SINGAPORE: Lui Tuck Yew, Singapore’s ambassador to the United States, has responded on behalf of the city-state to remarks made by Li Shengwu in a video about tyranny posted in the New York Times on Jan 22. Mr Lui characterised Mr Li’s statements as “misleading analogies” and claimed Mr Li is “masquerading as a political dissident.”
The opinion video “How Tyranny Begins” features Mr Li, a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, along with a Russian journalist, a Hungarian academic, and a Nicaraguan activist, talking about what they perceive as “warning signs of tyranny” and is ostensibly a commentary on the United States’ current situation.
In a letter to the editor of NYT dated Jan 26, Singapore’s envoy to the US sought to clarify Mr Li’s situation, writing that he “has never been exiled from Singapore, jailed or stripped of his possessions, as might some of the others in your feature. He remains a Singapore citizen and continues to travel freely on a Singapore passport.”
The ambassador also underlined how seriously Singapore takes the rule of law and added that after Mr Li was charged with contempt of court in 2020 and paid an S$15,000 fine, there have been no charges against him, nor is he under any investigation. He is also free to return to the city-state at any time.
Mr Lui added that Mr Li, who had said in the video that “it is better to fight,” may also come home to Singapore and contest in the upcoming General Election, which must be held no later than this November.
Mr Li also recounted in the video how he had posted a private comment on Facebook that could only be seen by his friends and added that the government of Singapore had gone after him “with a criminal prosecution.”
The ambassador wrote that it is “deeply regrettable” that Mr Li had “chosen to denigrate the very country his grandfather (Lee Kuan Yew) had a pivotal role in building.” He also pointed out that Singapore ranks well ahead of the US in the 2024 Rule of Law Index and the 2023 Corruption Perception Index.
Mr Li is the nephew of former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the son of Lee Hsien Yang, who left the country with his wife, Lee Suet Fern, in 2022. He informed the public last October that he would not be coming home for the funeral of his sister, Lee Wei Ling, and that he had been granted asylum by the United Kingdom. /TISG
Read also: “My father-in-law would have been proud” — LHY expresses joy that Li Shengwu received tenure