think they could have been more conservative? Should they have been more conservative?
LEE: Nobody knows how it's going to turn out. Will these banks that we have invested in, with very good franchises, brand names, good managements, but led astray over these subprime mortgages, will they not recover? Will the economy not recover? Will there be another Swiss bank like UBS for wealth management? I doubt it. We doubt it. That's why we invested in it. Will it get back to its pre-crisis prices? May be not immediately. Five years, seven years, 10 years, with good management, good conditions? We will know in five to 10 years. And GIC is a long term investor.
Similarly for Citigroup. It's got an enormous spread worldwide as a retail bank. It's gone into other kinds of banking services. Will it always be down? Is the management that bad? Did Chuck Prince, was he so fundamentally wrong? Goldman Sachs did well and Citigroup did badly, so the CEOs have paid for it. But the franchise of the banks, the expertise that they have, under proper leadership, they will be able to recover and rise again.
AMIN: Warren Buffett is also a long-term investor. But he's choosing to buy into companies like Wrigley instead. He's keeping away from banks.
LEE: No, no, no. He has a different view. He has to give returns to his investors year by year. We don't have to. We have to think in terms of the next 10, 20, 30 years. We are buying into something which we intend to keep for the next two, three decades and grow with them.
When will we get this chance? Maybe we're wrong, and we pay for it. But so far, we've grown this fund, so, on the whole, we've been right eight cases out of 10, so we're not so bad. We may be wrong. These may be the two cases out of the 10 we're wrong, but that would be very sad for us.
On Olympics
AMIN: Now, Mr. Lee, the Olympic torch relay has been plagued with protests every leg of the way. What do you make of that?
LEE: Not every leg of the way. Let's be fair, protests were most vigorous in London, Paris. Would have been in San Francisco, but the mayor decided to change the route suddenly and beat the protestors. It had no trouble in Buenos Aires, Islamabad, nothing in Karachi, after that, it was Bangkok, very little. In fact, the supporters overwhelmed the protestors. Because by then, the Chinese had got their supporters organized, and everybody was waving the Thai flags and the China flags, the five pointed star.
Nothing in Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, nothing happened. Japan, very little, except the one Buddhist temple that decided to opt out and created news like Spielberg pulling out of the Olympic opening and closing ceremony advice. South Korea, very little, Seoul little, Pyongyang nothing. They expect something in Hong Kong, because Hong Kong's got different rules. So I hear Mia Farrow is going to turn up.
But it makes no difference, the Chinese are going to do the best they can to show the world that they are unfazed. They're going to run this Olympics properly, there will be no terrorism.
There may be a few flags, Tibetan flags or banners in the stadium, nobody knows. You can't frisk everybody and the cameras will train on them and try to sideline the carefully choreographed presentation of synchronized calisthenics, which would have taken them months and months of rehearsing.
But at the end of the day, the people who matter will know that they are dealing with a very determined China and a China with the people solidly behind the Olympics and fiercely resentful of this putdown. I'm not sure that all this is a plus for the anti-China group. They've decided to hold talks with the Dalai Lama, they've offered to his closest representatives. They are showing flexibility.
They've learnt to ride with the punches. First they were shocked, and then, they reorganized, and they had their own teams waving flags and in many places they had more Chinese students and supporters turning up than the protestors. Because they've got numbers: 1,300 million people, with just about half a million of them or more abroad studying in many big cities of the west, and cities in Asia, too.
Let me give you this example of how at the end of the day leaders take away impressions. They have invited leaders to the opening ceremony. It'll be meticulously timed and presented in the best showbiz tradition. There may be a few protestors waving Tibetan flags, `Free Tibet' banners and the western media will play that up. I mean we have to expect that. If I were them I would expect that and say, `so what?' Will there be a free Tibet if no nation in the world says there will be an independent Tibet? When the Dalai Lama himself says there will not be an independent Tibet?
Unfortunately they are still in the old set in the way they react, but they're learning. But the way they do things leaves a very solid impression at the end of the day. I will give you an example: they've invited Asean heads of government to an Asean meeting in Guangxi, Nanning, that's west of Guangzhou. It's a backward province. But they've got the capital really up to the mark and the heads of governments were there.
I wasn't there but I heard a report and I personally spoke to the ministers who were there, the prime minister, the minister for foreign affairs and the minister for the economy. And they put on a show. The place was spruced up, modern, and then they put on a show, with their performers showing songs and dances of each Asean country, carefully rehearsed. They took all the leaders one by one a long time to forget it.
