One Life. No. 001
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore’s first prime minister
19232015
Too Small to Survive. Richer Than Britain.
6 sourcesTranscriptRead while listening
The story in brief
Lee Kuan Yew grew up in British Singapore and nearly died at eighteen, when Japanese soldiers screened Chinese men during the occupation. He studied law at Cambridge, came home, and in 1959 became prime minister of a self-governing Singapore. Convinced the island could not survive alone, he took it into Malaysia in 1963. Two years later Malaysia’s parliament voted it out, and he wept on television.
What followed was his life’s work. He invited in the foreign companies that many new nations were seizing, built homes that families could own, and ran a strict, clean government. He also detained people without trial: his government said it was fighting communists, and critics said many were political opponents.
By 2014, the last full year of his life, Singapore was richer per person than Britain, which once ruled it. When he died in 2015, about 454,700 people queued to file past his coffin.
In his own words
…a political, economic and geographical absurdity.
I had to do some nasty things, locking fellows up without trial.
What have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life.
Sources (6)
- Lee at the UN Special Committee on Colonialism, 26 July 1962 (National Archives of Singapore)
- Lee’s press conference, 9 August 1965 (NAS); Malaysia’s Dewan Rakyat, 9 August 1965
- Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story (1998) and From Third World to First (2000)
- Lee’s interview with Seth Mydans, The New York Times, 1 September 2010 (NAS transcript)
- Han Fook Kwang and others, Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going (2011)
- World Bank WDI; SingStat; HDB; Remembering Lee Kuan Yew (gov.sg)
Updated October 5, 2026.
Transcript
Lee Kuan Yew cried on television the day his country was born.
He thought Singapore couldn't survive: tiny, no natural resources, its water piped from Malaysia.
Within his lifetime, it grew richer per person than Britain, which once ruled it. How?
At 18, under Japanese occupation, he slipped away from a group of men being taken to be shot. It taught him, he said, the meaning of power.
After the war, he studied law at Cambridge with Kwa Geok Choo. He called her the better student.
Back home, he won a strike for the postal workers, and 100 unions made him their lawyer.
With the unions behind him, he co-founded a party, and at 35 he was prime minister.
He took Singapore into Malaysia. Two years later, after race riots, Malaysia's parliament voted Singapore out. That was the day he cried.
Now survival meant jobs, so he and his team brought in foreign factories.
An American chip plant was up and running in 50 days.
He wanted every family to own its home. Otherwise, he wrote, a soldier would feel he was fighting to protect the property of the rich.
Nine in ten households came to own theirs.
He paid his ministers well, to keep them honest, he said. One of them took bribes. He went to jail.
They even made the island bigger: sand became land.
In 1990, he stepped down after 31 years. He had ruled hard: rivals were locked up without trial, and critics were sued.
"If nobody is afraid of me," he said, "I'm meaningless."
When his wife, Choo, could no longer speak, he read her poems every night.
"What have I got?" he said. "A successful Singapore. What have I given up? My life."
When he died, at 91, more than 400,000 people queued to say goodbye.
He had feared Singapore couldn't survive. It outlived him.
