At least in HK you can still protest. In Singapore you’d be put into jail for public disturbance.

Singapore is still a democracy albeit a deeply flawed one.

If I was a professional cyberpunk I would still go for Hong Kong over Singapore.

And PS: Singapore is the big inspiration for modern day China.

This is definitely overblown.

There is official training program for government officials from China to Singapore. Probably inspired China's confident rejection of western government model and insist on strict top-down control.

But China's inspiration is from USA.

Everything, literally, everything is set to use USA as the inspirational counterpart. I mean, literally, everything. Name anything you can think of, I can tell a story how the daily life has the USA reference or influence.

I choose to name: lack of de facto individual rights and coincident lack of independent judiciary.

Examples?

Singapore is more of an autocracy than Hong Kong... at least when it comes to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly etc.

Singapore, not being tied at the hip to a superpower w/ enormous and diverse geopolitical interests, is less likely to use that iron fist unfairly to the detriment of foreign commerce.

> Singapore, not being tied at the hip to a superpower w/ enormous and diverse geopolitical interests

I lived in Singapore for 2.5 years as an exchange student. Singapore almost made me to believe it being the "Chinese Dream" come true.

I was fortunate to meet two former TSMC engineers closing on their mid fifties who pretty much took patronage of me back then and corrected my attitudes. I thank them for pulling out that "Singapore dream" porridge out of my brain.

I was of very high opinion of LKY as a leader, but later I realised that he was a very cheap man, just with a lot of charisma and verbal skills he got from British education.

First, he was the most ardent anti-colonialist, but the moment Malaysia got independence, he was first to cling to "mama Britania"

He was oratorising on inter-ethnic unity through early independence years, but was first to jump the moment talks of separation started

He was an ardent democrat in his talks, but used red scare to purge all credible opponents, including ones from his own camp

He claimed to firmly be on side of capitalism, but spent 30 years running Sing as a borderline statist/socialist state (the notion of Sing as a freewheeling capital hub is relatively new thing, and would've been completely contrary to country's self image in Seventies)

He said, on the record, many times, promising to keep his family out of power, but you see yourself how it went.

He promised to go when it will be the time for it, yet he spent his last decade in power in semi-demented state, and ill health.

And finally, despite him almost screaming all those 50 years of Singapore being a neutral country, the story of him doing "special relationship" ("selling out", in plain language) with the USA and American business is what every Sing citizen knows too well

I bet, would US government get interest in your servers, they would not need even to go through formal diplomatic channels, a single call to Istana would do that.

Lee Kuan Yew was no saint but this is at best overwrought.

Once you’re independent you’ve won, there’s no harm and a great deal of benefit in keeping relations with the former colonial power good.

What you said about Yew during the expulsion of Singapore from Malaysia is at best completely irrelevant. The Malays wanted Singapore out so they could run Malaysia for the benefit of the Malays and the vote for expelling Singapore was 126-0 with Singaporean delegates not present. Also, let’s be frank, Lee Kuan Yew would have preferred to be PM of an undivided Malaysia than a city-state.

Lee’s record on inter ethnic unity is actually pretty great. The quota system in allocation of public housing and in politics means Singapore has Indian and Malay parliamentarians in proportion with their population.

> Also, let’s be frank, Lee Kuan Yew would have preferred to be PM of an undivided Malaysia than a city-state.

He would've certainly preferred to, but certainly had no capability to become one, nor capacity to act as one if he would've ever been elected as one.

It is said he had hard time not showing his jubilation when he heard of Malays effectively giving him his own state on a golden platter, and an opportunity to write his name into history books — more than what a man like him could've ever dreamt of.

In the comment above you talk about Lee’s successful marginalisation of all effective opposition in Singapore. In this one you’re saying Lee could never have become PM of Malaysia. The idea he couldn’t have acted as PM if elected is just nuts. He did a fantastic job for decades in Singapore, he could have been at least an adequate job in a unified Malaysia.

Lee may have been more a tall man in a sea of pygmies than a giant among men but the idea he was anything less than very successful as a politician and statesman is... odd.

> fantastic job for decades

For 3 decades, Sing was a nothing special, "socialism-lite" place with slow life and panelbaus, of which locals thought of as their biggest achievement.

> could never have become PM of Malaysia

Yes, because British schooled, high mannered, and high flying, if not snobbish, Lee would've never made a rapport with a typical Malaysian national (emphasis: not ethnic Malays per se). Even Malaysian Chinese at that point looked at him as if he was a some kind of space alien.

Second, Singapore was already better off at the starting point in relation to rural Malaysia.

He would've had to do way more things than just building panelbaus and sitting still for 3 decades. He wouldn't have survived his first term if he were to exercise his "vision" of nation building as a Malaysian premier.

If you think that a measure of worth for an Asian leader is just his ability to not to ruin his own country, and being able to build some social housing, that feels to me rather demeaning.

LKY claims to be above all practical. Capitalism, socialism, whatever it takes to achieve an objective. And from the point of view of results, it’s hard to argue Sg hasn’t done amazing things.

And yet it functions like a well oiled machine.

Out of curiosity, what about Taiwan?

How much longer will Taiwan choose to be an independent country? They seem to be getting pretty cozy with the mainland.

singapore seems like where people are going

Unfortunately the core problem with Singapore is it doesn't have the same access to China.