Lee Kuan Yew passed away on March 23, 2015, a top student who received English education and graduated from Cambridge University to build the small country of Singapore into a modern metropolis, and was revered by Singaporeans as the "Father of the Nation of Singapore".
It is worth mentioning that in his later years, Lee Kuan Yew once made five major predictions to the world, and now they have come true one by one. So, what are these five prophecies? Let's talk about it today.
Influenced by United Kingdom culture from an early age, all three brothers graduated from Cambridge University
Lee Kuan Yew was born in Singapore in 1923, his father Lee Jinkun worked for a large oil company in United Kingdom, and his mother was named Cai Zhiniang. The Li family has good economic conditions, and the family lives in a two-story luxury villa.
As the eldest son, Lee Kuan Yew was loved by his parents since he was a child, and his grandfather Li Yunlong was also very fond of this eldest grandson.
The whole family is a Kochi family, and they also attach great importance to the education of their children, and when Lee Kuan Yew learned to speak, his grandfather began to enlighten him in English.
Later, he had three younger brothers and a younger sister, and in 1935 at the age of 12, Lee Kuan Yew was admitted to Raffles College in Singapore, which is also a British education, and five years later was admitted to the high school of the college.
At that time, the situation in many Asian countries was turbulent, but the British colony of Singapore was still relatively stable, and the war still spread to this land after the outbreak of World War II.
On 8 February 1942, Japanese artillery bombarded artillery positions and airfields on Singapore Island, and a week later British troops stationed in Singapore signed an unconditional surrender at Percival with the Japanese troops who landed in Percival.
Churchill once described the battle in Singapore as the most poignant catastrophe in United Kingdom's history, the largest surrender. After that, during the Japanese occupation period in Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew also had to interrupt his studies.
Lee Kuan Yew began studying Japanese in 1942 and became the first official Japanese language test graduate, and also worked in the Japan Army Staff from 1943 to 1945.
After the emperor's surrender, Japan's garrisons in other Asian countries were withdrawn, and in 1946, with the support of relatives and friends, Lee Kuan Yew traveled to United Kingdom on a troop transport ship to study at the London School of Economics.
His teacher was the famous United Kingdom economist and political theorist Harold ·Joseph ·Laski, who served as the chairman of the United Kingdom Labour Party and turned to Marxism in the 30s of the last century, with a basic view of emphasizing class struggle and workers' revolution.
Under the influence of his mentor, Lee Kuan Yew also became a communist young student, and later transferred to Cambridge University to study law, graduated with honors and qualified as a lawyer in 1949, and returned to Singapore in August of the following year to embark on a political career.
Around 1954, Lee Kuan Yew founded the People's Action Party (PAP) with a number of Chinese who had studied abroad, as well as some local trade union leaders.
A year later, he participated in the first election in Singapore and was elected to the Legislative Assembly, and since then has been campaigning for Singapore to have an independent status.
The lawyer became the founding father of Singapore and created an economic miracle after half a century in power
In June 1959, United Kingdom ended its colonial rule in Singapore and the Autonomous State of Singapore was established. Lee Kuan Yew's People's Action Party (PAP) won a majority, becoming the largest party in the Legislative Assembly and the first Prime Minister of Singapore.
It is worth mentioning that the reason why he was able to become the first prime minister of Singapore is inseparable from the support of United States. With the support of this Western power, he abandoned his original belief in communism and embraced Western values.
In order to consolidate his position, Lee Kuan Yew, with the support of capitalist countries such as United States, opposed the communists in Singapore.
Including his comrades-in-arms who once fought side by side, the head of the MCP, Lim Thanh Siang, his every move has profoundly affected Singapore's position in international affairs.
Without United States involvement, Lee would have hoped that the autonomous state of Singapore would have merged with Malaya to form Malaysia.
After the end of World War II, United States was the only superpower in the world, and Lee Kuan Yew never mentioned merging with Malaya again.
However, he is not a puppet, on the contrary, he has his own ideas. With an area of just over 600 square kilometres and a lack of natural resources, Singapore has to find another way to develop.
Don't look at the current Singapore is very rich, when Lee Kuan Yew first became prime minister, Singapore's economy was very backward, and the per capita GDP was only 428 US dollars.
In the 90s, the per capita GDP increased to 14,504 US dollars, with an average annual growth rate of 12%, which can be said to have created an economic miracle.
Another important reason for Lee Kuan Yew's pro-American route was to attract foreign investment, and at that time, almost all of the world's top companies were concentrated in United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France...... Singapore's only chip is its location.
Since the mid-60s, he has decided to increase the attraction of foreign investment in the form of government subsidies to solve the employment of local people in factories that require a large number of laborers.
In the 70s, Singapore almost realized home ownership, which strongly boosted the domestic consumer market, and Lee Kuan Yew also created a model for the world to operate state-owned capital, that is, the Temasek model.
After the economy boomed and the government's pockets bulged, Temasek was established by the Singapore government in 1974, which he stated aimed at nurturing world-class companies through effective oversight and commercial strategic investment.
