Why You Should Read Lee Kuan Yew's Hard Truths Today
If there was one book I would recommend everyone read about Singapore's remarkable journey, it would be "Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going" by Lee Kuan Yew.
Co-authored with journalists from The Straits Times, this book offers invaluable insights for Singaporeans and anyone interested in the modern miracle of Singapore.
Before delving into the book, we must understand who Lee Kuan Yew was.
How Global Leaders Saw Him
As Singapore's first Prime Minister from 1959 to 1990, Lee later served as Senior Minister and Minister Mentor until his death in 2015. His impact was so profound that world leaders viewed him as a role model and sought his counsel.
President Barack Obama called him "a legendary figure of Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries and one of the greatest strategists of Asian affairs."
Henry Kissinger, who knew Lee for decades, described him as "a man of unmatched intelligence and judgment" and stated that "there is no better strategic thinker in the world today."
China's transformative leader Deng Xiaoping specifically studied Lee's approach during China's opening-up period, later remarking, "If I had only Shanghai, I too might be able to change Shanghai as quickly, but I have the whole of China."
Even Margaret Thatcher acknowledged his exceptional insight, saying, "In office, I read and analysed every speech of Lee. He has a way of penetrating the fog of propaganda and expressing with unique clarity the issues of our times and the way to tackle them."
These weren't mere diplomatic pleasantries—these were the world's most consequential leaders genuinely seeking out Lee Kuan Yew as an example to study from.
What Makes Lee Kuan Yew A Rare Leader
As a young Singaporean, what I admire most about Lee Kuan Yew was that he was both a fighter and a builder.
When Singapore was struggling for self-governance and independence, he had fire in his belly and was willing to do whatever it took to win. As a fighter, he fearlessly confronted colonialism, risking his life to achieve self-governance for Singapore.
As a builder, he assembled an exceptional team of leaders, including Dr. Goh Keng Swee, Dr. Toh Chin Chye, and Mr. S. Rajaratnam—giants in their own right. Together, they built a Singapore worth living in.
This transition from fighter to builder is rare; many leaders who excel at gaining mass public support often struggle to become effective builders. Lee Kuan Yew avoided that trap.
Why "Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going" Stands Out
The timing and context of this book make it particularly valuable.
Lee was 86 years old when interviewed for the book, which was published in 2011, just four years before his death in 2015.
By this time, he had accumulated over five decades of insights from public office and was essentially the last man standing of his generation, as many of his compatriots had already passed away.
This created a profound sense of urgency—an awareness of his mortality that drove him to, as he put it, "concentrate Singaporeans' minds on the key issues facing our future."
In these interviews, Lee recognised the differences between his founding generation and younger Singaporeans.
Rather than lamenting this gap, he aimed to bridge it by explaining the unique circumstances in which Singapore was born and sharing the insights he had accumulated.
Anti-LKY Worship
I don't treat everything in this book as gospel.
There are parts where you might disagree with him or find him wrong.
(Just as I did)
For instance, Lee famously underestimated the role and effect of social media and the internet on politics, dismissing these technologies as tangential. He felt they wouldn't fundamentally change how governments are organised or how leaders are selected.
Looking at democracies worldwide today, we see that social media has become an increasingly important—perhaps the most important—arena for politicians to canvas votes.
Consider someone like President Donald Trump, who became president largely due to his social media popularity. Lee was clearly wrong in this regard.
I highlight this not to diminish Lee but to emphasise that the real value in studying his work lies not in blindly following his insights but in understanding his approach to problems and how he arrived at his conclusions.
For younger Singaporeans grappling with an increasingly tense world, his methodology of analysis, sense of pragmatism, and unwavering focus on outcomes rather than ideology offer valuable lessons.
This is what makes "Hard Truths" so valuable—it gives us access to one of history's most successful nation-builders in his final years. Lee's keen awareness of his mortality and his eager desire to share his insights with the public at this stage in life make this book exceptional.
Throughout, you sense he is genuinely trying to tell you something about human nature and society, with nothing to gain personally.
He's not trying to sell or persuade you; he's simply telling you how he sees the world—a quality many books lack today.
Takeaway 1: Singapore's Map
My first takeaway comes from the book's chapter list, which highlights what Lee considered Singapore's core issues.
The book maps out the fundamental challenges that Singapore would grapple with as a city-state for the long term.
The book is divided into three parts:
- Part One: Facing the Hard Truths
- Part Two: Insights for the Young and Curious
- Part Three: Private Musings
For those interested in policy, Part One is most important. Its nine chapters address key issues that continue to face Singapore today: the role of the People's Action Party, what the opposition's role should be, what political leadership looks like, why Singapore was so interested in social engineering, and how to sustain Singapore's economic miracle.
