•Welcome to Walk the Talk. My guest this week is one of the most youthful diplomats you've seen — a foreign minister representing a very tiny country, one of the smallest in the world, yet somebody who carries a big, heavy voice not just in Asia but all over the world, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yong-Boon Yeo.
Thank you very much.
•Sometimes I wonder that you know more about Indian politics than many of us do. Do you have an India fascination?
Yes. I first came to India in 1986 to attend a friend's wedding deep in the south. That was my first encounter with India. While traveling to Madras, I remember joining the queue. Indian passengers had all kinds of gadgets from Singapore. And they had to clear Customs methodically, and the officer was punctilious. He checked every item and would go over them with green ink. That was the Indian bureaucratic entry point. I was quite impressed.
•My favourite humourist, P.G. O'Rourke, came to India when India tested its nukes the second time. He said, "We Americans have nothing to worry about India's nuclear weapons. Because before India launches a nuclear missile on us, 30 Customs officers will tear it apart and examine every part for exportability."
I think Indians have this wonderful, almost charming ability to laugh at themselves. That says a lot for you.
•Where would we go if we didn't?
The Indian bureaucracy has changed a lot since then. Of course, you've got a long way to go. But it's much better than what it was in the past.
•One of the things that you've said is that Singapore was governed from Calcutta. The same bureaucracy, the same British system set up the two, isn't it?
Well, we're much smaller. Our margins for survival are much narrower. We had to take a more practical approach. And adopt a simpler system. Whereas in your case, it's a big country, and without two institutions holding the country together, I've said this earlier, without the civil service and the army, the idea of a united India would've been much more difficult.
•One more thing that not many people know about you is that you were in the Singapore armed forces.
I was in the army and the air force. I remember visiting Khadakvasala in 1988. The National Defence Academy. Because it is a tri-service academy, we wanted to learn from it. There I met the superintendent, a three-star general who was once upon a time a defence attaché in Singapore. He invited me to address a gathering, which I did. It was a very impressive gathering of young cadets. Tall Pathans, people with Mongloid features from the east. There I realised that this is a key institution holding the union together. It was an interesting experience for me. Do you know when I was an officer cadet in 1972, we had to study the law which created the Singapore armed forces. It was a thin document. The instructor told us to refer to the Indian army manual when there was a lacuna, which was a thick red book. Today, you probably still have that thick red book.
•You're someone whose interest in India is original. It's not inherited.
I think that's a compliment. When I attended the wedding of my friend in Madurai, he introduced me to his aunt. Everyday, she would bring a bottle of boiled water to ensure we stay healthy. I realised there are many things we share in common. The jargon, even the body language. The aunt said we should stick to vegetarian food, because this way you're less likely to have an upset stomach. I learnt all this from her. Years later when I visited IMA, I went to the physics lab and found the equipment was identical to what I used in school in Singapore. We had the same central supply office, the same logistics.
•You studied at Cambridge and Harvard. You'll be too qualified to be a cabinet minister in India.
Don't say that, please. You have very eminently qualified ministers. I mean, like P. Chidambaram. Eminently qualified.
•You are also part of a group at Harvard.
We meet regularly at conferences. I have very high respect for him.
•Is your fascination for India responsible for your interest in the Nalanda Project? You're the father of the project.
Not at all.
•I mean, this quest for an Asian identity which you talk about?
When I was the Minister for Trade and Industry, Shri L.K. Advani was in Singapore on an official visit as Deputy PM. And I said, 'Why don't you promote Buddhist tourism in India? There are hundreds of millions of Buddhists in East Asia who want to visit these places of pilgrimage. He agreed with me and asked me to speak to Jagmohan, who was the tourism minister. Jagmohan, when he visited Singapore, said he could help. It was in our interest too. A year later, the Mahabodhi Temple in Gaya was designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO. He invited me to participate in the celebrations. We brought a flight full of Buddhist tourists from Singapore including twenty-five monks. We told them we'll visit Nalanda etc and it fascinated me how in the age of globalisation we're one world. And how in this century we're coming together again. When I spoke to my Indian friends, they were also thinking along parallel tracks. I remember, when (former) President Abdul Kalam visited Singapore, I called on him for 15 minutes. The entire conversation was on Nalanda. It's not just me, its many people who are interested in it. It's an idea whose time has come.
