Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Kishore Mahbubani, wrote in his book The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistable Shift of Global Power to the East (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008):

The Western notion of the rule of law, in which all human beings are to be treated equally under the law and all citizens subject to the same laws, goes against the grain in Asian minds... Indeed, in the minds of the [Asian] ruling classes, the only function of the law was to enable them to discipline their subjects... To the Western mind, in contrast, the rule of law is to protect the individual citizen from arbitrary use of the powers of government. (p.85)

I'm pretty sure that Mahbubani did not intend to include Singapore as part of those terrible Asian ruling classes. And the Singaporean mind is not a Western one either (leaving cultural determinism aside).

In Asia, virtually all the elites (with the possible exception of those in North Korea and Myanmar) recognize that they have to gravitate towards greater respect for the rule of law. They know equally well that is impossible to build a modern society and a modern economy without a modern rule of law. This is the pill that all Asian societies will have to swallow, bitter though it may be in the early years of application. (p.90)

Will be very bitter for non-ruling classes meh? Also 'greater respect for the rule of law' seems to suggest to me that, over time, with increased economic development and social complexity, politics needs to shift from the rule of/by good men to greater reliance on institutions (in both senses i.e. the types that reside in buildings and the types that reside in norms).

In theory, China enjoys the same rule of law found in other modern societies... The Chinese government also realizes that no modern economy can function without effective rule of law. If China, for example, cannot provide the same property rights enjoyed by other modern societies, that fact alone will eventually stifle China's economic development. (p.138)

So there we have it: you can have 'the same rule of law' but only 'in theory'. Would have loved to seen him elaborate on that. And it's nice to read that civil and political rights are not just Good To Have on their own but also intrinsically linked to that supreme pragmatic good of economic growth.