Blog 18th Anniversary - Relative Advantage of Singapore

 Singapore is surrounded by a peninsular, islands big and small, trading routes, channels and seas. It is an island itself, albeit with reclaimed land fringes, but it is also an island beyond the geographical meaning of the term.

Singapore thrives on differentiation.  Its dynamics, governance drivers and ability to grow thrive on offering something which its neighbours cannot, to the same degree.

Most of Myanmar is still under military rule, despite the emergence of varying successful rebellions. Vietnam is communist, together with Laos.  The Phillippines and Kampuchea have had more tumultous experiences in politics.  Thailand and Malaysia are technically constitutional monarchies.  Timur-Leste and Papua New Guinea became fledging democracies after independence, but have not reached maturity in governance.  Indonesia is a federation of several cultural regions that has so much land size and population in comparison to the city state of Singapore.

So what captivates the rest of South-east Asia to offerings by Singapore?  Reassurance, relative stability, better reliance and constant progress - just like Switzerland to Europe.  Not just in being a transport hub, infrastructure provider, banker, shipping safety harbour, medical and education excellence provider, a place with good social cohesion structure,  technology facilitator, military capability displayer and strategic planning thinker - Singapore is ever the middleman, broker and trader.  As long there are transactions to be churned and there are problems elsewhere,  there is commission, value add and profit to be made, as Singapore beckons the talented, the visionary and the adventurer.

Both Indian and Chinese cultures have significantly infused the South-east Asian make up for umpteen years, before the arrival of Islam and Colonialism added further layers of social and political influences.  Today's Singapore can be said to be a microcosm of this historical accumulation and interaction - and yet the thinking and actions of its leaders and society stand apart.

So what abhors its neighbours about Singapore?   Perhaps the very same things that attracts them -  the better quality of life, its persistently stronger currency, its First World economic prowess.   Its sheer dependence on migrant labour in construction, house help and jobs its citizens will not do can cause an Achilles heel which makes it vulnerable to supply forces from its neighbours.

Singapore, small as it is, buys more arms than Australia, Indonesia or New Zealand.

Singapore has no royalty aristocrats to pander to.   It has maintained to a higher intensity the use of the English language and promoted the prominence of Mandarin spoken amongst its population.  Its leaders impose a strict political discipline for its citizens, resulting in a social order that contrasts with the waves of political instability of its neighbours.   Singapore's ensuing ability to hugely attract international business and talent belies its absence of natural resources.

Likewise, Australia and New Zealand can also empathise with how contemporary Singapore feels.
Both these two Antipodes countries find themselves different from their neighbours in the Asia- Pacific hinterland and ocean backyard.


The three nations have a Westminster based systen of government.   They are the outcomes of British trading, military and expansionist initiatives from the 18th to the 20th centuries.   They have attained an economic status which is the envy of their neighbours, short of China, Japan and South Korea.   Each of these three nations of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore were also built on the contributions of historical migrants.

They all offer a high measure of social stability, governance and economic wealth, but Singapore has the lowest taxes.

One lacks land size, another has too much and the third can be so remote from rhe rest of the world.  Both New Zealand and Singapore governments dare to stake our more independent positions in contemporary geopolitics. The Australian government continues to not seize an opportunity to assert its own refreshing values in international diplomacy and political moves.

In terms of wartime risks, Singapore geographically lies in a highly likely flashpoint, while Australia is most vulnerable in its exposed northern coasts and its affiliation with the South Pacific.

Nww Zealand has taken huge consistent steps to embrace its Indigenous heritage ( recent domestic politics are challenging that), when compared with its cross-Tasman neighbour.  Singapore is most conscious of balancing the implications of its multiracial population.

Singapore is what it is today, despite not having any natural resources.  Australia is blessed with many natural resources and yet its financial centres are behind that of Singapore.   All three countries utilise high levels of immigration to supplant population growth (at least before Covid 19).

Australia and New Zealand have proved to be bastions of relative stability, governance and reliability like Singapore.  They have attracted investors as places to park excess funds in search of higher returns, buy properties as back up refuges and place children for higher education.  Where people originate from nations with political instability but higher economic opportunities, all  three countries can be heaven sent as lower risk alternatives for escape to in the worst of times.

#yongkevthoughts

South-east Asia - At a Critical Junction

South east Asia in history has been an area rife in contention amongst the political powers of the day. For example, in the past they involved Hindu kingdoms, Arab missionary traders, colonial Euro powers, runaway local chieftains, Japanese imperialist armies and Americans fighting Communism.

Its strategic location and huge amounts of natural resources attract adventurers, migrants and entrepreneurs. Spices and herbs growing naturally here have changed eating habits and culinary practices around the world. There is a flurry of dialects, religious beliefs and languages spoken by its residents from various ethnic hues - and they live on a varied topographical landscape ranging from islands to riverine deltas and inland volcanoes.  Abundant forests, various resources from gems to petroleum and varying fishery stocks have supported its populations from time immemorial.   The peninsular extending below Thailand was strongly referred to as the "Golden Chersonese' in ancient texts.  Rice fields were intensively cultivated in huge delta basins.  Trading bloomed on sea routes and mastery of waterways became politically significant.

