On Monday, the Singaporean government announced that Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of the Southeast Asian metropolis, had died at the age of 91 after a bout with pneumonia. Serving as Singapore’s first Prime Minister from 1959 until 1990, Mr. Lee was the architect who guided the city-state’s extraordinary transformation from a new nation battling with poverty to a leading global business and transportation hub as well as one of the world’s most prosperous societies.
Following his passing, global leaders have paid tribute to the man widely regarded as one of Asia’s most pivotal and visionary leaders of the past half century.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron praised the Cambridge-educated Mr. Lee for building Singapore into “one of the great success stories of our modern world”, noting that he “was always a friend to Britain, if sometimes a critical one, and many British Prime Ministers benefited from his wise advice, including me.” He went on to say that Mr. Lee’s “place in history is assured, as a leader and as one of the modern world’s foremost statesmen.”
The U.K. is home to one of the largest overseas communities for the former British colony, and Singapore’s High Commission in London has opened a condolence book for those wishing to pay their respects.
In addition, the Singapore UK Association and the UK Singapore Students’ Council are discussing how to get the UK’s Singaporean community to remember and pay tribute to Mr. Lee at an SG50 March for Charity, which will be held this Saturday in London’s Hyde Park.
In China, President Xi Jinping commended Mr. Lee as an “old friend of the Chinese people”, while Premier Li Keqiang stated that Mr. Lee “had worked together with the pioneering generation of Chinese leaders in opening the gate for the friendly cooperation between China and Singapore. His contributions to the China-Singapore relationship and China’s reform and opening up will surely be marked by history.”
Throughout his long tenure at Singapore’s helm, Mr. Lee enjoyed close relations with many of China’s leaders, who were impressed by the level of prosperity achieved under the Singaporean growth model. The Chinese media estimated that Mr. Lee had been to China more than 20 times.
During his last visit in 2011, Mr. Lee met with then Vice President Xi Jinping, who highlighted to the elder statesmen that tens of thousands of Chinese officials had been to Singapore for visiting and studying over the decades, emphasising the important role this had played in promoting strong bilateral relations as well as China’s modernisation.
Mr. Lee’s passing also triggered an outpouring of tributes from the local business community, including CBI members such as UBS and Standard Chartered, which hailed his remarkable legacy in Singapore and worldwide.
Current Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Mr. Lee’s son, has declared seven days of national mourning for the nation’s founding father, and the state funeral is scheduled for 29 March.
