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‘Illiberal democracy’

In more than 70 years, Singapore has had just three prime ministers, including Lee Kuan Yew and his son Lee Hsien Loong. The latter, in power since 2004, has promised to retire soon, bringing a long-awaited end to the dynasty – but that wait goes on. Years before the expression (and the reality it describes) became widespread, Singapore established an ‘illiberal democracy’, which carries on to this day. People have the right to vote, but the opposition parties are kept in check; the right to strike is inscribed in the constitution but impossible to exercise – when bus drivers did so in 2012, their action was declared illegal and their leaders were arrested. There have been no strikes since.

Still, hardly anyone questions the system. This is partly because ‘we always feel like we’re in a battle for survival,’ says Wei Chen Tan, a former high official with a Chinese background, whose family arrived at the turn of the last century and ‘is nothing like the mainland Chinese’. Fear of immigrants, including wealthy ones from Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong, is high among the upper class.

What’s more, the government is not simply repressive, notes Stéphane Le Queux, a senior lecturer in employment relations at James Cook University. ‘It delivers wellbeing. The state, the union and employers share a common objective: ensuring social peace and economic growth.’ Indeed, in the 1970s and ’80s, this ‘red dot’ on the world map, as former Indonesian president BJ Habibie scornfully described Singapore, became one of the four Asian dragons – along with South Korea, Hong Kong (then under British rule) and Taiwan. Although their human rights records were less than dazzling, these dragons were a boon to the multinationals flooding the globe with low-end products. Over the following decade, Singapore would serve as a blueprint for Beijing as it built an export-heavy economy with its skilled and docile labour force, which would enjoy increasing quality of life and which will be replaced by immigrants in the future.

‘When China opened up, Lee Kuan Yew immediately saw that he should concentrate development on cutting-edge industries and leverage Singapore’s strategic location to make it an indispensable nexus,’ says Wei Chen Tan, who openly admires the ‘nation’s founding father’ for his foresight and focus on education. He neglects to mention that the island quickly took on the trappings of a tax haven to attract foreign investment, which came to nearly $200bn by 2022, the year Singapore became the world’s foremost financial centre; some call it the ‘Switzerland of Asia’, and it serves as a model for Dubai. Nearly half of the largest Asian corporations now keep offices there. Rumour has it (but no official would confirm) that many foreign companies active in Hong Kong have transferred their assets to Singapore. In any case, ‘family offices’ – wealth managers for the ultrarich from Hong Kong and China – have proliferated: the Monetary Authority of Singapore counted 700 in 2021, where there had been just a handful three years before.

But the city-state does more than just finance, banking and insurance. Singapore, at the end of the Malacca Strait and in the heart of bustling Southeast Asia, has become a commercial and industrial hub, partly because it boasts the world’s second-largest container port (after Shanghai) (4). Another colossal, fully automated port – being built in Tuas, at the island’s Western edge, on land reclaimed with sand from neighbouring countries – will subsume and augment the current one’s operations. This should keep Singapore near the head of the pack. Industry (refineries, chemicals, electronics plants etc) is expected to follow the relocation, newer technologies being primarily situated in the South and East. According to the World Bank, the two sectors currently represent nearly a quarter of GDP (compared to 17% in France) – no small change.

Together, the authoritarian state, which plans and finances development, the multinational corporations that benefit from it, and the unions that work for consensus have brought the country to new heights. Per capita income ranks among the world’s highest – US$77,000 – just behind Luxembourg, another tax haven. Everything seems to be coming up roses for this island no bigger than Paris and its close suburbs (729 sq km) and its nearly 5.5 million inhabitants – or at least for the two thirds who have Singaporean citizenship or permanent residency. These are the only people included in statistics (and in most social programmes). Others – immigrants – do not exist. And yet they are the country’s lifeblood, at 40% of the working population.