Lee Hsien Loong
Lee Hsien Loong[a] SPMJ DK (born 10 February 1952) is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as the third Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC between 1984 and 1991.
In this Chinese name, the family name is Lee (李) and Hsien (显) is a generation name.
Lee Hsien Loong
Lawrence Wong
(designate)
Constituency established
Goh Chok Tong
Goh Chok Tong
Goh Chok Tong
Goh Chok Tong
S. Jayakumar
Goh Chok Tong
Himself
Lim Hng Kiang
Raymond Lim
Tharman Shanmugaratnam
Richard Hu
Tharman Shanmugaratnam
Lee Kuan Yew
Goh Chok Tong
Tony Tan
Lee Kuan Yew
Goh Chok Tong
Constituency established
Constituency established
Constituency abolished
4
Lee Kuan Yew (father)
Kwa Geok Choo (mother)
Lee Hsien Yang (brother)
Lee Wei Ling (sister)
Politician
Military general
1971–1984
Director of the Joint Operations and Planning Directorate
Chief of Staff – General Staff
Assistant Chief of the General Staff (Operations)
Commanding Officer, 23rd Battalion Singapore Artillery
李显龙
李顯龍
Lǐ Xiǎnlóng
Lǐ Xiǎnlóng
Li3 Hsien3-lung2
Léih Hín-lùhng
Lei5 Hin2-lung4
Lí Hián-liông
Born in Singapore during British colonial rule, Lee is the eldest son of Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics with first class honours and a Diploma in Computer Science with distinction (equivalent to a first-class masters in computer science). He served in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) between 1971 and 1984, and attained the rank Brigadier-General, completing a Master of Public Administration degree at Harvard Kennedy School in 1980. Lee resigned from the SAF in 1984 to enter politics and was elected the MP for Teck Ghee SMC. Since its dissolution in 1991, he has represented the Teck Ghee ward of Ang Mo Kio GRC.
Lee has served as deputy prime minister, Minister for Finance, Minister for Trade and Industry, and Second Minister for Defence under Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong before assuming the office of prime minister in 2004. In his first two years, his government enacted a five-day work week and extended maternity leave days. His proposal to build two Integrated Resorts in Singapore to increase tourism revenue led to the development of the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa. Following the Great Recession, he oversaw the country's economic recovery within two years. Further political reforms in 2010 saw increased online activism as well as the number of Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) in Parliament.
Since the 2020s, he oversaw the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent recession and recovery. In 2022, he responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by being the only Southeast Asian country to impose sanctions on Russia. That same year, his government repealed the then already unenforced colonial-era Section 377A, de jure and de facto legalising same-sex sexual activity between men. Lee is frequently noted by the international media as the world's highest paid state leader. His libel suits against journalists and political opponents have been frequently covered by international news outlets.
Deputy Prime Minister[edit]
Ministerial duties[edit]
On 28 November 1990, Goh Chok Tong succeeded Lee Kuan Yew as prime minister. Lee Hsien Loong was made one of two deputy prime ministers, along with Ong Teng Cheong. He continued to serve as the minister for trade and industry until 1992, when he was diagnosed with lymphoma. He subsequently relinquished his ministerial position and underwent three months of chemotherapy, though he continued to be a deputy prime minister during his illness. The chemotherapy was successful, and his cancer has gone into remission.
Lee was appointed chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in January 1998,[17] and in 2001 he was made the finance minister. To ease the growing budget deficit due to falling tax revenues from cuts in corporate and personal income taxes and other factors such as the Iraq War and SARS outbreak, Lee proposed on 29 August 2003 to raise the GST from three per cent to five per cent, a change that took place in January 2004.
Lee initiated several amendments to render requirements for Singapore citizenship less restrictive, notably for foreign-born children of Singaporean women.[18] The changes were made after repeated pleas from MPs and the Remaking Singapore Committee.
Visit to Taiwan[edit]
On 10 July 2004, Lee visited Taiwan, an island claimed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) that has been ruled by the Republic of China (ROC) since 1945. Even after the severing of diplomatic relations with the Republic of China on 3 October 1990 in favour of the People's Republic, the Singapore government maintains a policy of neutrality in the Cross-Strait relations between the two sides. To facilitate the policy, it was considered important for Lee to get a "personal feel for the situation" in Taiwan. Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials advised that any visit by an incumbent prime minister would be diplomatically impossible. The visit was hence planned a month before Lee assumed the premiership and in his capacity as a private citizen, not a state leader, with the PRC embassy informed on 9 July 2004. The same afternoon, the PRC government summoned the Singapore ambassador in Beijing and urged the cancellation of Lee's trip, citing the likelihood that Chen Shui Bian's administration would exploit it as a diplomatic coup and use it to promote Taiwan independence, claiming Singapore was making a "historical error". Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar replied to his counterpart Li Zhaoxing that Taiwan had been told to keep the visit low-profile and that it would proceed.[19][20]
China retaliated by cancelling several visits by high-ranking PRC officials to Singapore and delaying planned signing ceremonies, hinting that free trade negotiations would also be pushed back. The matter was further complicated and magnified when Taiwanese media headlined the visit and portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough, which raised tensions with the PRC. The Singaporean government later published the full records of the discussion with the Chinese embassy in its local media.[19]
On 28 August 2004, in his first National Day Rally speech and as prime minister, Lee criticised the Taiwanese leadership and populace over their pro-independence stance. He reiterated the reasons for the visit and said that Singapore's decision to stand firm on its vital interests had earned it international respect.[21] Relations were eventually mended when Lee met Hu Jintao at the APEC Economics Leaders' Meeting on 19 November 2004, which signified the end of the dispute.[19]
Senior Minister[edit]
Lee would assume the role of Senior Minister shortly after he officially stepped down as Prime Minister in May 2024.[91]
Personal life[edit]
Lee married his first wife, Wong Ming Yang, a Malaysian-born physician, on 20 May 1978. They have a daughter and a son, Li Xiuqi, born in 1981, and Li Yipeng, born in 1982. Three weeks after giving birth to their son, Wong died of a heart attack on 28 October 1982, at the age of 31.[198]
Lee remarried to Ho Ching in 1985, a promising civil servant who subsequently became the executive director and chief executive officer of Temasek Holdings.[199] They have two sons, Li Hongyi and Li Haoyi.[200] Their elder son, Li Hongyi, was a commissioned officer in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF),[201] and is the deputy director of the Government Technology Agency.[202][203] Their younger son, Li Haoyi, is a software engineer who authors books on the Scala programming language.[204]
Lee was initially diagnosed with lymphoma, for which he underwent chemotherapy[205] in the early 1990s.[206] He subsequently underwent a successful robot-assisted keyhole prostatectomy on 15 February 2015 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.[207][208][209]
Lee is interested in computer programming and has written a Sudoku solver in C++ in his spare time.[210]