Ex-UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cites Lee Kuan Yew's 'poisonous shrimp' quotation during global power debate

At the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi, India, earlier this week, former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak quoted Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, mentioning the “poisonous shrimp” metaphor from a speech Mr Lee had delivered in 1966, the year after the city-state became Independent. 

Mr Sunak said that the so-called middle powers should build strategic economic leverage amid an increasingly competitive world.

Middle powers are the countries that have considerable global influence, but rank below “great” powers such as the United States, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

Canada, Australia, South Korea, and Sweden are examples of middle powers, as are Singapore and Indonesia.

Mr Sunak said that these countries, though limited in scope, have something to bring to the table by exerting control over a key part of an industry, for example.

“Remember a little bit what Lee Kuan Yew said about Singapore when he talked about the big fish eating the small fish, and the small fish eating the shrimp. And he was thinking about what Singapore's path was going to be in the world, and it was: We have to make ourselves a poisonous shrimp. And what does that mean in today’s world economically? 

Whilst these middle powers can’t be independent, can’t operate out of scale as the big ones, what they can do is make themselves indispensable,” he said.

In a speech at the University of Singapore (now NUS), Mr Lee had said, “In a world where the big fish eat small fish, and the small fish eat shrimps, Singapore must become a poisonous shrimp.” 

Mr Sunak said that economic leverage is one way for middle powers to ensure they don’t get devoured.

“You bring something to the table that everyone else needs and wants — you don’t have to provide the whole buffet,” he added.

The former Prime Minister of the UK, whose term was from July to November 2024, joins a long line of world leaders who have quoted, honoured, or admired Mr Lee, who led Singapore from 1959 to 1990, and arguably played the most important role in transforming it into the global hub it is today.

Former US President Barack Obama quoted the Singaporean leader when his son, then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, visited the White House in 2016.

In reference to Singapore and the US, Mr Obama said, “Both are populations of triers,” going on to quote Mr Lee, who had said they are “prepared to try anything to improve themselves. [We] have only the future to go in quest of.”

A year before that, US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter mentioned a quote from Mr Lee that said, “Anybody who thinks he's a statesman needs to see a psychiatrist.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, in the context of social welfare for his country, quoted Mr Lee, who said in 2000, “Before distributing the pie, I had first to bake it.” /TISG

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