After nearly 50 years in government, Lee is more than qualified to speak about power and its dangers. But it is not only years of experience and his dispassionate intelligence that have led to his eminence. Lee also embodies a uniquely Asian approach to governance that has often been at odds with the democratic principles espoused by many Western politicians. For decades, he has spoken in favor of what has come to be termed "Asian values" (he prefers "Confucian values"), a political philosophy that might be loosely summed up as respect for authority and order, while putting the good of society above that of the individual. His criticisms have focused on the excesses of unfettered democracy—particularly freedom of speech—and the impact they have on the search for economic growth.

In the past, Lee has not been shy about singling out those nations (the Philippines has been a favorite target) in which an excess of democracy's messiness—as he might put it—has tempered steady economic progress and the betterment of the life chances of ordinary folk. But the strength of his argument does not rest only on other nations' failures. Above all, it is bolstered by Singapore's success. For as any visitor can attest, the scale of what Lee and his colleagues have achieved by applying his principles—in what Singaporean academic and fiction writer Catherine Lim has described as "an authoritarian, no-nonsense manner which has little use for sentiment"—is simply astonishing.

When Singapore was ejected from Malaysia in 1965, it had no natural resources save for the enterprise of its largely Chinese population and its port's position astride one of the world's major shipping lanes. It possessed little industry or infrastructure besides a naval base and ship-repair facilities left behind by Britain's shrinking navy. Most of the population lived cheek by jowl in ramshackle two-story shophouses or traditional village houses fashioned of rattan and bamboo. It was poorer than Mexico. Today, the city is one of Asia's most modern metropolises, the business district bristling with skyscrapers and ringed by highways. Over 90% of the population own their own homes, most of them well-maintained and scrupulously clean apartments in government-built blocks. Singapore's cultural life—a phrase that was once oxymoronic—is now at least as vibrant as those of other cities in Southeast Asia, with a sparkling new performing-arts center and some of the best restaurants in the world. After decades of strong economic growth, per-capita income last year was $24,220, about the same as Italy. As they trip around Asia, popping off to Bali or Perth for the weekend while dressed in Prada and Gucci, wealthier Singaporeans could be forgiven for pitying their former European masters, whose day in the sun—they will sometimes tell you—is now all but over.

It is an almost miraculous achievement, and one in which Lee and his colleagues take justifiable pride. It is, moreover, something that has been much admired, to the point of imitation, around the region. Asian leaders like Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad, Thailand's Thaksin Shinawatra and Indonesia's Suharto may rarely have chosen to admit it, but their "economy first" strategy owes much to the intelligence of a Cambridge-educated lawyer who—he admits—was himself "distraught" when his island state found itself independent and alone. Above all, with their horror of chaos, luan, China's leaders have for three decades come to Singapore to listen, to learn, and to admire. Progress coupled with order and limited freedoms has been the maxim of those who have ruled China since Mao Zedong's death; it is a philosophy whose modern origins have their wellsprings in Singapore.

Yet for all Singapore's success, there remains a feeling that it has come at a price. Lee's methods—which despite a deliberate attempt to soften the image of the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) remain at the core of his successors' approach to governing—have found plenty of critics at home and abroad. The reaction of ordinary Singaporeans when questioned about politics or Lee and his family is telling. Without them quite knowing it, there is often an instinctive lowering of the voice and a glance over the shoulder. "People are still too frightened to talk about the taboo subjects," Catherine Lim wrote in a lengthy essay published in the Straits Times in May. There is no effective political opposition to the PAP, and few voices prepared to speak out in favor of wider democratic debate. "I think [Lee] taught us fear," says theater director Ong Keng Sen. Lim argues that the stress on order and discipline, arguably essential to an earlier stage of Singapore's development, may harm it now. "A model of governance that has no place for political openness carries with it the seeds of its own decline or even demise," she wrote. "For it will have bred a politically naive, dependent, manipulable people who ... can be compared to artificially nurtured hothouse plants, unable to survive if thrown among the sturdy plants in the wild."

For his part, Lee acknowledges that there is a need to make Singaporeans less dependent on the government and to encourage more open debate. He insists that the PAP can absorb and benefit from dissenting voices. "Anybody can join the PAP and change the policy from within," he says. "If you've got a better idea, you come in, you convince us, you take over." But he is adamant that Singaporeans are not yet ready for the vociferous free market of ideas that typifies, for example, politics in the U.S. "I see the marketplace of ideas, as in the Philippines, and I see chaos," he says, while adding: "Gradually, we will loosen up."

Those who wish Asia well will hope that Singapore does so. This is not just because modern Singaporeans deserve the chance to show that they are sufficiently talented to hold their own in any clash of ideas and ideologies (which they most certainly are.) It is because Singapore's achievements, and Lee's influence, extend far beyond the shores of an island of just 700 sq km and 4 million people. Lee's little nation is a testimony to what hard work and discipline can do to improve lives. That, perhaps, is legacy enough. But what a place in history there would be for Lee if his successors prove that Singapore can marry continued economic prosperity to a more open, tolerant, creative, and, yes, messy society—and hence create a new miracle, from which other nations, bigger, more powerful and more potentially frightening than Singapore, could one day learn anew.

With reporting by Jake Lloyd-Smith/Singapore

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