•The touching thing is that you believe it can be done. We Indians are too cynical to believe anything can be done between Delhi and Patna. For you, it's an act of faith and courage. How has it been?
Maybe. When you don't know too much, you're more prepared to try. We've made good progress. Amartya Sen chairs a committee of mentors, of which I am a member. I am involved as an individual, not as a foreign minister. We've met twice, in Singapore and Tokyo. Next month we meet in New York.
•Another creditable thing about the Indian system is that even if there is a change in government and there is a great deal of bitterness between the two parties, the project is unaffected.
I think it has captured the imagination of both sides. We've had discussions with Shri L.K. Advani, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, (Ambika) Soni and Rahul Gandhi, Arun Shourie.
•So this cuts across party lines.
Yes, there's genuine enthusiasm for it.
•Is it tough for a Singapore minister to handle, the kind of division in our politics, having to balance all sides?
Because I've spoken to ministers and individuals from all over East Asia — China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia — there's a common enthusiasm for it.
•One thing Singapore politics doesn't prepare you for is the contentiousness of Indian politics, because we're the opposite for Singaporean discipline and focus.
I think each system has its strengths and weakness. And the diversity of views makes India a lively society. And this is a creative society, that's what India has always been.
•We sometimes say, 'Look at China, they're so disciplined. We are an anarchy. Nothing moves, soft state, this, that. . ." And one little Tibetan thing happens and the whole Chinese state is in so much pain and trauma. India has a million mutinies going on at any point in time and we take them in our stride.
India will never have a revolution. China will need one every two or three centuries. Because their society is organised differently. It's hierarchical, has one core centre. India is diverse. In many ways it's like Europe: it's tribal, has got all kinds of divisions, religions, and a commonality which is soft. I've said this before — that there's no aspect of the human condition which Indians have not thought about or philosophised on and somehow given expression to. Whereas in China there has to be a certain way of looking at civilisation, a certain hierarchy, a certain orderliness. That enables China to move very fast when it wants to, but at other times it also creates a certain bitterness. In the case of Tibet, I think, it's an expression (of that).
•To say things like "beast" for the Dalai Lama, or 'We'll crush them' is not how a big power reacts to an internal disturbance.
Part of the problem is in the translation. Many translations they use are imported from the Cold War days and sound dated and awkward in the 21st century. I've often spoken to them to update their jargon. And perhaps be a little more flexible.
•What do they say to you? You're a young man.
Because Singapore is three-quarters Chinese, they took our view seriously. They don't always agree.
•You're managing your diversity very well in Singapore.
By necessity, because we have no choice.
•A less wise political system could've gone the other way. You've done more for Tamil than Malaysians could do. You accept signboards, you accept Tamil as one of your national languages.
We lived in apartment blocks as children in Singapore. In the same building we have Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus living side by side. We don't allow ghettoisation because it creates separate mentalities. As parents, we nag our children when they're insensitive. We tell them, 'You've got to see what he will think, what his parents will think.' Singaporeans are taught to be tolerant and sensitive. It's in our blood. We've incorporated it into our DNA.
•Could the Chinese have handled it a bit better?
This recent outbreak of violence wasn't their fault. It was organised by groups that wanted to hold China hostage to the Olympics. I am not saying the Tibetans don't have legitimate grievances. These are grievances of a sizable minority community with a different past and with certain hopes for themselves that are not necessarily coincidental with that of the state. The actual precipitating incident itself, I think, was organised. It's quite wrong to blame China.
•A country of the size and power of China, is it wise for them to make the Olympics a coming-out party? Do they need one?
