Excerpts from George Yeo's introduction to the published volume of his speeches, published in yesterday's ST with the headline The Tao of Life after Politics.

During his first term as Chief Minister of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu compared the workings of Singapore to nano-technology. Yes, we are small but we pack a lot into a tiny space and are able to network Singapore to the entire world. Singapore is of interest to many people because, though small, it has all the attributes of a country, unlike Hong Kong. Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner encouraged Singapore to study the genome of the fugu fish some years ago because it has the shortest genome among vertebrates. This made it easier to relate gene to function. Singapore is like the fugu fish.

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Between China and India, they are more likely to cooperate than to fight. Except for a minor border war in 1962, which has been largely forgotten in China, the long history of contact between them has been peaceful. Each recognises the other as an ancient people. I have the privilege of joining Amartya Sen, Wang Gungwu and others in reviving an ancient Indian university in the state of Bihar. For centuries, Nalanda was a great university attracting students from different parts of Asia, the most famous being the two great Buddhist monks from Tang China - Xuan Zang and Yi Jing. It was from the records of these two monks that India recovered a large chunk of its own history.

Nalanda was a light to the world and, hopefully, will be again, promoting the philosophy of man living in harmony with man, man living in harmony with nature, and man living as part of nature.

This ideal is not only desirable today, it is a necessity. The greatest danger in the age we live is technological development racing too far ahead of man's moral development. We need men of goodwill coming together from all directions to reflect on the moral challenges of our times and help point the way forward. Nalanda can provide one such meeting place. I hope, Singapore, another.