There was a great emperor who made a great history of Japan was Meiji. Meiji was a great time of Japanese revolutions and transformation. His main idea was to “seek knowledge everywhere to empower the empire and change what were useless to be the useful”. He opened Japan to the world by sending his ministers and students to learn everywhere and every skill, technology, military, philosophy, economy, industries, and the model of development from the west. It was the idea that what the modern society can do, Japan must catch up. Internally, he tried to reforms the traditional and outdated system, passive ideas, and he hired experts from the foreign countries to teach his people.
Japan became the great power that was able to modernize and catch up the West and US, and many things were dramatically changed. Now, let turn to the history of Singaporean development. Lee Kuan yew also opened his countries to the foreign investment, sent the minister and student to learn abroad, bringing in the skill and technology, focused on capacity and disciplinary of minister and people, and made Singapore to be the international financial and technological hub. Lee also admired Deng Xiaoping as a great and genuine leader.
Lee said Deng went to visit him and discussed about the matter of development and Deng did what he told. He said to a public forum “China bring all the markets and let them compete among themselves, which require to use Chinese workers, Chinese engineer, Chinese manager, at the end, they can do final product over time. Every Moto-manufacturing cooperation in the world is in China, whether alone or joint adventure, and they have to employ Chinese. Open up, I learn from you, I catch up, I innovate, and then I compete with you”. Lee said Deng went down to the major cities and said “Learn from abroad, but most of all, learn from Singapore, because it got a good system, good discipline, and do it better than them”.