As a natural catchment for the meeting of different races, cultures and minds, it continually exercises fusion, provides a coalface for tolerance or intolerance and is a popular transit for mobile tourists. Minorities with religions different from the ruling governments find themselves in geographical pockets.
The body called ASEAN has Muslim, Buddhist and Christian government powers.  Different ethnic groups are not encouraged to find and adopt common values in some nations - instead differences are emphasised, just like what the British colonials were accused of, to "divide and conquer".  In contrast, in yet other nations, names of most residents have been naturalised, like in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar.

 Some nations are just a collection of different tribes and cultures brought artificially together by history and convenience.  For example, the populations of both southern Thailand and southern Phillippines are ethnically different from those who control their nation.

Perhaps constants are the Equatorial climate, its diversity in flora and fauna and the burgeoning income divide. Education is sought after by the mostly young populace. Except for Thailand, all nations in this region have been colonised. One view is that the popular form of Western democracy has never been fully implemented here - but again to these countries, this is a foreign idea.  The experience of centuries of Western imperialism and colonialism left many bitter hearts, especially when such rule emphasised exploitation of peoples and resources - so when the Japanese imperial army invaded south Asia, many locals interpreted this as liberation from the Western yoke.

Most populations here can claim ancestry from other various parts of the world. Many Yunnan tribes were driven further south into south-east Asia due to conflicts and economic survival.  Highland peoples are distinct from lowland groups, immigrants can be differentiated from those who settled before.  There is evidence of Hindu and Chinese settlements in peninsular Malaysia from way long ago.  Arab traders inter-married the locals and started new family lines whilst waiting for the monsoon winds to take their boats back to the Arabian Gulf.

The inevitable melting pot occurred here long before than in the USA, in Israel and in other Western nations like Australia, the UK and Canada.  Economic and social-push migrations pushed people from bigger cultures like those in China and India.  People have always sought a better life elsewhere, especially to escape oppressive and feudalistic regimes of dynasties, caste systems and warlords.  When the economic benefits of tin mining, rubber plantations and spice trading grew, this was inevitable to lead to immigration.   The colonials were not all bad either, for they provided a higher level of governance, social stability and more freedom to take part in commerce than some local chieftains and rulers.   The British focused their attention to this part of the world after the loss of the American colonies and when south-east Asia became a proxy ground for rivalries amongst the emerging European powers.

Inter-marriage became an important outcome, as seen in Straits Indians, Straits Chinese, Eurasians with various strains from Portugal, Holland, France and Britain and in a growing Sino-Thai or community.   Cultural fusion bloomed in various ways - the way of dress, the way of thinking, the way of cooking.  Asian looking faces can have European surnames. Children of such marital unions were often sent back to the mother country for a more proper education - the life journey of Colonel William Light is an illustrative example, when he went to England as a child after being sent by his parents, Captain Francis Light and his Portuguese-Thai wife with a surname of Rozelles.

This leads to the question of how the original inhabitants of this region are truly faring - are they being sufficiently recognised, has their identity been buried and grouped under later arrivals and their authentic cultures forgotten? Many true natives are left in remote settlements and not fully embraced by the numbered majority in many nations.  The natives usually have not been fully empowered with modern society economic enablers and therefore cannot possibly rise above their stereotyped lives.  The natives of present day Vietnam were pushed inland into the mountain areas.  Natives of Irian Jaya are ethnically separate from those who hail from Java in Indonesia. Mynamar has significant numbers of so-called tribal minorities.

Extensive deforestation and agricultural defilement can harm the Earth in many ways, on flora, fauna and humans. For example, loss of disease curing plants occur beside extinction of those flora that better promote human and animal health. The high risks of air pollution that result from political and business mismanagement can adversely affect the lives of ordinary people and disrupt the economic pace of rich cities.   What is happening in this part of the Earth's Equatorial belt has happened in Brazil and central Africa.   In a way, such commercial exploitation has been the same for the past few hundred years - only the key players are different.

Being at the cross roads of geography, social movements, religious trends and financial interests is a double edged sword. Just like the European sub-continent, South east Asia faces both unique and high profiles in risk, personal freedoms and opportunity.  South-east Asia is now a hotch-potch of royalty, apparent democratic rule, military control, communist led and dictatorial hubs.  The countries here also thirst for foreign investment - but at what price?  Revenues can rise or fall due to decisions made far away.  The reliance on outside demand for commodities, manufactures and tourism money can be an Achilles heel.  Some of the nations wait for their sons and daughters who have migrated, to return to help.   The currency exchange rate for most Southeast Asian nation is dismal.  Yet, people power can be latent and powerful at the same time - it can flare up as in the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand.

