The full 8,000-word transcript of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal editorial board has just been uploaded onto the Prime Minister's Office website, cut up into 12 topics:

1. On America’s Role in Asia and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

2. On Continuity in Chinese Policy

3. On South China Sea

4. On Thailand

5. On the global economic slowdown and impact on the region

6. On the ISIS threat in Southeast Asia

7. On Malaysia

8. On Taiwan

9. On the US Presidential campaign

10. On identity in China

11. On North Korea

12. On Singapore politics

The interview, which initially took place on March 29 when PM Lee was on a working visit to the United States to attend the 4th Nuclear Security Summit, was subsequently written up and published by the WSJ on March 31.

The article, "Lee Hsien Loong’s American Exceptionalism", painted Singapore's prime minister not only in a charitably positive light, but even marvelled at his grasp of America's current political realities and standing in the world in prickly relation to China and other countries in the region.

Accompanying coverage of this interview can also be on The Straits Times and Channel News Asia, albeit in highly truncated forms.

On hindsight, reading all three news reports with the benefit of the full transcript, one is able to draw some conclusions by making comparisons across the board:

Channel News Asia: Pretty much made a hash out of their coverage, which not only was the most pedestrian of the lot, but to the extent that they did just the bare minimum of bothering to contextualise the piece before slapping on chunks of quotes.

Wall Street Journal: Obviously, they are the most balanced, but they failed to include one astute but sensitive quote from PM Lee, which made reference to the beginnings of World War II. This was to make a point about the current US election season, where candidates posing as demagogues (or demagogues posing as candidates) are running free, which may have serious consequences internationally.

The Straits Times: They did pick up on that WWII quote, and overall, presented a more scathing interpretation of PM Lee's view on what is going down in America.

Regardless, here are 10 quotes from PM Lee's WSJ interview, most of which were not highlighted in the media, but will serve as your introduction to international relations from a Singaporean perspective:

1. The consequences of Donald Trump

"We have a stake, but we have no say. We have to live with the outcome. We see what is happening, it is quite a departure from the way politics has traditionally been conducted even in America..."

- On America election season now and its subsequent outcome

2. The Fourth Estate

"You believe in your system, with checks and balances, you can have somebody who is far from ideal become the President and the system will prevent him from doing harm. And so far, it has worked in the sense that you have had Presidents who have not measured up, but after some time, well, the world comes back."

- On the resilience of the American system

3. The perceived rigged international economic system

"At first, very sceptically, now quizzically. But I think that they are keeping an open mind. They believe that you are trying to create rules which will favour you and they will see whether at some point it makes sense for them to be part of this game."

- On how China views the Obama administration’s unratified Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal

4. The parallels with World War II

"But I do not think you have ever had such an extreme menu of choices as you have in this election, choices which are likely to end up on the ballot paper. If you do, there are precedents. In Asia, you can write those off as unstable, immature democracies, but in Europe, before the War, such stress led to very extreme outcomes in Germany, in Italy and in the end, you had a very unhappy result."

- On the uncharacteristic way the current election season in US has played out

5. The Thailand conundrum

"I think they are in the transition, they are anxiously watching the succession to a new Monarch in due course, and wondering how the system will work with a new Monarch in place, having gotten used to a very dominant and revered figure over the last 60-something years. Thailand has a very difficult problem to solve because if you go purely on parliamentary democracy rules, like you would in Britain, it probably is not governable because the elite will not feel themselves part of this. And if you just work on the basis of the elite being in charge and chuck the parliamentary rules out of the window, you also, in this day and age, will find it very difficult to run a modern economy and society."

- On the unique challenges Thailand is facing

6. The downside of being an advanced economy

"We in Singapore have to get used to a slowdown, for a different reason. It is because our own economy is at an inflection point. We have to grow by transformation and by productivity and that is a slog because the obvious things have already been done. We do not have farmers to convert them to factory workers."

- On what the Singapore economy needs to do

7. The slightly awkward, but cosy relationship with the Malaysian PM

"There are investigations which are going on, including in Singapore. We have frozen some accounts and we are pursuing the investigations. Reading the newspapers, other jurisdictions are also pursuing investigations – Americans, Swiss and others. We will have to see where the investigations lead. It is premature to say anything about them. Najib is somebody whom we have worked with, known a long time and worked well with and been able to do business with. We have a very constructive relationship with him and his government, and we hope that that will continue."

- On Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak

8. The instability up north will cause tremors here

"The basis of politics in Malaysia has always been race, and religion – Islam – has become a much bigger factor over the years, and I think that will continue. I do not know how the next election will turn out. In the last several elections, there have been surprises, but if you do not have a basis for governing Malaysia which will maintain social stability and racial harmony under Malaysian rules, that will mean a lot of uncertainty for them and undoubtedly impact on us."

- On UMNO losing power in Malaysia

9. The slightly abnormal calling of extremists in Singapore

"That is not our pattern. One of the persons was a lawyer, went to law school in Singapore. He was in a very well-known school before that. The others are not down-and-outs who turn to this out of desperation."

- On the unique nature of Singapore's extremist threat

10. The hermetic state of North Korea is as equally off limits to everyone

"We have no insights, we just know what everybody else knows, but we are concerned because you cannot tell what they will do. They are not mad but they are doing brinksmanship and they can miscalculate or there can be an accident. Even if there is no precipitated disaster, over time, it will change the attitudes in South Korea and Japan. It is taboo to talk about nuclear options, but I am sure the thoughts are not absent to think about developing nuclear capabilities."

- On North Korea

Top photo via Lee Hsien Loong Facebook

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