Lee Hsien Loong

“When people say they don't want a nanny state, they are, in fact, in a conflicted state of mind. On the one hand, they want to do whatever they want and not be stopped. On the other hand, if something goes wrong, they want to be rescued.”

“Basically, if you become president, you must swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and what the Constitution says.”

“You need to have good people: honourable, capable, committed in politics, standing in public office. It's not a guarantee, but it's the ideal we have to aim for.”

“Countries in Asia - Singapore, certainly, but many other countries too - are good friends to both China and America, and we would like to be good friends with both.”

“If you asked a Singaporean, on the one hand they'll say, 'Let us do our own things.' On the other hand, when an issue comes out, they'll ask, 'What is the government doing about it?'”

“If we did not have a sense of who we were, how we got here, why we want to achieve something - which, on the face of it, on the logic of it, is probably not worth trying - and prove that logic wrong, then you wouldn't succeed; then you would just evaporate.”

“The tactics we were able to use in the 1960s, 1970s - let's have a campaign, mobilize everybody and, therefore, social pressure - stop littering, or stop spitting, or be courteous to one another: I am not sure that kind of approach will work anymore.”

“You have to have a sense of what it looks like, not from the point of view of the policymaker but from the point of view of those who are at the receiving end of your policies.”

“One of the reasons America is welcome in Asia is because with America... there is a certain idealism and a certain bigness of soul. You want the region to prosper; you want countries to do well, and you are prepared to help them.”

“You need people who have their own views, whose views you respect, whom you can have a productive disagreement with, and work out ideas which you might not have come up with, or who improve on ideas you had.”

“No government prospers by saying, 'I don't need to do anything. Just by being there, we have made the country thrive.'”

“You have to have an idea of what you need to do, what needs to be fixed, what can be improved, what we should now imagine together which we didn't previously imagine. And having thought of it, decide to go it. And that's the government's role.”

“The U.S. is not a claimant state in the South China Sea or in the China-Japan dispute over the Senkaku Islands. But, of course, the 7th Fleet has been a presence in the region since the Second World War, and it is the most powerful fleet in the region.”

“Every time you make a rule, somebody will think of a way to operate around the rule.”

“I think we are paying a lot of attention to China one way or the other. They are a big factor in the world. They are successful; they are growing. They want to grow their influence, and all the countries in Asia want to be their friend and want to benefit from China's development and success.”

“We are not in a situation where the minorities are demanding something and the majorities are pushing back saying 'We don't want it.'”

“We have long depended on an America which has got a clear sense of its stakes in the world and how much it depends on the world as well as how much the world and its allies and friends depend on the United States of America, and we hope this will continue.”

“In every American election, crazy things are said. Positions are taken which the winners try very hard to forget afterwards.”

“We have to work towards free trade because otherwise we will miss out on many opportunities for cooperation, and relations amongst countries will become much more difficult.”

“You have an administration which understands America's international responsibilities and interests, but you have a population which is anxious, tired, and doesn't want to bear any burden and pay any price. And that's very difficult for whoever becomes president.”