Heqin Geng
Singapore gaining independence was not part of the plan. Anyone given a civics education in Singapore will tell you that the original vision, realised in 1963 in what was known as Merger, was for a united Malaysia, consisting of what was then Malaya, Singapore and Borneo. Singapore, it was said, needed Malaysia’s hinterlands and water sources in order to avoid serious shortages in basic natural resources. Prior to Merger, there had already been widespread water shortages that same year, leading to water rationing across the country. The de-merger of Singapore from the Federation to form an independent state, therefore, did not bode well for its future. Material shortages aside, Singapore had to contend with the still-turbulent geopolitics of the area at the time. Konfrontasi, the Indonesian opposition to Merger, was still ongoing, and the MacDonald House bombing occurred just five months prior to Singapore’s independence day. In other words, the Singaporean government of the time had a thoroughly unenviable task on their hands in preventing the country’s collapse.
Despite all odds, Singapore has fared far better than anyone could have expected. The Singaporean success story needs little regaling. It is undeniable that the past six decades have seen an incredible leap in quality of life for Singaporeans, at a pace so fast that those alive during its third world country phase are still around to describe it. It therefore comes as no surprise that countries around the world have looked to ‘The Singapore Model’ as a guide for solving the woes they face. The UK, for example, looks to Singapore for solutions to its perennial problem with economic stagnation. Rwanda has looked to Singapore’s approach to urban development as a blueprint for its own development. This, however, begs the question of: what is the Singapore model? More importantly, could there even be such a thing?
The answer to that question, unsurprisingly, changes based on context. What kind of problem is the model aimed at? The answer is generally some sort of economic problem. Turning back to the UK, Singapore’s success has been pointed to as a justification for greater liberalisation of the British economy. It was only 3 years ago in 2022 that Liz Truss was advocating for lower taxes, less regulation, and cutting away retained EU ‘red tape’. This proved economically disastrous, with both the pound sterling and British government debt plunging in value when the measures were announced. Singapore ranks as one of the freest economies in the world, but associating it with such an approach is puzzling to anyone with the slightest idea of how the Singaporean economy is managed. Unsurprisingly, Liz Truss is not one of these people.
Singapore’s State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) sector is one of the largest in the world, with around a third of its entire GDP being SOEs, and its sovereign wealth fund Temasek owns controlling stakes in key players across various sectors such as Singapore Power (utilities), SMRT (public transport), and even Capitaland (real estate). Indeed, the SOE sector has been credited as one of the key mechanisms for wealth redistribution by the government in carrying out their social democratic vision. Furthermore, much of its success is also built on cheap labor from migrants from nearby countries entering on temporary work permits. Around 40% of Singapore’s entire labor force is migrant workers – more than double that of the UK’s 19%. These are both inconvenient truths which those who hold Singapore up as a model of a liberal economy either fail to appreciate, or conveniently leave out as running counter to their preferred narrative.
Indeed, the ‘Singapore model’ tends not so much to be a serious reference to the country’s real political and economic strengths as it is a distorted amalgam of cherry-picked features of the country put together to push an ideology, underpinned by an apparent real-world case of that ideology’s success. It is no surprise that the term ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ has become a term of derision directed at Conservatives’ efforts to blindly emulate aspects of Singapore’s governance out of context.
Another example of something similar, perhaps somewhat surprising, is China. Singapore’s People Action Party has consistently received high praise from high-ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since Deng Xiaoping’s visit in 1978. To China, Singapore is an example of how a country can achieve economic liberalisation without correspondingly undergoing political liberalisation – precisely the project with which China was and is currently engaged. Someone pursuing such a perspective could point to things like Singapore’s continued retention (and liberal application) of the death penalty, and its openly controlled approach to freedom of speech.
China’s use of the narrative of the ‘Singapore model’ has been one riddled with distortions and inconsistencies. There is evidence that Singapore’s relatively authoritarian approach to governance was part of the justification for the infamous 1984 crackdown across the country on student movements and politically liberal movements (also known as the Tiananmen Square incident). Moreover, President Xi Jinping has used Singapore’s anti-corruptionist stance as justification for his ‘anti-corruption’ purge across government. While both countries abhor corruption and heavily punish it, the Chinese approach to cleaning up corruption has been criticised as ignoring the rule of law, something which Singapore uncompromisingly insists on in prosecuting corrupt officials. It is perhaps impossible to cover with detail the exact implications (good or bad) of these actions, but it is clear that the extremity and scale to which they were taken went far beyond what Singapore’s founding fathers could have contemplated. Here, the Singapore story forms a facade, not a rationale.
