LEE KUAN YEW AND THE “ASIAN VALUES” DEBATE

1 Asian Studies Review. ISSN 1035-7823 Volume 24 Number 3 September 2000 Asian Studies Association of Australia 2000. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road,Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, KUAN YEW AND THE ASIAN VALUES DEBATEMICHAEL D. BARR1 Queensland University of TechnologyThe Asian values DEBATE sprang fully formed onto the international stage in the early 1990s or so it seems from the mountain of literature on the to conventional wisdom, Lee Kuan Yew launched the concept fromSingapore as part of a self-serving effort to justify Singapore s paternalistic andilliberal system of government and to argue that Asian cultures are so differentfrom western cultures that they are exempt from considerations of human rights( jendal and Antl v 1998, 527; Fukuyama 1998, 23).

2 Much of the DEBATE has there-fore focused on the politics of Asian values , particularly questions of ulteriormotives. Advocates of Asian values are routinely and often correctly accused of putting forward self-serving arguments to justify human rights abuses and un-democratic practices. Advocates of Asian values also accuse their critics of hypo-crisy (Mahbubani 1998, 48 51 and 70 71), and of using human rights concernsas a means of pursuing ulterior political or economic agendas a charge thatcarries sufficient truth to make it an effective foil in DEBATE . Beyond the politics,however, there are serious questions to be pursued.

3 As the DEBATE has progressedit has become more common for academics to examine some of the assumptionsand syllogisms of the Asian values argument, seeking not only evidence of ulteriormotives and inconsistencies, but also the strands of truth that might otherwise belost in the article examines the thinking of Lee Kuan Yew, who is one of the mainarchitects of the Asian values argument, but whose contributions have never beenconsidered in more than a piecemeal fashion. It traces the history of his thinkingin the hope that it will enable us both to critically analyse his arguments , and todiscern the degree of genuineness in his current position.

4 It is also intended toprovide a culturally sensitive critique with which to engage Lee s successors in the Singapore school of the Asian values DEBATE people such as Goh Chok Tong,Lee Hsieng Loong, Kishore Mahbubani, Tommy Koh and , this article studies the history of Lee Kuan Yew s contribution to the Asian values DEBATE for three ends. First, the paper demonstrates that Lee sadvocacy of Asian values is based, for the most part, on positions that he hasheld over a period of nearly forty years. The key ideas that formed the basis of themodern Asian values DEBATE became a central part of Lee Kuan Yew s politicalthought in the 1960s.

5 Some elements can be traced back as far as the 1950s. Thesurprising fact that ideas with such a narrow, remote base of origin have foundwidespread resonance throughout East and Southeast Asia suggests that theconcept contains elements that reflect widespread Asian cultural concerns andlegitimate aspirations of which western critics should take cognisance. Secondly,the article examines the reaction of Lee and others to the 1960s counter cultureand the student protest movements, and tries to discern the role that perceptionsof these phenomena and the subsequent atomism of western society played inbuilding and legitimising the Asian values argument.

6 Furthermore, it suggeststhat the atomistic libertarianism prevalent in the West since the 1960s may be anexample of culturally-specific morality, rather than a universal norm to whichAsians should aspire. Thirdly, the study uses these tentative conclusions to uncovera point of theoretical and practical weakness in Lee Kuan Yew s position, centredon his conceptualisation of the role of the three arguments are prefaced by an overview of the main premises ofthe Asian values argument, and a brief account of the DEBATE s sudden rise toworld prominence in the OF THE DEBATEAs a necessary first step in studying Lee Kuan Yew s contribution to the modernconcept of Asian values , we need to identify the central tenets and character-istics of the argument.

7 Which today has taken on a life of its own beyond thethoughts of Lee. The prime tactical premise of the Asian values argument isone of cultural relativism: that many of the hegemonic political, social andcultural norms of the late twentieth century are western, rather than universal,norms and no more legitimate than alternative norms that could be considered Asian . This premise taints the claimed hegemonic norms with the odour ofcultural imperialism, to which advocates of Asian values respond with strong,some say exaggerated, assertions of state sovereignty (Inoue 1999, 30 34).

8 Thus,the Chinese Communist Party is able to argue in its 1991 White Paper that owingto tremendous differences in historical background, social systems, cultural trad-ition and economic development, countries differ in their understanding andpractice of human rights (State Council, PRC 1991, 1 2). The tactical positionthus established then provides the basis for a positive assertion of the legitimacy,if not the superiority, of a favoured political, social or cultural argument or practicewhich is identified as being or springing from an Asian value . Cultural relativism310 Michael D. Barr Asian Studies Association of Australia acts as a cover for cultural and political assertion, which is the heart ofthe Asian values the basic premise of cultural relativism has been set, it can be used tosupport a choice of varied and often contradictory arguments .

9 Nevertheless, at itscore the Asian values argument is remarkably consistent. Its proponents advo-cate a view of society that is always hierarchical and tends to stem from empha-sising the interdependence and social nature of human beings. The culturalsource of Asian values is most commonly Confucianism. It is important to note,however, that the Confucianism referred to here is not the original set of ethicsadvocated by Confucius, but rather the state-centred form adopted by successiveChinese emperors from the second century BConwards. At heart, Confucianismis about people and relationships, and it governs how everyone acts in a traditionalChinese hierarchical society.

10 The relationship between rulers and subjects, forinstance, is likened to that between fathers and sons: the subject/son is expectedto give his ruler/father obedience and respect, and the ruler/father is urged tobe a junzi[virtuous gentleman], and to govern the state/family by example andby exhortation and education rather than by the arbitrary imposition of his the serious risk of parodying a highly sophisticated and continually evolvingphilosophy, Confucianism might be described as an ethical system and human-istic worldview that places great emphasis on forms of conduct within relation-ships, personal virtue, obedience to authority, family loyalty, and Kuan Yew today denies that he has ever spoken of Asian values , claimingthat he has always advocated Confucian values.