> Isn't Singapore political system famously authoritarian capitalist Most of Southeast Asia is increasingly authoritarian. > its people ethnically Chinese? M

> Isn't Singapore political system famously authoritarian capitalist Most of Southeast Asia is increasingly authoritarian. > its people ethnically Chinese? Mostly (this is a trivial Google), but importantly not entirely. Singapore was the last country to recognise the PRC instead of Taiwan. This was for good reason. First, Singapore maintains internal harmony by pretending to be multiracial. (It isn’t, obviously—the best candidate for the PM by far was ignored because “the people aren’t ready for a non-Chinese PM”, even though he was the most popular.) This involves insisting on English translators when visiting China, asserting independence, doing military drills in Taiwan, etc. Second, Singapore historically had to do the same thing to convince its neighbours that it was not a Chinese puppet. But the crucial difference is that Singapore optimises for minimal oppression given a certain developmental outcome, whereas China doesn’t. Repression in Xinjiang, the Tienanmen Square massacre, current crackdowns on liberal thinktanks, etc. are not necessary to secure the régime. No Singaporean government would bother. (That is why New Naratif is still around.) Singapore is in fact qualitatively distinct from almost all other authoritarian states in that it requires extremely little oppression in view of the outcomes achieved compared to any other state, where the tradeoff is much worse.