These issues were relevant in 2009 when the interviews began, and they remain relevant in 2025.
These chapters serve as signposts for citizens and leaders alike, representing perennial questions that we will continue to grapple with time and again.
I continually revisit this book because I understand that Singapore, as a small city-state, is extremely open to global forces.
Our society is never static; whatever progress we make one year could be lost the next.
As George Yeo puts it in a 2016 speech,
Singapore is not intelligible by itself.
Singapore only has meaning in relation to the network which created it.
That network is now coming back under a much greater scale - the new China trade of the 21st century.
So all the links which created Singapore are being re-energized by the reemergence of China on the global stage, and further down, the reemergence of India.
The COVID-19 pandemic exemplifies how quickly things can deteriorate and why good leadership is crucial during crises.
We are constantly evolving in response to external pressures and opportunities, and understanding how to navigate turbulent times requires revisiting the thinking of a man who guided Singapore through extreme turbulence.
Takeaway 2 : Resisting Inertia
My second takeaway is that every organisation and country should strive to experiment.
Governments, companies, and bureaucracies all have incentives for inertia—they tend to resist change unless prompted by leadership. If you've achieved success in the past, it's easier to rest on that success than to identify and tackle new challenges.
Lee, as a leader, was aware of this tendency.
He consistently tried to experiment and innovate in policy approaches.
One of my favourite examples comes from page 158, where he describes allowing Philip Yeo, one of his best civil servants, to develop policies attracting young, high-potential biomedical scientists to Singapore.
Lee knew that for Singapore to compete with other biomedical hubs like Boston, they needed to create a home for world-class talent to conduct research.
He recognised this was a risky move with no guarantee of success.
Talent often congregates in established hubs where they can continue existing work. As Singapore faces similar challenges now, we must be more aggressive in attracting talent.
Throughout the book, you'll see that Lee had no qualms about experimenting and pivoting when those experiments didn't yield the desired results.
This willingness to try, fail, learn, and adapt is central to Singapore's story, explaining why we have an excellent public transport system, comprehensive public housing, outstanding infrastructure and education, and affordable yet world-class healthcare today.
Takeaway 3 : Manoeuvring Within Constraints
The third and most profound lesson I learned from this book is how to handle constraints.
Lee was unflinching in recognising the hard truths that Singapore would have to grapple with, but he never stopped there.
He always sought creative solutions to manoeuvre within those constraints.
In 2025, we see intense geopolitical rivalry between the US and China—a trend Lee had already begun to observe in 2009.
His objective was simple: maximise Singapore's economic and political space. From the start, he understood that in realpolitik, the best way for Singapore to proceed in the 21st century was to diversify our international relations.
Our value proposition would be best demonstrated if we could remain neutral and non-threatening to major powers while maintaining friendly relationships with all.
He saw the necessity of building strong external links worldwide, becoming as interconnected as possible so that Singapore would not be boxed in by any specific power.
Lee didn't waste time lamenting power imbalances; instead, he accepted those realities and focused on creating space for Singapore to manoeuvre, giving us freedom of action within existing constraints.
One of my favourite parts of the book is Lee's response to a question about China's rise in Asia:
"If the US completely withdraws from East Asia and China becomes the only dominant power, then I say we are in a tighter position.
Because supposing you do something to displease them, they don't have to invade you.
Our ties with them are growing day by day economically, though we're trying very hard to diversify into India and to other parts of Asia.
But they are the big market. All they do is squeeze us economically. Hong Kong now knows its place... Do Hong Kongers realise who butters their bread?
Yes, of course."
This exemplifies how Lee viewed Asia's geopolitical landscape for Singapore.
He recognised that as China rose, its main leverage wasn't military force but market access.
His view was that diversification was always better, which is why despite misgivings about the US, he saw maintaining their presence in the region as necessary.
This strategic thinking acknowledged hard truths about the economic dominance of China and America while exploring options within those constraints.
The Big Lesson
"Hard Truths" is valuable because it provides a framework—a mental model of how Lee thought about issues, the virtues and ideals he considered necessary for Singapore's continued success.
What makes Lee fascinating isn't that he was perfect or the greatest leader of all time, but that he maintained intellectual curiosity and honesty throughout his life.
That's the big lesson for me: if you want to solve problems, maintain an unwavering focus on results rather than becoming attached to particular solutions, and always remain open to learning.
The remarkable thing about this book is that despite being published nearly 14 years ago, about 80-90% of it remains relevant for us in the late 2020s.
Whether you agree with the specific policies or not, there's tremendous value in understanding how one of the best modern statesmen developed his thinking.
His clarity of thought and willingness to confront difficult realities based on his experience and learning is something we can all learn from.