Under The Angsana Tree: Li Hongyi & Li Shengwu: 2 latest Internet sensation from the Lee family

Update 24 Jan 2020: “Could you please leave me out of this?” – Hongyi tells Shengwu

In response to Shengwu’s most recent revelation that he has decided to remove Hongyi from his Facebook friends list, the Prime Minister’s son wrote on Facebook: “I don’t know whats going on between you and the government, but I’ve got nothing to do with it. Could you please leave me out of this?”

Claiming that he has “really tried to not be involved as far as possible,” Hongyi said: “If there’s something I’ve done that’s led you to believe otherwise, I would be happy to talk with you about it. It’s a bit disconcerting to be repeatedly publicly accused of undermining democracy without understanding why.”

He added: “I would prefer not to have done this over public facebook posts. But I suppose thats (sic) how we communicate nowadays.”

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Rift between Lee cousins widens: Shengwu removes Hongyi from his Facebook friends list

The relationship between Singapore founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s grandsons Li Shengwu and Li Hongyi appears to be as fractured as ever

Shengwu revealed on Facebook this evening (22 Jan) that he has removed Hongyi from his Facebook friends list.

Hongyi, 32, is the son of Lee Kuan Yew’s eldest son, current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, while Shengwu, 34, is the eldest son of Lee Hsien Yang — Lee Kuan Yew’s youngest son.

Shengwu and Hongyi were once described as “very close”. The cousins, who drew attention when they delivered eulogies at their grandfather’s funeral in 2015, were both in the west coast of the United States at one point as Shengwu was pursuing his PhD at Stanford University and Hongyi was working at Google in Silicon Valley.

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PM Lee’s Nephew Supports Pink Dot

And The Event Reached Max Capacity

Thousands of Singaporeans flocked to Hong Lim Park on Saturday (July 1), as the much-anticipated Pink Dot was held after overcoming many obstacles.

Among them: Foreign sponsorship was banned, which led to local companies filling in the gap; foreigners were banned entirely, leading to barricades being erected around the park; and people complained over even the event’s ad at Orchard Cineleisure.

In happier news, however, Paralympian Theresa Goh came out and became a Pink Dot ambassador. Here she is at the event,

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Third generation Lee weighs in

SOON after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (PM Lee) two siblings publicly denounced him in a joint statement (read here) in the early hours of Wednesday, his nephew, Mr Li Shengwu wrote a Facebook post supporting the statement against his uncle.

Mr Li Shengwu is Mr Lee Hsien Yang’s first born. He is also the first of the third generation of the Lee family to make a public comment on the matter.

Mr Lee Hsien Yang, and his wife Mrs Lee Suet Fern, have two other sons: Mr Li Huanwu and Mr Li Shaowu. Mr Lee made the joint statement with his sister, Dr Lee Wei Ling. She has no children of her own.

related: “We do not trust Hsien Loong as a brother or as a leader. We have lost confidence in him.”

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Li Huanwu also not interested

Thankfully all of you know better than to even speculate about any interst in politics on my part.

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Li Shengwu: Does not intend to go into politics, and believes it is bad for Singapore if third-generation Lee went into politics

Li Shengwu, eldest son of Lee Hsien Yang and grandson of late Lee Kuan Yew has posted on his Facebook commenting that he has no intention of going into politics.

Sharing that he had given a statement to international news outlet, AFP, he stated that not only he intends never to go into politics, he believes that it would be bad for Singapore if any third-generation Lee went into politics and that the country must be bigger than one family.

He further wrote:

Today we are going to learn a lot about the country of my birth. We are going to learn whether (as I hope) the ruling party is still full of men and women of quality and strong character, or whether "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

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Shengwu Li 12 hrs

Twelve hours ago I gave the following statement to AFP: "Not only do I intend never to go into politics, I believe that it would be bad for Singapore if any third-generation Lee went into politics. The country must be bigger than one family."

Today we are going to learn a lot about the country of my birth. We are going to learn whether (as I hope) the ruling party is still full of men and women of quality and strong character, or whether "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

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Li Shengwu declares he will never go into politics: The country must be bigger than one family

An interesting aspect of this entire Lee saga has been the responses by the third-generation Lees

The first Lee / Li to comment on it was Lee Hsien Yang’s son, Li Shengwu. Lee Hsieng Loong’s son, Li Hongyi has also commented on the issue, but in a noticeably stripped down manner.

Now, Shengwu has responded once again, this time, because he had not made it clear whether or not he might ever enter politics in Singapore in the future:

Twelve hours ago I gave the following statement to AFP: "Not only do I intend never to go into politics, I believe that it would be bad for Singapore if any third-generation Lee went into politics. The country must be bigger than one family."
Today we are going to learn a lot about the country of my birth. We are going to learn whether (as I hope) the ruling party is still full of men and women of quality and strong character, or whether "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

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Shengwu Li shared Lee Hsien Yang's post 9 hrs

I generally avoid commenting on Singapore politics, but this is an exception.

In the last few years, my immediate family has become increasingly worried about the lack of checks on abuse of power. The situation is now such that my parents have made plans to relocate to another country, a painful decision that they have not made lightly. The details are below.

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Lee Hsien Yang’s son Li Shengwu backs up dad’s and aunt’s statement on PM Lee and Ho Ching

And here’s what he said, in case you can’t see it:

“I generally avoid commenting on Singapore politics, but this is an exception. In the last few years, my immediate family has become increasingly worried about the lack of checks on abuse of power. The situation is now such that my parents have made plans to relocate to another country, a painful decision that they have not made lightly. The details are below.”

