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Musings is a brilliant title for a ebook, particularly this one by George Yeo. He will need to have chosen it to lull readers into not studying an excessive amount of into his anecdotal-heavy storytelling that spans over quite a lot of topics, from historical past, economics, philosophy, and faith to his views on China, India, ASEAN…
Studying between a number of the throwaway strains, you may select some hidden political factors. Like when he very briefly talked about a cellphone name from Singapore throughout certainly one of his many visits to India. He was there to attend the marriage of the son of Narayana Murthy, the founding father of Infosys.
All that the previous Overseas Minister would reveal was this: “I keep in mind being preoccupied on the time with the decision to enter the Presidential race in Singapore.”
It was in June 2011, a month after he had misplaced his Aljunied Parliamentary seat within the normal election. Did the federal government need him to throw his title into the ring? What was his response? Why did he tuck this nugget away in a chapter referred to as Passage to India?
Yeo additionally revealed he was shocked that PM Lee Hsien Loong apologised to voters after the PAP misplaced closely to the Opposition in 2011. He was shocked as a result of he didn’t anticipate the PM to do this? Or that he felt that there was no must make an apology? Once more, he left readers like me second-guessing.
The ebook is peppered with such throwaway one-liners.
At first, I used to be hesitant about desirous to learn Musings. My view was colored by what Yeo, who was then the Minister for Data and the Arts, mentioned throughout a memorable lunch assembly with SPH editors. He was visibly upset by a commentary in The Strait Occasions that criticised an MP. A sturdy dialogue adopted, with ST editor Leslie Fong defending the article and Yeo criticising the commentary.
Yeo put his foot down and concluded that the federal government will defend an MP even when the latter was unsuitable. It was not a press release that I had anticipated from a person who was not only a thinker and thinker but additionally what many individuals noticed as a liberal.
Musings compelled a rethink in me. His references to India and the heat within the phrases confirmed that the writer is clearly and really race-blind. His deep friendship with Indian politicians, businessmen, and thinkers tells a narrative of a person whose information of India is unparalleled in a Chinese language-majority Singapore.
Yeo’s involvement within the Nalanda College venture was a feather in his, and for positive Singapore’s, cap. There are two entire chapters on it, and he grew to become a key determine to revive the 800-year-old establishment, which was closed down 3 times by invaders. It’s a story that reveals Yeo’s timeless curiosity and spirit in an age-old Buddhist establishment.
He grew to become its second Chancellor however needed to step down as BJP started to intrude within the college’s affairs.
In a comparability with China, Yeo gave the impression to be pro-India. China is sort of a large redwood and appears very magnificent from a distance. However at some point it would die affecting a big a part of the forest. “India, in contrast, is sort of a large bush. It’s in every single place and exhausting to make sense of,” Yeo writes. It retains rising and by no means dies. “But the biomass of the tree and that of the bush are comparable.”
The loudest reward for his deep curiosity in India comes from P Chidambaram, the previous Finance Minister of India. “His abiding love for China, due to his roots, is comprehensible, however his love affair with India leads me to comment that after in his earlier beginning he will need to have been an Indian.”
George Yeo is an exception in Singapore politics. His mental would possibly, his understanding of and expertise in geopolitical affairs and his sense of historical past are being missed. As soon as Lee Kuan Yew mentioned the ministers needed to be paid excessive salaries as a result of the highest banks are eyeing them. However not certainly one of them has received a high-profile job abroad.
Yeo is the exception. He joined Kerry Logistics in Hong Kong and has inside him a reservoir of information about China and its territories. With the federal government saying it has launched an offensive to focus on high expertise, the George Yeos of Singapore shouldn’t be forgotten.
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