Let us make it very clear, first of all.We are no friends of Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, a former prime minister of Singapore.As a matter of fact, we do not like him and the way he ruled his city state.But he is not as bad as an English-language newspaper said he is in a recent editorial.Though it’s against a general press practice not to take issue about the opinions of other papers, we are constrained to consider it fit to say something in his defense.
The editorial ire seems to be flashed against Allan Hawke and Ian Chub, chancellor and vice chancellor of the Australian National University, for conferring an honorary doctorate on Lee, who criticized President Chen Shui-bian on April 4 for duping the people of Taiwan into believing independence from China is possible because war would result and the United States would not intervene.The former Singaporean head of government has just stated his opinion and what he thinks may happen if hostilities break out across the Taiwan Strait.For journalists, C. P. Scot of the Manchester Guardian opined long ago, “facts are sacred but opinions are free.”Mr. Lee has every right to speak of anybody he likes or doesn’t like.It’s his freedom of speech.Besides, what he said is what many people in Taiwan and around the world, if not most of them, believe to be true.
Mr. Lee was also blasted for his cardigan despotism and hubris.There is little doubt that he was an autocrat.But he was not a despot who exercised absolute power abusively, oppressively and/or tyrannously.At least by far most of the Singaporeans do not believe he was a tyrant.They believe he was a benevolent autocrat.That is why he was elected prime minister and returned to that office for decades before his retirement.
Hubris?Is there any leader hubris-free?Mr. Lee believes in Asian values, which, as opposed to Western or Judeo-Christian values, were branded as the intellectual hoaxes of the 1990s.The fact, however, is that different cultures have different values.It’s self-evident that Asian values do not and do not have to dovetail Judeo-Christian values. They are equally sound and practical to the respective peoples of the East and the West.To claim one is superior to the other is culturally ignorant.To force one to be subservient to the other is racist.Incidentally, Judeo-Christianity, which includes Islam, tends to be less tolerant than Asian religions that are not based on God’s revelations.People enculturated in Judeo-Christian societies tend to believe those Asians who agree with them are right but those who don’t are wrong.
At the very least, Mr. Lee is not a bigot who insists Asian values prevail over Judeo-Christian values.
（本文刊載於96.04.16 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）
