Hong Kong campus protests: what would Lee Kuan Yew do?
- As battles raged in Hong Kong universities, remarks by the late leader on how he handled student protesters spread on WhatsApp
- But while Singapore’s methods were effective in the 1960s, an expert says a different tack is now needed
Lee had recounted to Time magazine in 2005 what he told former Chinese premier Li Peng, who became known as the “Butcher of Beijing” for declaring martial law on the Chinese capital amid pro-democracy protests by students.
“When I had trouble with my sit-in communist students, squatting in school premises and keeping their teachers captive, I cordoned off the whole area around the schools, shut off the water and electricity, and just waited,” he said.
“I told their parents that health conditions were deteriorating, dysentery was going to spread. And they broke it up without any difficulty.
“I said to Li Peng, you had the world’s television cameras there waiting for the meeting with [then Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, and you stage this grand show. His answer was: ‘We are completely inexperienced in these matters’,” said Lee, who led the city state from 1959 to 1990.