Singapore

Singapore state institutions Nationalism 1923–2015 ○ Natural causes

Singapore’s founding prime minister, who led the city-state through independence and its early development

Lee co-founded the People's Action Party in 1954 and served as Singapore's prime minister from 1959 to 1990. He pursued merger with Malaya, helping form Malaysia in 1963, but Singapore separated from the federation and became independent in 1965. His government drove industrialisation and expanded public housing and education, while also using defamation law and detention without trial and restricting the press, public assembly, labour activism and civil liberties. He met Deng Xiaoping in 1978 to discuss Vietnam and later helped shape ASEAN's opposition to Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia.