From: LE%ATLAS@utrcgw.utc.com
Subject: [POL] Lee Kuan Yen opinion on VN
Originator: daemon@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Reply-To: LE%ATLAS@utrcgw.utc.com
Organization: SCV Relay
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 17:09:54 GMT


Mr Lee Kuan Yeu, Prime minister of Singapore from 1959-1990, currently holds
the post of senior minister.  Mr Lee toured Vietnam from April 23-27 as the
guest of Vo Van Kiet. Following is discussion of Lee Kuan Yeu with Barry 
Wain, the editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal :
     

     AWSJ: is this a reflection of the way the world has changed, that 
someone like you could be seriously interested in helping VN, which, after 
all, still has a communist goverment.
     
     Mr Lee: They may have a communist goverment but ,they are not going to 
pursue the communist economic policies. They may have the structure, the 
political controls, of a communist, but if they implement the free market, 
then a loosening up of theirs controls on society is inevitable.  The very 
nature of the system will change when tens, hundreds, thousands of different 
employers, instead of the state, offer different job opportunities to 40 to 
50 millions VNese. It will change VN society.
  This is the first stage. After you have a thriving economy and a vibrant
society, you can talk about the next stage, participatory goverment. At the
moment, everything is under the dead hand of the state, or it was until 1986.
This change to a market economy will take them at least 10 to 15 years.

     AWSJ: Did you see anything on your trip to VN that really surprised you?

     Mr Lee: Modern communications, video cameras, photographs and instant
faxes reports greatly reduce the surprise. But what reports and video cannot
convey is the sense of people. What struck me most when I got there was the
difference between the north and the south. In the south they spoke better
English because of their expose to Westerners right up to 1975.
  Secondly, poeple I met, and those who served me, had certain friendly style;
they were livelier, wanted to please, to attend to your wants, be pleasant.
The north didn't have this. I think the south will greatly facilitate VN's
return to market economy.
     
     AWSJ: In your estimation, does the VNese economy have the look and feel 
of one that is going to succeed ?
	
     Mr Lee: Yes, the people are naturally hard-working. They are serious-
minded people. Every meeting I had started on time and finished on time.
That's the first attribute for an industrial society. You've got to take time
seriously. They are capable of collective endeavor, organized collective
effort. Organizing millions of people carrying ammo along Ho Chi Minh trail
and organizing millions of people to build roads and dams - both require the
same organizational capacity.
    One obtacle is the older communist leaders on top who are fearful that
some of these changes may lead to a total loss of control. Therefore, there
will be frequent tussles on what is going too fast, too far. They have not
resolved that problem. There was certain reservation, a certain wariness about
whether you can just liberalize everything, because they have seen the vast
disorders not only in Eastern Europe but now in Soviet Union. That's a judge-
ment they have to make, because if disorder does occur, then the whole process
will be aborted.
    
    AWSJ: The VNese were clearly shocked by what happened in Eastern Europe,
the demise of the Soviet Union and the events in China in 1989. Have they put
that all behind?
   
   Mr Lee: They are very determined not to make the same mistakes. But at the
same time they have to take steps to open up the economy, otherwise there will
be bigger trouble.
   
   AWSJ: Is it inevitable that down the road, with generational change, that
the one-party political system in VN and China will disappear altogether?
   
   Mr Lee: Eventually it's inevitable that there is no way either China or 
Vietnam or North Korea can prevent this evolution in the long term. But they
can do is to ride with it, so that evolution takes place gradually without a
shuddering and and shattering of the communist state, as is in the Soviet 
Union.
  If China breaks down, 1.1 billion chinese will live in disorder. We're not 
to have a peaceful and prosperous Asia. Far better that they are growing, as
one entity, as a different unit, participating in this growth, setting their
own house in order, lifting up their own standards. We've seen the cost to the
West Germans of putting East Germans right. That's really given the South Ko-
reans a pause in their thoughts of reunification. The costs are horrendous.
   
   AWSJ: Yet the U.S. maintains its economic embargo on VN, insisting that 
Hanoi give a fuller accounting of Americans missing in action in Indochina.

  Mr. LEE: I'm not American, so I don't understand why they feel so strongly
over MIAs.

  AWSJ: What are the things that concern the Vietnamese leaders?

  Mr. LEE: There are certain communist fixations they can't get out of.  One
example their land leases or land tenure.  There is complete ambiguity. The
goverment can give a lease for a fixed term of 30 or 50 years, or rent it from
month to month. But what has happens? At the moment the lease period varies
with each locality, because right in the center of goverment they have not 
resolved in theirs minds that they can permit land to be under private owner-
ship.

    AWSJ: How would you assess their progress with the reforms since 1986?

    Mr. Lee: They have gone through much of the soul searching i the last
six years. A lot of inner debate has already been done.

    AWSJ:  Are there specific achievements you can see?