They've pinned so much of their national hopes and dreams on the Olympics. It's their prerogative, they want a big party. I think they're fully entitled to it. They've suffered long enough. We shouldn't be spoiling it. If I were them, I wouldn't have had such a party because it attracts too much attention. The people say, 'Look, you wanted it so much, now pay.'
•You understand China even better than you understand India. We don't understand China adequately in India. After so much growth, having become a military and economic superpower, having great leaders and political stability, do they still have to keep on harping on a hundred years of humiliation and then ride this nationalism as if that is the only ideology? The whole combination sounds a bit odd.
I look at it differently. My mother came from China and I have cousins there. I visit them every few years. When I first went there in 1983 — my mother came from the south of China where the people lived in abject poverty — I would draw water from the well and go for my daily business outdoors. From 1983 to now, their society has been completely transformed. At the level of ordinary lives of hundreds of millions of people, there has been amazing transformation. The same kind of transformation we are now seeing in India. We've got to give them the credit for that. Yes, they're not perfect. Sometimes, they're excessive. Sometimes, they bungle in their foreign relations. On the whole, they're doing very well.
•But they're very defensive about so many things, very sensitive. There may be an 18-page story in Time magazine praising them, but a one-page story on pollution in Beijing irks them so much that one man sits and pulls out that page from tens of thousands of copies.
I know, it seems so silly. It's the way their society is organised. I was for many years the minister for information of Singapore and knew my Chinese counterpart very well. He has a big burden, because for the major newspapers in China, he had to decide the headlines, had to give proper emphasis.
•Were you envious of him?
Not at all. That was too much of a burden. I wouldn't have been able to sleep! There is a strange similarity between China and the Catholic church. Both are highly centralised. Both believe that in doctrinal matters you have to be correct. It's the core doctrine which holds all the members together, and that propaganda is really communication, something essential. There's a dogma which has to be propagated.
•You're Chinese and also a Catholic, so you should know both sides.
To some extent.
•Should the world keep this is mind while relating to China, because the world relates to China in a certain way? The rest of the world gets anxious about China's rise. Nobody gets anxious about India's rise.
It's a diverse world becoming multipolar. There's only going to be peace if we accept diversity, which means respecting each other for his differences. You can't say that you have a relationship based on the fact that you have got the other party to become what you wanted him to be. Countries are different, so are societies.
•Maybe there's more comfort about India because of diversity, chaotic politics?
Partly because India doesn't loom as a threat to what I call the West, or America. The Pentagon has identified China as the only country in the world which can become a rival to the US.
•It's wonderful how the Pentagon divides the world. They divide the world somewhere where India is. You came to India in 1988 and stood in a smuggler's queue. When you came on a plane to India this time, how has it changed since then?
I came as an officer in 1993, just after the Babri Masjid incident in December 1992. Even then, one could sense in India a big transformation taking place. What really impressed me were two conversations I had with two district collectors, in Kanchipuram and Mysore. I wanted to know the extent to which the policies of (then prime minister) Narasimha Rao were percolating to the ground. I asked them their reactions and they were enthusiastic. I felt good about it. When I went back, I wrote a report: the changes in India have to be taken seriously.
•You made a quick trip to Bhopal this time.
I had friends from Madhya Pradesh and wanted to visit the state. There's enormous potential in India for tourism. For instance Sanchi, it hasn't been tapped properly. It is a gem, an unpolished one. The good it can do to so many ordinary people!
•I think you have more hotel rooms in Singapore than we have in our 10 big cities together.
It's one industry which can bring the good life to ordinary men and women. I would promote it with the greatest enthusiasm.
•Well, George, I hope your friends are listening. I'm sure they take you very seriously. The fact is you're so young by the standards of our politicians, but they'll take you more seriously than they take many of your cabinet colleagues. Keep coming to India and do stay a friend of India forever.
Thank you, Shekhar. I will come, you can't keep me away.