Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean statesman and lawyer who served as the first prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. He served as the secretary-general of the People's Action Party (PAP) from 1954 to 1992 and was the member of Parliament (MP) for Tanjong Pagar from 1955 until his death in 2015. Lee is widely recognised as the founding father of the modern Singaporean state, and for his leadership in transforming it into a highly developed country during his tenure.
The People's Action Party (PAP) is a major conservative political party of the centre-right in Singapore. It is one of the three contemporary political parties represented in the Parliament of Singapore, alongside the opposition Workers' Party (WP) and the Progress Singapore Party (PSP).
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public and research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merger of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University.
Goh Keng Swee, born Robert Goh Keng Swee, was a Singaporean statesman and economist who served as 2nd Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1973 and 1985. Goh is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of Singapore. He was also one of the founders of the People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence.
Lim Yew Hock was a Singaporean-born Malaysian politician and diplomat who served as Chief Minister of Singapore between 1956 and 1959. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cairnhill between 1959 and 1963 and previously a Member of the Legislative Council and later Legislative Assembly between 1948 and 1963. He was de facto Leader of the Opposition between 1959 and 1963. He and his family elected to take up Malaysian citizenship after Singapore's independence from Malaysia.
Chan Heng Chee is a Singaporean academic and diplomat who has been serving as Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2012, Chairwoman of the National Arts Council and Member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights. She had also served as Singapore Ambassador to the United States between 1996 and 2012.
Danny Quah is Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Quah's work includes contributions to the fields of economic growth, development economics, monetary economics, macroeconometrics, and the weightless economy. Quah is best known for his research on estimation techniques for disentangling the effects of different disturbances on economies, for his studies on economic growth and convergence across nation states, and for his analyses of large-scale shifts in the global economy. Quah became the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, beginning his term on 1 May 2018.
Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, better known as S. Rajaratnam, was a Singaporean statesman, journalist and diplomat who served as the first Minister for Foreign Affairs between 1965 and 1980, and 2nd Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1980 and 1985. Rajaratnam is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of Singapore. He was also one of the founders of the People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence.
Koh Buck Song is a Singaporean writer, poet, and country brand adviser. He is the author and editor of more than 40 books, including nine books of poetry and haiga art. He works as a writer, editor and consultant in branding, communications strategy and corporate social responsibility in Singapore. He has held several exhibitions as a Singaporean pioneer of haiga art, developed from a 16th-century Japanese art form combining ink sketches with haiku poems.
The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy is an autonomous postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore (NUS), named after the late former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.
The Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, is a research and teaching institution located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Original founded in 2005 as the Dubai School of Government, public policy in the Arab world is the focus of the institute. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, and Ruler of Dubai, is responsible for the academy's creation. Yassar Jarrar was the founding executive.
Thomas Gordon Plate was an American journalist, university professor and op-ed columnist. Since 1996 his continuing column on Asia - and now specifically on the U.S. China relationship - has appeared in leading newspapers across the globe, including, of late, the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where he is now a regular overseas opinion-section contributor, from Los Angeles; and before that in The Straits Times in Singapore, The Khaleej Times out of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, The Japan Times in Tokyo, The Korea Times in South Korea, The Jakarta Post, the International Herald Tribune, and many others. He was Editor of the Editorial Pages of the Los Angeles Times from 1989 to 1995, and a L.A. Times op-ed columnist until 1999. He is now at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles as its Distinguished Scholar of Asian and Pacific Studies and in the Asian and Asian American Studies Department, in the university's Bellarmine College of Arts and Sciences. He is founder and editor-in-chief of Asia Media International (asiamedia.lmu.edu), America's only website run by college students devoted entirely to Asia and the U.S. He is a Charter Member of LMU's Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Since 2017 he has served as a board member and Vice President of the Pacific Century Institute, a track-two 'building bridges' nonprofit based in Los Angeles, with branch offices in East Asia. Currently, he is in the pre-production phase of launching an Asia Media International subsidiary: Asia Media/Pacific Century Institute Press.
Simon Chesterman is an Australian legal academic and writer who is currently a vice provost at the National University of Singapore and dean of the NUS College. He was the dean of NUS Faculty of Law from 2012 to 2022. He is also senior director of AI governance at AI Singapore, editor of the Asian Journal of International Law and co-president of the Law Schools Global League.
China–Singapore relations, also known as Chinese–Singaporean relations or Sino–Singaporean relations, are the bilateral relations between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Singapore. Singapore recognized the PRC in 1990. Diplomatic missions were established in the early 1990s based on trade and the warming of ties from other ASEAN countries towards mainland China.
The Republic of Singapore officially became the 117th member of the United Nations (UN) after its independence on August 9, 1965. From 2001 to 2002, Singapore held a rotational seat on the United Nations Security Council and has participated in UN peacekeeping/observer missions in Kuwait, Angola, Kenya, Cambodia and Timor Leste.
On 23 March 2015, Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister of Singapore and co-founder of the People's Action Party, died at the age of 91 at 03:18 Singapore Standard Time (UTC+08:00), after having been hospitalised at the Singapore General Hospital with severe pneumonia since 5 February that year. A formal announcement was made on national television and radio by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at 08:00 that morning.
Relations between the Republic of Singapore and the Republic of Korea started when a trade mission from South Korea visited the Colony of Singapore in 1950. The two countries established formal diplomatic relations in 1975, but South Korea established a trade office and a consulate-general, and sent a special envoy to visit Singapore before that. Both countries are the only two United Nations members in the Four Asian Tigers. In 2014, South Korea was the fourth-largest import source of Singapore.
Bilahari Kim Hee Papanasam Setlur Kausikan is a Singaporean retired academic, diplomat and civil servant who served as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations between 1995 and 1998.
James Crabtree is a British author and geopolitical analyst. He is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Crabtree writes columns for Nikkei Asian Review, Foreign Policy, and The Straits Times. Previously, he was the Singapore-based executive director of the Asia branch of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He was also an associate professor of practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and a senior fellow at the school’s Centre on Asia and Globalisation. He was also a non-resident fellow at Chatham House, the London-based think tank. His first book, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age, was released in July 2018.
Lee Kuan Yew was the first Prime Minister of Singapore (1959–1990). A founding member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he is often credited for transforming Singapore from a third-world to a first-world country. He was known for practising political pragmatism in his governance of Singapore, but has been criticised for using authoritarian and heavy-handed policies. However, others argue his actions as having been necessary for the country's early development, and that he was a benevolent dictator.
