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February

25
2015

10:00 am EST - 11:30 am EST

Past Event

Pragmatism and practice: Presenting “The Big Ideas of Lee Kuan Yew”

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

10:00 am - 11:30 am EST

Brookings Institution
Falk Auditorium

1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC
20036

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father and great statesman, passed away on Sunday, March 22, 2015. He had been a major figure in the development of Southeast Asia and in global international relations for over half a century. From 1959 until 2011, he served consecutively as prime minister, senior minister, and minister mentor of Singapore. He led Singapore’s rise from a new post-colonial state to global prominence, was a driving force behind the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and has been an important interlocutor for generations of world leaders. In recognition of his many contributions, in 2013 Brookings established the Lee Kuan Yew Chair in Southeast Asia Studies in its Center for East Asia Policy Studies.

On February 25, 2015, to honor Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings hosted presentations on his ideas on governance and his approach to foreign policy by two of Singapore’s most distinguished diplomats, both of whom had worked closely with him. Chan Heng Chee, Singapore’s former long-serving ambassador to Washington, and Bilahari Kausikan, former permanent secretary of Singapore’s Foreign Ministry, made presentations at the Brookings symposium based on contributions they made to the new book The Big Ideas of Lee Kuan Yew (Straits Times Press, 2014). Among many attempts to describe and analyze Lee’s career, The Big Ideas of Lee Kuan Yew is unique in that all its authors worked closely with him in diplomacy, politics, governance, and law, and provide first-hand observations from their experiences. The book illustrates Lee’s emphasis on pragmatism over ideology, and practice over theory.

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