An interview with Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s next PM
Singapore is coming under new management. Lawrence Wong, the finance minister and deputy prime minister, will take the reins of the city-state’s government on May 15th. The country does not churn through prime ministers: he will be just the fourth in its history as an independent country since 1965. Mr Wong sat down with The Economist on May 6th.
Aged 51, Mr Wong was born seven years into Singapore’s existence as a nation. He is also more of an everyman than his predecessors. He is the first not to have attended an elite secondary school, and grew up on a public-housing estate.
His ascendancy marks a historical change in other ways. Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s founding father, was prime minister until 1990. His eldest son, Lee Hsien Loong, took the reins in 2004. For the first time in the country’s modern history, there is no member of the family either in charge or waiting in the wings to take over. Instead Mr Lee will remain in cabinet as senior minister, the same position conferred on his father after he stepped down as prime minister.
As a small and open economy, with large trade and financial links to the world, Singapore is buffeted by geopolitical forces more than most countries. Mr Wong compares two recent shocks and their effect on Singapore. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he notes, had a financial impact on Singapore. The country was alone in South-East Asia in instituting sanctions against Russia. Even without them, the hit to global energy prices had a big effect, as Singapore imports all of its commodities: wholesale electricity prices there rose by almost half in 2022.
Enter the next generation
But while the economic impact was significant, the conflict has little emotional resonance in a country with limited links to either of the countries involved. The violence in Gaza, on the other hand, has little economic impact on the country, but is an issue of deep concern for many Singaporeans, especially the country’s Muslim minority.
By contrast, the greatest geopolitical risk on the horizon—a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait or in the South China Sea—would have both a very large economic effect and a large emotional resonance for Singaporean citizens, Mr Wong notes. Singapore supports the status quo when it comes to Taiwan’s status, he stresses: “If any change were to happen, it has to be done in a way that’s peaceful.” The majority of Singapore’s citizens are ethnically Chinese. Many still have family connections in the mainland, or feel a sense of kinship to the country of their ancestors. “External events that happen seemingly far away, actually they are happening right here at our doorstep,” he says.
The risk of military conflict in particular speaks to Singapore’s delicate diplomatic balancing act between America and China. Mr Wong stresses that Singapore is not an ally of America, despite the two countries’ close military links. The country has the second-largest number of military personnel based in America of any country in the world. But as relations between Washington and Beijing have worsened, remaining open to both of the two larger countries becomes more difficult. “When a big country deals with a small country, the big country often doesn’t realise how imposing they are,” he says.
An area where Singapore’s government stands out from the Western world is its management of the ethnic balance of its citizens, known as the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others model. The city attempts to keep its proportions—roughly 75% Chinese, 14% Malay and 9% Indian—relatively constant over time. Balances are also reflected at the level of the city’s widespread public-housing estates, which are not permitted to stray too far from the country’s ethnic make-up. “We would like to be, to evolve into a society where we become race-blind, but we are also very realistic about these things,” he says.
Over the past six decades the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), of which Mr Wong is a member, has made the case that the external dangers to Singapore justify its firm governance of the city. But in general elections in 2020, the centre-left Workers’ Party won two of the country’s multi-member constituencies, a first for any opposition group in the country’s history. Those precincts have historically guaranteed that the PAP’s vote share of over 60% is turned into even more overwhelming parliamentary majorities. “While a majority today would like the PAP to be in power…they would also like to see more opposition voices in parliament. So the opposition presence in parliament is here to stay,” says Mr Wong.
One area where Singapore is changing is in the priorities of its young people, the issue on which Mr Wong is at his most animated. “They would like to see a Singapore where we embrace broader definitions of success,” he says. The island is famous for a hard-working culture, and the city’s meritocratic ladder can be ruthless.
But any Singaporeans angling for a split with the political past will be disappointed. Mr Wong casts the decision to keep Mr Lee on as cabinet minister as a Singaporean tradition, and a way of hanging onto the experience accumulated by the third generation of Singapore’s leadership. He mentions the outgoing prime minister’s international networks, a hint at the role Mr Lee might play in the future.
Mr Wong frames the challenge of his time in office as continuing the work of his predecessors. “We’ve always seen ourselves as the underdog, we will always be the improbable, unlikely nation forged only through the collective will of our people,” he says. “My mission is to keep this miracle going for as long as I can.” ■