Lee Hsien Loong

Related Category: Southeast Asia History: Biographies

1952–, prime minister of Singapore (2004–). The eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first prime minister, Lee was educated at Cambridge and Harvard while also serving (beginning in 1974) in Singapore's armed forces. Retiring as a brigadier general in 1984, he was elected to parliament and became a member of the leadership of the People's Action party two years later. A cabinet member from 1987 and deputy prime minister from 1990, he became finance minister in 2001. In 2004 he succeeded the retiring Goh Chok Tong as prime minister.