In the long term, for finance, even Shanghai wants to do what Hongkong is doing. We have to accept this. If you want to be part of this game and if you want to have five or seven per cent growth a year in GDP and maybe three or four per cent growth in income, you must be prepared to compete. We will not be better if there are fewer competitors in the region. We read a lot in news reports.
Many critics say innovation can only happen in the context of a freer society.
The first answer is if we had not been innovative, we would not be here today. Whether it is SIA, whether it s the Port of Singapore, whether it s Changi Airport, whether it s our solutions to our housing problems, our education and social problems, if we had not had a high degree of imagination and drive and enterprise in coming up with ideas and solutions and implementing them, we could not be here today. Secondly, within the government and within the political system, although the form is one, namely, the People Action s Party, actually, the people inside it, the participants, have changed. It s not the same people who are there in 1965 or 1970 or even 1990 because we have tried to keep up to date with the population, with the world, to bring in new people with new ideas and even ideas which don t agree with ours but as long as they are for Singapore and they are prepared to argue it out with us, we induct them and in this way keep ourselves up to date. We have no doctrine, no comprehensive answers to our problems.