Apart from Singapore, are most of the countries here wallowing in lower cost economic activity whilst still being trapped in revenue earners like tourism, resources exploitation  and manufacturing, without the foresight of transforming into a high tech future? Can the demands and mindsets of the younger generation sufficiently change for the better the socio-political landscape of their countries?  The young from families who can afford have been sent in droves to Western countries for higher education.  Many do not return, having preferred the lifestyles and higher economic profile of their university host countries.   The future of south-east Asia may critically lie with those students who return,  make a commitment to their original culture and have the brains and means to do so.

The other significant question is whether South-east economies can complement the growth of their bigger neighbours China and India, no matter what political systems they find themselves in.

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The Haze, I am not so Amazed

Haze, no matter how you describe it, has both an immediate and lingering impact on individuals who breathe in the extreme additional layer of unhealthy particulates into their human body, respiratory ducts and health system.   No one, given a choice, wants to breathe in such high risk pollutants that can aggravate in a negative way already pre-existing vulnerabilities.  Today in the modern world, in the 21st century, millions of people still have to put up with this attack on their health, partly because of their choice of residence, partly because of  embedded human and political non-cooperation and partly because of entrenched interests that are willing to sacrifice health standards.   The current acute level of haze that has overtaken Singapore Island and part of the territories of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia just underlines the fact that the environment is truly a shared resource - and that we only have one Blue Planet to nurture and take care of.

Such haze like particles normally arise in intensity from natural calamities, like volcanic explosions, wind storms and earth quakes.  For a phenomenon like the Indonesian sourced haze to occur almost every year since 1991, it speaks of volumes in the lack of willingness to resolve the matter, especially when it is man-made.  The South-east Asian topography hits rich natural resources an lies at the trading routes of world commerce, so it has invariably attracted huge migration numbers especially in the past thousand years, from the Indian sub continent, from east Asia and amongst its various islands and shores themselves.   In an age of mature and innovative human inventions and high standard of living, it breaks my heart as to why nothing effective has been carried out to reduce or resolve this occurrence of major hazes.

Haze is a label that was coined to relate to visibility but now its effects go beyond those of navigation.  I could never get a straight answer as to why annual burning has to take place on a huge scale on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan around this time of the year.  The ritual and culture of plantation soil and peat burning, I learnt from school years, is to mainly fertilise the soil in a cost -efficient manner.  Previously the practice was attributed to small persistence farmers eking out a precarious existence on their small patches of land - and some fires were truly arson, done in the heat of land owning conflicts.  Now I read from the media about the involvement of big business conglomerates and multi-nationals carrying out such burning, true or not, on their sizeable tracts of land, obviously bigger than Singapore Island, planted I understand with palm oil and more.  Suddenly I realise why all the campaigns against palm oil cultivation does not just work for the Orangutans but also for human beings like me.

There is a term called 'bush fire reaction" used commonly in Australia - and its meaning is self evident in that one can force problems and causes of problems building up, and yet action is only taken after the problems have flared up.   This aspect of human attitude has caused unnecessary suffering in historical events.   The Singapore Government is an unusual player in having a great urgency in planning, risk management, taking remedial action and practising continuity strategy.  However the Republic is surrounded by countries with Governments who have a different emphasis from theirs.   Even if one calls the fire brigade after a break out, it can be too little, too late  - and post bush fire management is then subject tot heresy of prevailing winds, occurrence of big rainfall and thunderstorms and hope.

Do the ill effects of such an acute haze actually reduce by keeping one's self indoors, with windows shut, air conditioners whizzing and Ion promoting machines switched on?  Does wearing of high filter nose masks actually make one feel good psychologically and nothing more?  The first symptoms that one is not reacting well can come with eye, skin, throat and nose irritation. Those with asthmatic pre-conditions have to be more mindful and take extra precautions.  Human behaviour tends to withdraw under such confronting matters. Negative long term effects, probably not visible immediately, affect the heart and lungs.  Human beings do not want to go outdoors, or minimise their travelling, or have been advised to suspend their economic-related activities - and you can imagine the rest of the story, the multiplier effect, the down turn in well being on all fronts.

Once the current haze goes away, individuals affected have to consider improving their nutrients and life style to strengthen their lungs, heart, ear and throat systems.

Parts of the south-east Asian sky look like in a  freeze frame - it could be 1997 or 2013 again.

In legends of lore, when a society seems to face multiple incidences of varying problems within a short time, back in Greece, Rome or China, that was a significant sign from the Gods that the specific society or its leadership has done something seriously wrong. In this modern age, do we ignore this old adage at our own peril, or do we wake up sufficiently to resolve serious matters, before it is too late.

If I dare be so bold, what applies in discussion of the acute haze above can also echo in the current management of the increased severity of the outbreak of Dengue Fever for many years now.