Zitat des Tages von Lee Hsien Loong:
No country can be an island unto itself or world unto itself. Not even the biggest country.
We are not in a situation where the minorities are demanding something and the majorities are pushing back saying 'We don't want it.'
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.
Singaporeans generally feel more secure these days. One of our tasks is to remind them that this, a result of a continuing act of will and an appropriate sense of insecurity, is very helpful.
You have to understand that Singapore is quite different from Mauritius.
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.
No government prospers by saying, 'I don't need to do anything. Just by being there, we have made the country thrive.'
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.
The emerging economies, many of them are concerned. They didn't want the money to slosh in. They are afraid when the money sloshes out, but the tapering has to take place, and we have to be able to manage it.
We are all in favor of the U.S. taking an active and constructive interest in Asia.
I do not owe hundreds of millions of potential foreign workers from around the world an obligation. I owe Singaporeans a responsibility.
America excels not just through sheer individual talent but by working together with others.
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?'
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.
China is a very big and complicated country; it's not easy to govern. But with courage and unity, China will certainly overcome all difficulties and continue to develop and move forward.
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.
There is always competition for influence, but there are also opportunities for cooperation.
Criticism, any amount, we welcome it. Come, let's have a discussion - in Parliament, all the better.
If we have no foreign workers, our economy suffers; our own lives suffer.
Whichever country we are talking to, we are concerned with economic cooperation, how to deepen our mutual dependence, how to find new areas of win-win.
China is developing very quickly. At every stage, its needs are different.
China's influence is growing; it is natural that they want to integrate more, do more business with countries around them, and the Belt and Road is a constructive way in which they can do so.
I would not say that the North Koreans will do anything that the Chinese want them to do.
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.
We have to work towards free trade because otherwise we will miss out on many opportunities for cooperation, and relations amongst countries will become much more difficult.
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.
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.
Nowadays, however strong an economy is, not all roads will lead only there. There will be other links between countries in Asia, with America, with Europe, and China will fit into this global network.
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.
It's never easy to be a small country next to a big neighbor.
At some point, there will be some other financial crisis. It's in the nature of a capitalist system.
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.
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.
If you don't have that Singapore core, you can top up the numbers, but you are no longer Singapore. It doesn't feel Singapore - it isn't Singapore - and we can issue everybody red passports, but where is the continuity?
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.
The natural result of people preferring one of their own race is that a minority race president will find it hard to get elected, and so it's something we should do something about and which we can do something about.
