Question: Let's say the USA and China get in a spat and things escalate to a trade war or a shooting war (unlikely, outside of Tom Clancy (RIP) novels). What happens to the huge amounts of property owned by Chinese nationals? Is there some precedent for seizing it?
I would guess that the historical examples would be WW2. Which is problematic, because we put people of Japanese descent in concentration camps, as opposed to nothing for German/Italian immigrants...
Roosevelt seized Japanese assets and most Allies did the same.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-fre...
You can't seriously compare the size of Singapore and the U.S.
Foreigners buy London/NYC/SF because the price was inflated in the first place( its really hard to build stuff in these regulated cities)
This happens in London a lot too. Entire blocks of flats are marketed at and sold directly to Asia. Interestingly I read that in Singapore they do not allow you to buy real estate until you have lived there several year.