So we have two invocations of the Singapore story: one based on a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of Singapore’s economic policy, and another a front for ideals deeply antithetical to the democratic foundations of its political identity. Is the Singapore model truly unattainable? Is it a matter of historical context, or a perfect storm of just the right ingredients for a nation to thrive against all odds? The answer to both of these questions is: obviously not. It would probably be a mistake to say that Singapore’s current prosperity is solely a result of good policy-making, but there are obvious ways in which its approach to economic growth can inform other countries seeking to boost their own nascent economies.
One highly transferable point of reference is its approach to infrastructure. Singapore basically started from scratch in this department, and that gave it a clean slate to put together one of the most detailed and calculated urban planning schemes in the world. The vision, from early on, was to build high-quality, reliable infrastructure in areas like housing, education and transport, in order to support economic activity. China’s emphasis on infrastructure and its high speed rail projects show some understanding of this. Turkey has looked to Singapore’s port management expertise to revitalise its own position as a maritime hub. Yet the most thorough following of the model comes from a rather surprising place: Rwanda.
Since 2006, Rwanda’s capital Kigali has been aggressively developing infrastructure with the assistance of Singaporean urban planning agency, Surbana. Surbana’s 2009 master plan sought to turn Kigali into a major financial hub through developing its urban infrastructure along the lines of Singapore’s urban planning strategy. This meant grappling with challenges such as a rapidly growing urban population and sustainability. Kigali’s urban planning therefore closely resembles Singapore’s – not only in the infrastructure itself, but the policy behind it too.
Much of it focuses on alleviating the severe housing shortage by redeveloping land-inefficient informal settlements which occupy much of the land in the city. For example, the city has been making moves to enforce the exclusive building of high-rise buildings in certain areas of land. Indeed, Singapore’s early housing policies have been cited as one of the most important factors in its subsequent growth. Yet two obstacles stand in the way of transplanting this to Kigali.
Firstly, the city will face the same problems that Singapore did in essentially relocating most of its population. This is not only a logistical problem, but a social, cultural, and economic one. The physical structure of urban areas heavily influences its social structure. Communal living and communal spaces contribute to a strong sense of community amongst a population. In Singapore, the transition from informal ‘kampong’ communities to high-rise flats with individual units has been lamented for the consequent impact on community togetherness, often referred to as the ‘kampong spirit’. Moreover, Kigali’s efforts to expropriate land from occupants of informal settlements have been criticised as marginalising these communities by the process of gentrification. Incomes remain low in most of Rwanda, and while urban development serves the good of the community as a whole, it does not always serve all members of the community equally. A further concern in this vein is that urban development spearheaded by an overseas company is more likely to overlook disenfranchised voices.
A second problem is the topology of Kigali itself. Much of the land has too much of an incline to build on, or the ground is simply not suitable to develop high-rise buildings. This leads to land wastage – not only because some land simply cannot be used, but also because it makes it harder to develop a continuous urban area. To meet these concerns, Kigali has made efforts to incorporate community consultation into its urban planning approach. However, these efforts remain hampered by a chronic lack of supporting infrastructure, information centres, and data.
In addition to urban planning, Rwanda has also sought to position itself as an economic hub by building conference infrastructure and tackling corruption. Rwanda’s healthcare infrastructure, devastated by the civil war, now covers around 90% of its population. Moreover, Rwanda is ranked as the third least corrupt country in Africa. This has led to it being one of the most popular countries in the region to host conferences at – not only drawing in large sums of tourism money, but also enhancing its attractiveness as a location to do business. Rwanda’s average income has also increased by around 1000% in just three decades, fromUS$110 in 1994 to US$1,050 in 2023. However, commentators distrust the statistics coming from government sources, and income inequality and poverty remain very much a real issue in the country.
Time will tell if the Singapore model works out for Rwanda. Kigali continues to struggle to solve its housing problem, and Surbana’s Master Plan is set to run until 2050. The company has also taken on projects in Turkey, Myanmar, India, and some other countries in Africa. It remains to be said that even if countries cannot, or will not, adopt Singapore’s economic and urban planning policies, there remain some eminently sensible learning points. It is obvious that building strong education, healthcare, and transport systems forms the foundation for strong economic development in a country, even if everyone has different methods for getting there. These are aspects of nation-building too often sacrificed in favour of populism, or where capacity is lost to corruption and government inefficiency. The Singapore model, in other words, is not necessarily anything new; at a basic, abstract level, it is simply common sense.