One leader said, `you know we could never produce such an array of girls all same size, same movements and so on. And, singing their songs, not Chinese songs, but the songs of the Asean country.' And another leader said, `yes, what you need to grow is order, investments and hard work, not democracy.' (Laughs) What the propaganda says, what the media says, and what the impressions leaders and top officials take away, are two different things.
The Asian leaders will be there. There is no reason for them to offend the Chinese. I'll be there personally and I've said so. I know what to expect because I've been there almost every year since 1976, sometimes twice a year. Those who go there, they talk about the pollution; the marathon would be disastrous for the runners, etc.
I was there for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the republic, the People's Republic. 1949, so that was '99. And the sky was blue. So I asked our ambassador, I said `how is that so?' He said `Oh, for two weeks, all factories stopped for this great occasion.' And there was a great parade.
I have no doubts that it will meet world standards, the venues will be world class, the airport, I was watching the discovery channel, bits of it, about how it will the biggest airport in the world, Terminal 3 or whatever they call it. It's a construction marvel: British design, British architects, but their construction. Their building contractors, their engineers, executing British plans. And it's breathtaking. And compared to Terminal 5 in London, it will not be like that. I'm quite sure of it.
They will have rehearsals and rehearsals, soft openings and when the great day comes, it will breeze through and they will come back and say `God, what discipline, organization, mobilization of the population can do.'
So, yes the media will go and say what human rights, this dissident arrested, that dissident put down, this fellow arrested, this chap disappeared, but people in the developing world, I can't speak for westerners, but westerners at the very top are also getting to become quite sophisticated. But in Asia and in Africa, and in the developing world, they are asking themselves, how did this country, in 30 years, from such backwardness, suddenly make this great big leap into modernity. When all the western nations say, `the system is , wrong, how is it?' That is what they are going to register.
There is now growing, a certain Beijing consensus that is different from the Washington consensus: what is it you need to grow? Order, certainty, consistency, hard work, market-friendly policies, savings and investments, trade, education, and training. And they are conveying that message to all the leaders around the world and the Olympics will be another occasion.
When they called a meeting of African leaders, all the Africa leaders turned up in Beijing and I watched it on their CCTV with great interest -- carefully choreographed. Yes, it is done Soviet style, almost everybody, so many segments, everyone turns up, big, small countries, all the same, shake hands, smile, photo ops, move on, then big reception, great speech is made. They went back with a clear impression that this is not a country you can ignore. So, the same thing will happen with this Olympics.
AMIN: What's the biggest challenge for China right now?
LEE: It is to get out of this mindset. I'm ethnically Chinese, but I'm not Chinese in my thinking and my mental outlook. Because I'm a Singaporean, I've been exposed to a British colonial education and a British education and exposed to American education and everything. So my outlook, my mental approach is different from theirs. I would laugh at the west. Just like you know, they say `Singapore is a fine city.' Everything is fine, no chewing gum, no litter in the streets, it's antiseptic, it's sterile. I don't take offence.
People come here, people stay. It's safe, 3 a.m. in the morning, you can go jogging by the marina, nothing happens to you, no rape, and no muggings. News gets out. We are dull. Now, we are not dull, we are quite cool.
On Singapore's Leadership Succession
AMIN: Minister Mentor, lets take the discussion back home to Singapore. Why has it been difficult to find a replacement or successor for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong?
LEE: Nobody can predict who is his successor. I did not predict or appoint Goh Chok Tong. What I had to do, which I think Goh Chok Tong in turn did and what I think Lee Hsien Loong as prime minister is now doing, is to get a group of 6, 8, 10, able, upright, experienced, committed people, committed to Singapore.
Get them in, they've got to learn not just how to do things, but also how to connect with people and persuade people. That's the hard part. So you've got to start fairly early, at about 30 plus. I started at 20 plus, because at the end of the day, not only must your policies be right, you must persuade people that your policies are right, because you have to stand for elections and you must carry them.
If they have been working together for 5, 10 years, they get to know each other, they will choose a man whom they think will lead them to success. That's the way it is done. It's not me choosing Goh Chok Tong. I was able to bring together, with the help of my colleagues, eight able people. And they chose Goh Chok Tong. He, in turn, got together 10 able people and they chose Lee Hsien Loong.
His problem now is he's got a team all around his age. He's in his mid 50s, the top ministers are all in their late 40s. It's only about seven to eight years difference. He's got to find people in their early 40s, or better still in their late 30s. Let's assume he's got two more elections to go, that's about 10 years. If you can find a group of 8 to 10 people, of whom there may be about two to three already in, then, in the course of the next 10 years, they will decide who is the man who will lead them to success, and lead Singapore to success. That's the way we do it.
