China Was Never Singapore at Scale

The analogy was always partial, enticing, and ultimately misleading. 

Artists make drawings by a pond outside the ArtScience Museum next to the city skyline in Singapore on Feb. 18, 2025. Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

For 30 years, one of the most comforting stories told in boardrooms, Davos panels, and foreign policy salons was about China. Beijing had simply copied the “best model,” Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, then scaled it up.