MR. EVANS
Would it not help resolve that difficulty as you see it if your country put a token, a small, token force -- you only have two million in your population, I understand, but if you put a small token force into the field to assist in the work that is being done over there against what we call aggression from the North? Wouldn't that help the United States to resolve this issue?
MR. LEE:
I don't see it as my duty as the Prime Minister, an elected Prime Minister of Singapore and not a client state of the United States -- I am not in receipt of your aid nor am I here to seek aid. I am doing all right, I hope to do more trade with you. And I don't think it is the duty of the elected representative, leader, of Singapore to go in and involve his country in a situation which can end disastrously for his whole people.
MR. TOPPING:
Some people are saying that China is now so divided politically that there is no great danger for Southeast Asia in the future.
....
Do you think in the near future it will become again a unified country, a strongly unified country that might represent some kind of a danger to Southeast Asia?
MR. LEE:
I would say they are determined, as a people, to unify and build a modern, powerful, wealthy Chinese nation and I say good luck to them. And I think the moment they get prosperous, good luck to me, because I will be much safer.
I don't believe, however, you know the simple theory that they are just going to send their armies across and eat up Southeast Asia. It is too simple, and it is too simple for you, for the Americans, and for us, because then it is naked aggression; the whole of Southeast Asia will gel together and meet an incoming invader. But you have got this "Make it yourself" kind of revolution. Wars of national liberation, you know. Here is the text. "We have an instructor. He will teach you how to organize and will slip you a few guns and more if necessary and, if it gets more difficult, well, surface-to-air missiles and so on."
