In the summer of 2017, while he was visiting his parents in Singapore, he wrote comments in a private Facebook post that criticized the government for using the courts to silence its critics. The government is “very litigious and has a pliant court system,” he wrote. Soon after, he got a tip that he was about to be prosecuted for it. He hurried back to the United States. Even during the Trump administration, which was known for its harsh treatment of immigrants, he felt relieved to land on American soil because he knew there were independent judges, he told me. He was convicted in absentia in Singapore for “scandalizing the judiciary” and fined $15,000, which bars him from running for parliament for five years.
Last month, officials in Singapore announced an ongoing police investigation of Shengwu Li’s parents, who are accused of manipulating a 90-year-old Lee Kuan Yew into changing his will and lying about it afterward. The accusation stems from a simmering disagreement over the fate of the family home, which Lee Kuan Yew said publicly at times that he wanted demolished after his death.
Lee Hsien Yang, Lee Kuan Yew’s youngest son, says he has been fighting to honor his father’s wish not to have a cult of personality built around the house. But he says his elder brother, the prime minister, wants to preserve the house as a national monument to bolster his own political legitimacy. Lee Hsien Yang spoke out publicly against his brother, only to get hit with an investigation. Eventually, he fled the country, like his son. It seems to be an example of what Kenneth Paul Tan, a Singaporean professor of cultural studies, calls the “politics of evermore sophisticated bullying.” At its core, the fight isn’t about a house or a will. It’s about the future of Singapore.
“The institutions in Singapore, whether it is the judiciary, the civil service, the army, the institutions of higher learning, have all gradually come under direct control in a way that stifles independent thinking and challenge,” Lee Hsien Yang told me. Lee Kuan Yew would solicit different views and occasionally change his mind, he said. “Today, the Singapore authorities no longer have people who would challenge the system to say, ‘Here’s my view. I don’t think you are doing the right thing.’ They are too well-paid.”
(Ho Moon Shin, a government spokesperson, denied that Lee Hsien Yang and Shengwu Li are in exile, saying they are traveling on Singaporean passports and are free to return home. She also said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recused himself from the cases involving the family house.)
