I have seen how Mr Lee Kuan Yew responded to protests. This was in Hong Kong - Dec 7, 2000. It was an episode I will never forget, as it revealed what, in the end, counted most for him.
He had gone to Hong Kong to receive his honorary doctorate in law from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
In the month leading up to the ceremony, some student activists had mounted a campaign against Mr Lee, denouncing him as a "notorious dictator", a "legal terrorist" and as being "anti-Chinese education".
They challenged the university's decision to confer on him the degree - the first foreign political leader to be given such an honour.
Their agitation was part of the thriving protest culture in Hong Kong, as if to proclaim like a loud-hailer its democratic credentials after its transition in 1997 from British rule to Beijing's control.
I was covering Mr Lee's three-day visit to Hong Kong as The Straits Times' senior political correspondent, and was struck by how little the student activists actually knew about Singapore.
It was telling that the 21-year-old student leading the campaign - the students' union president - had never been to Singapore.
Despite the controversy, Mr Lee turned up in Hong Kong out of a desire to maintain Singapore's good relations with the territory.
At the ceremony, the university gave Mr Lee a glowing tribute - he was hailed, among other things, as "one of the great statesmen of the last century in any country, and a brilliant politician, who has become a valued adviser of many governments besides that of Singapore".
The accolades seemed to roll off Mr Lee.
He wore a no-nonsense expression as he faced the 4,000 graduating students before him.
While some students withheld their applause, none turned their backs on him, as urged by their students' union.
The mood was taut. A clutch of student protesters, cordoned off at the far end of the convocation area, chanted: "Shame on Chinese U!", "Shame on Lee!"
Amid the muffled clamour, Mr Lee addressed the graduands in a matter-of-fact tone.
With his forthright manner, he held their rapt attention as he told them that the future of Hong Kong was what the people and leaders of Hong Kong made of it.
Then he stated some hard facts on Hong Kong's future which would prove prescient.
Pointing out the political chasm between Hong Kong and China, he said he believed there could be advances for Hong Kong to have a more representative and participatory government "if they can persuade the leaders in Beijing that they are willing to work within the framework of the People's Republic of China and Special Administrative Region constitutions".
He warned that failure to do so would find the Chief Executive and the people of Hong Kong locked in a "frustrating process of attrition" with Beijing.
He could well be describing the political situation in Hong Kong today, with the city in a deadlock over an electoral reform proposal by Beijing.
But, at the time in 2000, some foreign journalists were more seized with the students' protest than Mr Lee's analysis. They pressed him for his response to the protest.
Without a pause, he responded: He did not come to seek the approval of the protesters in Hong Kong. "I've been called many bad things before and I have survived them all. I have been elected in Singapore eight times in eight democratic elections by the people of Singapore."
And that was that, his final word on that subject.
Following the event, several Hong Kong newspapers called the protest against Mr Lee a failure.
- Irene Ng, then ST's senior political correspondent
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