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I don't think it's fair to compare Singapore to its neighbours considering how it was colonized. It's better to make the comparison with Hong Kong which enjoys

I don't think it's fair to compare Singapore to its neighbours considering how it was colonized. It's better to make the comparison with Hong Kong which enjoys much more freedom (even post 1997) than Singapore.

rdl 13y ago
I love Hong Kong (probably my favorite city in the world), but in the case of Singapore and Malaysia (which were the most closely tied), I'd rather be from the worst-off group in Singapore (Malay?) than from the best off group in Singapore (politically connected and Malay, except maybe from the top few families), so a lot of it was due to PAP and post-1965 actions. If you're Chinese or Indian it's even more clear which country is going to give you more opportunity to succeed. The strangest thing is reading about how relatively poor Singapore and even Hong Kong were in the 1970s and early 1980s; it was really the opening up of China, end of the Cold War, and explosion in trade (as well as government policies in each which benefitted from these trends) which turned them into such amazing countries.
- this_user 13y ago
  It's easy to forget and hard to imagine from a 2013 point of view, but South Korea was among the poorest countries in the world only decades earlier.
  - hackerboos 13y ago
    That's what happens when you ignore the IMF (well until '97) and have the death penalty for capital flight.
JDShu 13y ago
If you make that comparison, I would say Singapore has been a much more successful economy. Hong Kong is stuck in it's role as a financial center, of which it's competitive advantage is getting eroded. Plus that 'competitive advantage' really boils down to knowing how to speak English and having extremely low wages for a developed economy. On the other hand, Singapore has successfully transitioned from being a financial center to the technological capital of East Asia. Something that the Hong Kong government desperately wants to do, but continues to fail at. And I am not even going to go into the current political storm. Hong Kong is probably the more interesting city (I'm biased of course, having lived there for years and consider it my home away from home away from home) but out of the HK-Singapore rivalry, I think Singapore has the upper hand. /rant
- rdl 13y ago
  Hong Kong has the "curse" (in the sense of resource curse) of being the "Gateway to China" -- I can't think of anything else a business could do in Hong Kong which is of higher value and return than that. It'll crowd out any other rational productive economic activity.

rdl 13y ago

I love Hong Kong (probably my favorite city in the world), but in the case of Singapore and Malaysia (which were the most closely tied), I'd rather be from the worst-off group in Singapore (Malay?) than from the best off group in Singapore (politically connected and Malay, except maybe from the top few families), so a lot of it was due to PAP and post-1965 actions. If you're Chinese or Indian it's even more clear which country is going to give you more opportunity to succeed. The strangest thing is reading about how relatively poor Singapore and even Hong Kong were in the 1970s and early 1980s; it was really the opening up of China, end of the Cold War, and explosion in trade (as well as government policies in each which benefitted from these trends) which turned them into such amazing countries.

this_user 13y ago
It's easy to forget and hard to imagine from a 2013 point of view, but South Korea was among the poorest countries in the world only decades earlier.
- hackerboos 13y ago
  That's what happens when you ignore the IMF (well until '97) and have the death penalty for capital flight.

JDShu 13y ago

If you make that comparison, I would say Singapore has been a much more successful economy. Hong Kong is stuck in it's role as a financial center, of which it's competitive advantage is getting eroded. Plus that 'competitive advantage' really boils down to knowing how to speak English and having extremely low wages for a developed economy. On the other hand, Singapore has successfully transitioned from being a financial center to the technological capital of East Asia. Something that the Hong Kong government desperately wants to do, but continues to fail at. And I am not even going to go into the current political storm. Hong Kong is probably the more interesting city (I'm biased of course, having lived there for years and consider it my home away from home away from home) but out of the HK-Singapore rivalry, I think Singapore has the upper hand. /rant

rdl 13y ago
Hong Kong has the "curse" (in the sense of resource curse) of being the "Gateway to China" -- I can't think of anything else a business could do in Hong Kong which is of higher value and return than that. It'll crowd out any other rational productive economic activity.