    Mr. Lee: They have realized after six years that it's not enough to say,
" I'm now open for investment, " and expect everybody to rush in to invest.
Investors must be able to fulfill their expectations, have thriving business,
be able to remit their profits; then only other investors come in. It is 
slowly sinking home, that they have to compete for investments.
   The problem is, first, how to get their own domestic act together. I 
suggested they try to get some Vietnamese who have worked abroad, understand
the outside world, and know how a free economy is run, to come back and help
them get their administration up to date.  Second, how to get funds for infra-
structure repairs. That will have to depend on the World Bank, and the Asian
Development Bank soft loans for repairings ports, roads and bridges and power
stations.

   AWSJ: The Vietnamese goverment still has an uneasy relationship with some
sections of two millions or so  overseas Vietnamese.

   Mr. Lee: This is not sensitive like security, intelligence or defense. This
is economics.  These people know how a market system should be run with 
minimum regulations, with minimum interference. They can advise how to 
facilitate investments and get them going. For instance, at present, when you 
reach an agreement in HCM city, you've got then go to Hanoi to get this 
agreement approved, and often there are two different standards. This doesn't 
make sense.

   AWSJ:  You have expressed the view that Taiwan is an appropriate economic 
model that VN could follow.

   Mr. Lee: They talked about Singapore being a model. I pointed out that Sin-
gapore is not as relevant to them as Taiwan. Taiwan 30 years ago had a very 
large agricultural sector, just like VN, over 70%. We had no such large agri-
cultural sector. Therefore, our experience is really relevant to HCM city or
Hanoi, but not to the whole country of VN. Because of this large agricultural
sector, a large part of their industrialization will be connected with process-
ing agricultural and mineral products.

   AWSJ: In 10 to 15 years, will VN be close to the level of development of
Thailand today?

   Mr. Lee: No, it can't be like Thailand so fast. In 10 years the south can
get back to what it was in 1975 before the free market was overturned. It will
take longer to take the North going. Growth in the south must spread over the
whole country. So, to get where Thailand is today will take them 10 years plus
10 to 20 years.
      In certain sectors they can catch up fast. They have a better seaport
than Bangkok, up river at HCM city. So in sealinks they may be able to catch
up, or even be ahead of Bangkok in 20 years, because of their geographical
advantages. Telephones and telecommunications: Once they have the money, there
is no reason why they can't catch up within 10 years.

    AWSJ: If you  were a private businessman, would you put your money into
Vietnam now?

   Mr. Lee: Singapore businessmen have asked me that. I have told them that
this is a judgement they have to make. In the next 5 to 10 years VN will 
begin to make a grade. But as businessmen they have to choose the investment 
right in the right area, with right officials, and to make sure that what is 
agreed is honored.

   AWSJ: How do you see Vietnam's relationship evolving with ASEAN?

   Mr. Lee: Their position is somewhat akin to Poland, Czechoslovia and 
Hungary, and the EC. They have got to convert their system first before they'
re compatible and can get closer to ASEAN. It will take several years. 

   AWSJ: 10 or 15 years?

   Mr. Lee: Yes. But if they get the right people into the key jobs, recruit
from abroad - Vietnamese especially, people who speak their language and under
stand their culture - it could be somewhat less.

   AWSJ: Do plans for the creation of an ASEAN free trade over the next 15
years present a particular problem?

   Mr Lee: The VNese won't be able to meet the ASEAN free-trade area over the
next 15 years. They've got to get their system right first. They will need 
longer than 15 years.

   AWSJ:  Can Vietnam join ASEAN while Vietnam remains communist, at least
politically?

   Mr Lee:  I would not phrase it that way. After 10 and 15 years of the 
market economy, and after the collapse of communism as an ideology worldwide,
what distinguishes either Vietnam and China as communist in the old sense of
of the word communist, other than they are one-party system?  what will be
communist about them? After another 10 or 20 years, when the present first
generation of communist revolutionaries have aged and died, what is communist
about a young man who never fought the revolution but has joined up as a 
member ? What does he believe in? World revolution? State control of all 
factors of productions ?

   AWSJ: Presumably he only believes in the domination of the party.

   Mr. Lee: The party can only claim the right to exclusive control on the 
Leninist theory that it is the will of the proletariat, in order to bring 
about this communist millenium. Now that thesis is gone, demolished, what is
the reason for the leading role of the party and exclusive control?

   AWSJ: So the correct way to look at Vietnam is to see it as an East Asian
country like Taiwan or South Korea 15 or 20 years ago, with an authoritarian
goverment and one-party system?

   Mr Lee:  Except that they are much more thorough in their controls. Take
South Korea 30 years ago with Park Chung Hee or Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek.
They did not have the capacities - Their administrators, their army, their
police - did not have the capacities that the Vietnamese goverment has. The
Vietnamese system of control goes right down to every village, every street,
and almost every family in the village. It's thorough, but inscreasingly
becoming tenous and loose. Once they open up the economic system, people
are no longer dependent on state or party approval to make a living. So the
deterrents immediately shrink in significance.

(The Asian Wall Street Journal weekly, July 13, 1992, commentary)

Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese