MR LEE “LAYS HIS CARDS ON THE TABLE”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32018, 19 June 1969, Page 28

MR LEE “LAYS HIS CARDS ON THE TABLE”

(New Zealand Press Association) SYDNEY, June 18. The Singapore Prime Minister (Lee Kuan Yew) made it quite clear in Sydney last night that he would do nothing at the five-Power defence talks in Canberra to jeopardise Singapore’s position.

Mr Lee arrived in Sydney yesterday for talks which began in Canberra today with Britain, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand to discuss regional defence consequent upon Britain’s East of Suez withdrawal after 1971. Speaking at an Australia-Malaysia-Singapore Association dinner, Mr Lee said he was laying his cards on the table before going to Canberra. He did not want to endanger his country’s relations with the other nations at the talks. “I do not get into the permanent orbit of a major Power or the gravitational orbit of a Power so that I can’t get out of it,” he said. “Some big countries in our region have got into orbits of big Powers like Russia and the United States and

can’t get out of them. “But I put my cards on the table before going to Canberra. I have enough thrust —if I want to get out of orbit I do so,” he said. Mr Lee said he far preferred to be associated with Australia and its Melbourne “despite all its misfortunes” —H.M.A.S. Melbourne collided with the United States destroyer Frank E. Evans on June 3 with the loss of 74 American lives—than to be tied in with America and its nuclear powered U.S.S. Enterprise. “If I get into that sort of orbit, I stay in it until the end of time,” he said. However, Mr Lee said, if, after the British left, Australia and Singapore decided to leave the region too, "we’ve got to live and make other arangements.” But he thought there was more advantage for Australia and New Zealand to star because of the "minimum risk for maximum advantage.” Mr Lee said the friendship and good will these countries had established over a period of time were not without economic value. “But when the chips are down—and this is for all Governments when it comes to the crunch—it is up to what a Government decides to be in its national interest,” he said. “I believe our national interests are best served in an association with Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia and, I hope, the British.” Mr Lee said he had claimed about six weeks ago in the United States that his country was a “more or less sheltered secure and peaceful area.” There had been a lot of events reported since then which denied this. “But I believe that to give up and say this is foolish and it was no longer secure, peaceful and law abiding would be to invite more disaster.

“We must try as best we can to re-establish some sanity, tolerance, reasonableness

and accommodation so perhaps for the Malaysia-Singa-pore area, an area of relative prosperity, it can spread outward and bring a slightly better life to others in the region. “I hope the talks in Canberra are a step toward this end.” Mr Lee said the problems of the world were interrelated. Even the super Powers had their problems America with its “never-ending, almost unwinnable war in Vietnam" and Russia which was trying to “bash things out at the Communist summit with no signal success.” "And a third world is also in turmoil," he said. “Ethnic,

religious and linguistic groups are brought together within boundary lines drawn by cartographers. “When representative Governments try to sustain the myth of legitimacy by popular vote they find the temptation to appeal to localities and groups. “The net result is Nigeria, Ceylon—a decade ago—lndia and Pakistan, with the insoluble problem of Kashmir.” All this affected Singapore and Australia by increasing tension, and he wondered whether A.N.Z.U.S. was comprehensive insurance, or whether the United States might one day become more occupied with problems of its own.