U.S.-China trade volume was negligible until well into the 1990s: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/more-than-30-years-of.... By 1995, Singapore’s GDP per capita had already overtaken the UK’s.

Trade was obviously important to Singapore’s development. But the idea that it was just because Singapore happened to be Singapore’s location relative to China is anachronistic. Singapore’s annual GDP per capita growth was already over 15% by the time Nixon went to China in 1972. It actually started slowing down by the 1990s when China’s growth started picking up.

Look at a map. Singapore is not on China-US maritime shipping lane so US-China trade is not relevant to Singapore at all.

I'd say Japan (China followed Singapore in development).

Well, Singapore is a Chinese city at the tip of Malaysia. This is also why they split from Malaysia.

Singaporean here. This is a technicality but we didn't voluntarily split from Malaysia, we got thrown out.