Just to be clear, “heavy-handed policies” include the death penalty for trafficking in (at the very least) Singapore and the UAE. It would be intellectually dishonest to not name these things by name.

This argument veers a little bit into “sure it’s harsh but their trains do run on time” territory, at least for me.

What authoritarian countries are able to achieve at the cost of human rights would preferably not serve as inspiration, or even as a point of comparison.