Temasek is also responsible for the management and operation of some of the companies that have partnered with the government, which has created a capital miracle with an average annual return on equity of more than 18%, beating Warren Buffett's Berkshire.
Singapore's unemployment rate dropped from 12% to 3% in the mid-to-late 80s, and in the 90s, it became one of the "Asian Economic Tigers".
Lee Kuan Yew was influenced by United Kingdom culture since he was a child, and took a pro-American line, witnessing the most glorious moments of capitalist countries, but he did not look at other countries with colored glasses like some countries.
The left and right are full of long-sleeved dances, and all five prophecies have been fulfilled
It is not too accurate to describe Lee Kuan Yew as a political chameleon, but the eight words of left and right and long-sleeved dancing are still more appropriate for the Singapore leader.
Lee Kuan Yew knew how to judge the situation, after World War II, most Asian countries were devastated, and they had not yet come out of the shadow of war, and if they wanted to develop their economies, they could only rely on those old capitalist countries.
However, after decades of development, many countries have long been different, Singapore is at the crossroads of Eastern and Western cultures, and Lee Kuan Yew also has an extraordinary international vision, and must adopt objective policies to develop himself.
As the saying goes, distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors, and there are many local Chinese in Singapore, and there is no harm in cooperating with the rising China.
Especially after China's reform and opening up, relying on a sound industrial system and a huge population base, it has achieved wealth accumulation and economic take-off.
Although Lee Kuan Yew is not a pure-blood Chinese, he has witnessed the miracle of a large eastern country rising from backwardness to blood, from poverty to economic take-off in the 90s, and believes that although the two countries have different systems, they will not affect their cooperation.
From the early 90s to 2011, Lee Kuan Yew visited China many times as a Chinese and reached many cooperations, according to statistics, the number of visits to China was as high as 28, almost once a year.
After his visit to China in 2011, Lee Kuan Yew returned to Singapore to deliver a speech on China's future development, in which he also made five predictions about the world pattern.
The first prediction is that China's rise is unstoppable, and Lee Kuan Yew said that United States will remain the world's leading power for decades to come, but that no one can stop China's rise.
The second prophecy is that Europe will decline; His third prophecy was the gradual decline of Japan; The fourth prophecy is that even with Korea support from the United States, it is unlikely that the peninsula will be reunified in the short term.
Lee Kuan Yew's fifth prophecy states that India is influenced by history and culture and cannot rise like China.
When he said these five prophecies, many people were skeptical, and now 13 years have passed since this prophecy, which has to be admired.
Especially from 2020 to the end of 2022, after this special three years, the world pattern has undergone earth-shaking changes.
The situation on the peninsula is becoming more and more serious, and the attitude of the DPRK is very obvious; whoever tosses me and whoever tosses the peninsula will toss Korea, and it is absolutely impossible to realize the reunification of the peninsula in the short term.
Although Japan's economy has had a short period of glory, it has not recovered its lost 30 years until now, and the Plaza Accord has sent its economy to a point of no return.
The predictions about India in the five prophecies are also very accurate, many people believe that China is relying on the demographic dividend to achieve economic take-off, India also has a large population, and it seems that it can also imitate the development model of the mainland.
People who think this way ignore one thing, the most complete industrial category is only after the completion of industrialization, the population is turned into a dividend.
India is still an agrarian country, and with a caste system and a high illiteracy rate, a large population base will only be a burden.
In addition, the mainland realized the same text as early as when Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, there are 14 official languages of India, 4 railway tracks, and there are differences in living habits and languages between different federations, all of which seriously limit the development of India.
Lee Kuan Yew lived through World War II, the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and witnessed almost all the major events of the 21st century.
From a certain point of view, it is not so much that these are five predictions, but that there is a scientific and realistic basis for an old man who has experienced vicissitudes of life and made a prediction of the future world pattern based on historical experience.
What do you think differently about this?
Resources: https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=6RtRr0kVassx_V29Se90-TMnwPc5Lon9V41IeIa4gL63ujfY-Su2Ef8ZYbWuK9GbTb0d4CrMik78m1Ejy4pr8Rk90QNdVhhdub9G8l_GS8WC3cIMwcL7PFRcKyWTrborOwz3dhrN1Ykov-lJbiO9VM8esrQRPz0Ywbk-_h0s__hnZqqrhYQkbx-U_jsYCdX3lR34HNgvvjk=&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS
https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=6RtRr0kVast4CU9hiGkxy98duqICYCBhg5pCnN8c3v96VmBl27imkclwbyrR7g0qxAcNDi6GemaQu9Hz6TK1E2q-2mjl8Glb1-z46V_JieoHvMknbfGDMY5JExT-QxPIjcaTUulZRdnlKXpMSf0WRcbhp7tkjcawCEOYVXxhg4HDhSKRtP9saWw1eKkESYxdcOQXGBfqFEM=&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS