Sublime

Some things are true of all successful countries. Predictability matters. Companies need to feel confident that their assets will not arbitrarily be seized, that they will be able to market and sell what they produce, and that they can bring a reasonable share of the profits back home. It is no less true that development can only take place (or adv

We need the weak exclusivity of premodern or early modern histories if only because national societies are now increasingly unable to exclusively manage the escalating crises generated by the ‘counter-finalities’ of modern nations.66

Singapore has survived and prospered by making ourselves relevant to the world. In the last century, we traded in spices; this century, in tin and rubber. After independence in 1965, we moved into simple manufacturing. Now, we are in wafer fabs, pharmaceuticals and Asian currency units. As the world economy changed, so did we.

I always tried to be correct, not politically correct.

From time to time in the history of human civilisations, more civilised, more cultivated societies, with higher standards of living, have been overrun and subjugated by barbaric and less advanced groups. So the Roman Empire fell. And so successive Chinese and Indian civilisations were conquered by virile warrior races, who were socially and cultura

As of today, there are 193 UN member states, covering nearly the entire world population. Yet in important operational ways, the UN remains a twentieth-century institution guided by rules laid down by the United States in 1945. Most importantly, at the end of World War II, the five victorious allied powers (the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and Uni

There is no easy way to win power or stay in power. If the PAP does not renew itself regularly with fresh blood from the younger generation, stay honest and clean, upgrade the economy and improve the education and skills of our people, to have economic growth and bring a better life to people, it will soon begin to lose seats and eventually be defe