With strong economic recovery, Goh Chok Tong decided the time was right for the long-anticipated handover of Singapore's prime ministership to Lee Hsien Loong. In foreign relations, the earlier leadership change in Malaysia fostered improved bilateral ties, but a visit by Lee to Taiwan generated friction with Chinese authorities. Politics After years of speculation about the timing and terms of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's resignation, on August 12, 2004, Lee Hsien Loong was sworn in as the

more »

... ird prime minister in Singapore's 39 years of independence. The 52-year-old son of Lee Kuan Yew served a 14-year apprenticeship as deputy prime minister as Goh defied early expectations that he would be merely a "seat warmer" in an ultimately dynastic transfer of power from father to son. Pivotal to Singapore's economic policy during that period, Lee now has the opportunity to exert a more pervasive influence on national development. Exactly what that influence might be was the focus of extensive media speculation in 2004, with Lee and his image-makers working hard to dispel popular perceptions that he represents a reversion to a more overtly authoritarian style of politics. Lee redoubled efforts to project himself as committed to Goh's "kinder and gentler" style of government, starting with a speech to Singapore's Harvard Club in January in which he declared that he had "no doubt that our society must open up further." His swearing-in and maiden National Day Rally speeches in August amplified on this rhetoric. Lee announced that