After 91 years, the hard and seemingly heartless taskmaster of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, has passed away. He has left an indelible stamp on Asian affairs stretching back to when he became the island republic's first prime minister in 1959. Lee, whose great-grandfather came from Guangdong, was merciless to opponents but also treated his countrymen to a sort of "tough love" they had no choice but to bear in order to improve themselves. Their patience paid off when in little more than a decade Lee pulled Singapore up by the bootstraps, transforming it from a British colonial backwater into one of Asia's biggest economic success stories.

Lee's success carries a strong message for us today when many governments are swayed by populist politics rather than doing what is right in the long-term interests of their countrymen.

His biggest gamble came in 1965 when Singapore was expelled from its neighbor, Malaysia, to go it alone. Faced with one formidable handicap after another - ethnic time bombs, massive unemployment, a lack of resources, low levels of literacy and so on - he laid out the problems to his people with unflinching candor, told them what needed to be done, and ensured his countrymen shared the pain. It was never his style to make false promises to win over an electorate. That he managed to overcome one major obstacle after another only goes to show that firm, visionary leadership in fighting for a community's long-term interests cannot be held back by populist politics, as Hong Kong appears to have been saddled with for some time.

Lee's broadmindedness and genius for reconciliation and persuasion made him a world statesman whose advice was regularly sought by the great and the good. He was instrumental in persuading Mao Zedong's China and President Richard Nixon's US that each stood to gain by being more accepting of the other.

Contrast this with the endless squabbles between Hong Kong people and mainlanders - both of Chinese descent - over the latter's visits to Hong Kong that create minor inconveniences nowhere near as critical as those faced by Lee. We should hang our heads in shame at the way some Hong Kong people carry on under the pretext of protecting our interests, while abusing mainland visitors.

Lee understood the crucial importance of home ownership to give his people a sense of belonging and instill loyalty to a new nation. One has to wonder how much more satisfied Hong Kong people would be with their lot individually, and how much more cohesive and harmonious as a group if the majority were able to own their homes, or at least had such ownership been within their grasp, in contrast to our current state of affairs where even many middle-class professionals cannot afford to buy their own homes.

Singapore was in a truly sorry state when Lee first became prime minister after it was expelled from Malaysia as the result of a failed attempt at federation. By getting on with various critical projects designed to address the new nation's needs for foreign investment, jobs, improved infrastructure, education, and even basic food and water supplies, a new positive communal spirit began to take root, probably best described by ordinary people's feelings that "we're all in this together" - a spirit prompted by Lee's dynamic leadership and uncompromising form of "tough love". The tiny nation's phenomenal success, despite its minuscule size, speaks volumes of the efficacy of Lee's "prescribed bitter medicine" which Hong Kong probably should consider taking to extricate itself out of its current malaise.

In contrast, Hong Kong in recent years clearly has been resting on its laurels and coasting on its previous successes. So funding for many of our critical public projects has been vetoed by a politicized Legislative Council, many of whom claim to be "democrats" while consistently prioritizing their own petty political agendas, often at the expense of public interest. The result is that our community spirit is now capricious or pessimistic at best and our much vaunted "Hong Kong spirit", our "can-do" attitude and harmony, all long distant memories.

With China disengaging itself until the late 1970s, Singapore built on its successes to become the "Little Tiger" of Asia during that era, playing a supporting role to pace setters like Japan and South Korea while setting up a rough-and-tumble rivalry with Hong Kong that continues to this day. Unfortunately for us, we have apparently been on the losing end of this healthy competition in recent years on various fronts including GDP growth, university rankings and business friendly environment, to name but a few parameters.

Civil servants in Singapore and Hong Kong are among the highest paid in the world, justifiably so, in view of their relatively corrupt free record. But if salaries were to be pegged to performance, I fear our public servants should have taken salary cuts in recent years. Their lackluster performance is there for the world to see, and judge. Let us hope the recent blanket media coverage on the historic achievements of Lee and his hard-driving team against overwhelming odds can inspire Hong Kong officials to take the bull by the horns and tackle many of our simmering issues in the style of the late great Lee Kuan Yew.

The author is a former journalist and civil servant.

(HK Edition 03/25/2015 page10)