Singapore is so fortunate to have Mr Lee Kuan Yew helming the nation. He is so well respected by Top-notch leaders from United States....
"Our trading relationship with Asean suports millions of American jobs and helps nurture the industries and opportunities of tomorrow. It is fitting that His Excellency Lee Kuan Yew will be honoured on the (US-Asean Business) Council's 25th anniversary.
"As Prime Minister of Singapore from 1965 to 1990, and through his current service as Minister Mentor, Mr Lee has been a central figure in the evolution of Asean. He has also been a constructive partner with the US in efforts to promote economic growth."
US President Barack Obama
"MM Lee's life of public service is both unique and remarkable. As Prime Minister of Singapore for more than three decades, he has been a key figure in the growth and evolution of Asean.
"His work as Prime Minister and now as Minister Mentor has helped literally millions of people in Singapore and all across South-east Asia to live better, more prosperous lives.
"I hope the leaders of Asean will continue to build upon Mr Lee Kuan Yew's outstanding legacy. I send you again my heartfelt congratulations, I thank you for honouring a man I admire so very much."
Ex-president Bill Clinton
"I first met Mr Lee Kuan Yew in 1981. Over the years, he's continued to be a trusted and important friend and ally to the United States. All of us who have worked with him have benefited from his wisdom, insights and dedication.
"Few have done so much for their country or are as deserving of recognition for lifetime service to his country and the South-east Asian region as Mr Lee. His leadership was instrumental in Singapore becoming the thriving prosperous nation it is today.
"He was visionary in recognising the need for regional architecture and he helped Asean become a force for peace and aconomic cooperation that has helped millions of people in South-east Asia raise their standards of living."
Ex-president George H.W. Bush
"He's a great man, and great leaders bridge the gap between the experience of their society and their vision...He has become a seminal figure for all of us.
"I've not learned as much from anybody as I have from Mr Lee Kuan Yew. He made himself an indispensable friend of the United States, not primarily by the power he represented but by the quality of his thinking."
"Over 40 years, when Mr Lee Kuan Yew comes to Washington, he gets to see an array of people that almost no foreign leader gets to see in such a grouping and in a mode which is unique, because he does not come as a supplicant He comes as a comrade, in common efforts, from whom we can learn, who can tell us about the nature of the world that we face. He gives us insights into the thinking of his region.
"And that is the most important challenge we face in the long term in this country - how to build a kind of fundamental and organice relationship with Asia. We have to learn to deal with Asia, not by the patterns of the Cold War, but in a way that various arms of Asia, including China, build an organic relationship across the Pacific. There is nobody who can teach us more about this than the MM."
Dr Kissinger, 86, former secretary of state and Nobel Peace Prize winner
"Not long after I took office as Secretary of State, maybe two or three weeks, I had invited (then Chancellor of West Germany) Helmut Schmidt to come to a gathering.
"At the same gathering, my great friend Henry Kissinger had invited (then) Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, our mutual friend, to come. We had the weekend and afterwards on Sunday, we went down to my house on the Standford campus and the four of us sat around the kitchen table: Helmut Schmidt, Lee Kuan Yew, Henry Kissinger and me for about three hours. Finally our wives came in and said, 'We're going to get lunch, you got to get out of here.''
But it was an intense discussion among that group. Can you imagine a seminar where a new secretary of state is sitting around for three hours listening to Kissinger, Schmidt and Lee Kuan Yew?
"Man, that was education."
"So (MM Lee), you have taught all of us a tremendous amount by what you've done, what you've said, the way you meant it when you say something, and I thank you."
Dr Shultz, 89, former secretary of state (1982-1989).
"(MM Lee) has demonstrated not only the power of his intellect but the strength of leadership at a scale that is truly of historic proportions.
"So I would ask you to join me in a toast to His Excellency, whose mark has been made on the evolution of South-east Asia in a way that is perhaps unsurpassed by any other individual, whose power of intellect and strength of his leadership will be long remembered in our history."
Senator Jim Webb, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations' subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs
"Thanks for coming and spending so much time with a group of people who not only respect you but love you. I know we don't use that word in Singapore, but still, we love you."
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs - the US state department's top Asia policy official, Kurt Campbell.
(Asiaone)
