06 Jan 2024 12 min read weekly

DPS 周刊 130 - 中国的未来

2024年读完的第一本书是 Lee Kuan Yew - The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World，中文书名是《李光耀论中国》。

去年花了点时间读了李光耀的自传 The Singapore Story，中文版分上下两部出版，分别是《风雨独立路》和《经济腾飞路》。这两本书让我对李光耀的早年经历经历和执政时光有了基本了解。而今年的这本书则让我对李光耀退休之后的观点有了更清晰的认识。

Lee Kuan Yew - The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World 这本书其实是哈佛大学 Belfer 研究中心将李光耀晚年的一些发言，访谈，文章等输出的观点梳理成一本书，主要分为几个话题：

中国的未来
美国的未来
中美关系的未来
印度的未来
伊斯兰极端主义的未来
新加坡经济的未来
地缘政治和全球化的未来
民主的未来
李光耀是如何思考的

十多年之后再读这本书，正好让历史检验了其中一些观点，大部分被李光耀言中，也有一小部分和李光耀的想法并不一样。总体而言，不得不佩服李光耀老到而毒辣的眼光。

比如他对印度的看法，其实直接影响了新加坡对于印度移民的政策：

India is not a real country. Instead, it is 32 separate nations that happen to be arrayed along the British rail line.

There are three Indian schools in Singapore. There were going to be more, but I said no. You either go to a Singapore school or you go back to India.

The textbooks in these schools are all India-oriented, the knowledge is Indian, the sentiments, and everything. That is the problem.

他对于主流伊斯兰教和伊斯兰极端主义有着清晰的分辨，并且认为只有伊斯兰教自己才能解决这一矛盾：

Hinduism, Chinese Confucianism or Communism, Japanese Shintoism, they are secular really. They know that to progress, you must master science and technology....

But the Muslims believe that if they master the Qu'ran and they are prepared to do all that Muhammad has prescribed, they will succeed.

Only Muslims themselves-those with a moderate, more modern approach to life-can fight the fundamentalists for control of the Muslim soul.

关于英语，他有着非常强的执念，不仅把新加坡的第一语言改成了英语，并且曾经建言中国也走这条路。在他看来，这样不仅把交流的门槛大大降低，更有更能学会英文世界的思考方式：

I do not know if China will be able to overcome the language barrier and the attendant difficulty in recruiting outside talent unless it makes English the dominant language, as Singapore has.

While I once advised a Chinese leader to make English the first language of China, clearly that is not realistic for such a great, confident country and culture. But it is a serious handicap.

I offered every parent a choice of English and their mother tongue, in whatever order they chose. By their free choice, plus the rewards of the marketplace over a period of 30 years, we have ended up with English first and the mother tongue second.

他在自传中，详细回顾了如何将南洋大学从一所华文大学改造为英文大学：

当我尝试把南大的教学语言从华语改为英语时，南大学生会会长何元泰唆使同学不要使用英文而改以华文在考卷上作答，结果被校方革除了会长的职位

既然南大无法把教学语言改为英语，我于是说服南大理事和评议会成员，把整所大学连同师生一起迁入新大校园。当年在武吉知马的新大校园，说英语的教师和学生人数众多，南大师生全面融人这样的环境，自然会被迫使用英语。

在南大教师流利地使用英语的能力恢复之前，新大教师接过大部分的教学工作

当然他对中国有着非常清晰的认识，比如上海人为什么那么精明：

Everyone knows that Shanghainese are the brightest and sharpest of people. But few know why. It is because, for over 150 years, ever since it became a treaty port for the foreign powers, it has drawn the ambitious, energetic, and talented from the Yangtze Delta, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and other provinces along the river, a catchment of some 200-300 million.

再比如，当时的他认为中国会遇到的挑战：

Chief among these are their problems of governance:the absence of the rule of law, which in today's China is closer to the rule of the emperor;a huge country in which little emperors across a vast expanse exercise great local influence;cultural habits that limit imagination and creativity, rewarding conformity;a language that shapes thinking through epigrams and 4,000 years of texts that suggest everything worth saying has already been said, and said better by earlier writers;a language that is exceedingly difficult for foreigners to learn sufficiently to embrace China and be embraced by its society;and severe constraints on its ability to attract and assimilate talent from other societies in the world._

当然李光耀的观点也并非完美无瑕，比如：

I started off believing all men and women are equal.... I now know that is the most unlikely thing ever to have been.

I understood Deng Xiaoping when he said: if 200,000 students have to be shot, shoot them, because the alternative is China in chaos for another 100 years.... Deng understood, and he released it stage by stage. Without Deng, China would have imploded.