It’s fascinating that Li also finds it necessary to speak up about this — when the essence of his dad and aunt’s statement appears to chiefly centre on the demolition of the late Lee’s house on 38, Oxley Road.

Li posted this at 2:19am on his Facebook page. In response to a friend of his who asked him why it wasn’t out in Singapore’s media yet (we were busy sleeping, for one), he said this

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Lee Hsien Loong’s son has just responded to this whole Lee family saga

One of the assertions made by both Lee Wei Ling, and Lee Hsien Yang was that Lee Hsien Loong was moulding his son to enter politics.

“His popularity is inextricably linked to Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy. His political power is drawn from his being Lee Kuan Yew’s son. We have observed that Hsien Loong and Ho Ching want to milk Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy for their own political purposes. We also believe, based on our interactions, that they harbour political ambitions for their son, Li Hongyi.”

Well, the man himself has answered the call for clarity. Here’s what he had to say: “For what it is worth, I really have no interest in politics”

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Hongyi Li 5 hrs

“For what it is worth, I really have no interest in politics”

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PM Lee’s Son Li Hongyi Announces He Has No Interest In Politics

Dr Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang made a lot of allegations in Singapore’s most read PDF of the year. In one of their allegations, they stated:

“We also believe, based on our interactions, that they (PM Lee and Ho Ching) harbour political ambitions for their son, Li Hongyi.”

While we lack the knowledge to comment on most of the allegations, this one seemed off to us. Because we ran a story last year on Li Hongyi which included PM Lee’s remarks of how his children were not interested in joining politics.

PM Lee’s second son Li Hongyi finally broke his silence in the Lee family dispute with a status update on his personal Facebook page, posted one hour ago.

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related:
The famiLEE feud: "Sporeans 'sick & tired of endless' Oxley Road allegations"
The famiLEE feud: "Past three days"
The famiLEE feud: "Will of Wills"
How international media are covering the FamiLEE feud
What has happened to Lee Kuan Yew's values?

Will one of them change their surname to "Lee" soon?

Li Hongyi’s eulogy

Relationship to the Lee family: Second son of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
Age: 28 years old
Where is he now? Working at the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
Achievements: Received a Public Service Commission scholarship and studied economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mothership.sg’s eligibility rating: Had PM Lee’s soulful deep voice.
Best line: “We should remember him less as a man who gave us great gifts, and more as a man who showed us the kind of people we could be.”
Mentions in the media:

In The Straits Times, Jul 13. 2007, Hongyi was reprimanded by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) for not following proper procedures in e-mailing a letter of complaint to many other servicemen. He alleged that another officer from his unit, had been absent without leave or AWOL on two occasions.
In The Straits Times today, Ho Ching, the wife of PM Lee, recounted how Hongyi set up a portrait of his late grandfather at his lying-in-state at Parliament House last week.

Li Shengwu’s eulogy

Relationship to Lee family: Eldest son of corporate chief Lee Hsien Yang
Age: 30 years old
Where is he now? PhD. candidate in Economics at Stanford University
Achievements: Best Speaker at the Worlds Universities Debating Championships, the most prestigious debating tournament in the world, Clarendon Scholarship, Overseas Research Scholarship
Mothership.sg’s eligibility rating: Had the boy-next-door look that heart-lander aunties like.
Best line: “When Singapore was cut adrift from Malaysia, you adopted an orphaned nation and made us all your children.”
Mentions in the media:

In The Straits Times, Aug 18. 2009, Shengwu was one of the three Singaporeans who topped their respective courses at Oxford University.
In The Straits Times, Jan 9. 2010, Shengwu was crowned Best Speaker at the World Universities Debating Championships in Turkey, the third Singaporean to receive the award.

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If Amos Yee pk Li Shengwu 1-on-1 in 国际大专辩论会.. who do u think will win?

related: 6. He was compared to Amos Yee

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Singapore's arrest of a 16-year-old YouTuber is all you need to know about Lee Kuan Yew's legacy

Amos Yee's rant

While Singapore mourned the death of its founding father, there was one teenager who wasn't so upset. "Lee Kuan Yew is dead, finally," proclaimed 16-year-old Amos Yee. "Why has hasn’t anyone said, 'f**k yeah, the guy is dead'?"

In a YouTube video uploaded last Friday, the Singaporean teenager criticised Lee Kuan Yew (also known as LKY), who ruled the country for over three decades and passed away last week at the age of 91, and called him "a horrible person".

On his personal website, Amos also uploaded an amateur drawing of LKY having sex with Margaret Thatcher, who was one of his many admirers. "I encourage more fellow Singaporeans who have any artistic abilities [to do the same]," he wrote.

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Arrest of Amos Yee makes world news

On Sunday (29 Mar), 17-year-old Amos Yee was arrested for a video he posted that celebrated the death of Singapore’s former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The 8-minute video included remarks about Christianity that some people found insensitive.

More than 20 police reports have reportedly been filed against Amos over the video as well as obscene material allegedly posted on his blog. Both the video and the blog post have since been taken down.

In a statement yesterday (30 Mar), police said Amos will face charges in court today under Section 298 of the Penal Code for utterances against Christians with “deliberate intent to wound religious feelings”. Other charges include circulating an obscene object and making threatening, abusive or insulting communication which is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. Meanwhile, news of the arrest has made headlines around the world:

related: 13-year-old Amos Yee wins top film prizes

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