we call it the rich version of north korean

I think Singapore's immigration policy is still interesting and relevant to western countries, but it's true it's also kind of similar to the UAE.

Essentially it's (relatively) easy to get work visas for areas where there's a genuine shortage but difficult to get permanent residency and almost impossible to get citizenship.

That's still a very different policy to what most western countries have right now.

The UAE has the most extreme version of this so the milder Singaporean version is less interesting as an example.

> Singapore’s free speech restrictions, whatever you think of them, no longer seem so far outside the box. Trump is suing plenty of people. The UK is sending police to knock on people’s doors for social media posts, and so on. That too makes Singapore more of a “normal country"

That seems like it should make Singapore _more_ cool, at least my personal theory is that this changed a lot of perception of China (at least in some parts of gen z social media, "it's a very Chinese time").

The difference between Singapore and yoghurt?

Yoghurt has an active culture.

I think it is due to China. I remember Singapore was a large financial center for Asia, but China's rapid growth overshadowed Singapore.

I also think Hong Kong is going through the same thing, plus I believe China is trying to make Shanghai into its main Finance Center, letting Hong Kong's center fade away.

It hasn't been cool for a long time. My dad was offered Singaporean citizenship in the 1990s despite then being an Indian national but decided to immigrate to the US to work in tech in Silicon Valley instead and raise us. This is a pretty common story among Bay Area Chinese and Indian Americans who immigrated during that era.

In the 90s and 2000s, Singapore's value add was that it could act as a door into China, India, and ASEAN due to expansive trade and investment treaties, but why would I want to build an R&D center in Changi staffed with PRCs and Indians when I could just hire them directly in Shenzhen or Bangalore.

After China committed to being hands-off on HK business and contract law in the 2000s, SG lost some value as it didn't have the same connections that HK had legally speaking to enter the Chinese market.

SG continues to remain the best place to incorporate a business in Asia, but just because your lawyers and holding company is in SG it doesn't mean your operations, operational headcount, and capital expenditures is there.

TIL detention without trial is a thing in Singapore [^1], ministers love to brag about increasing the severity of detention without trial [^2], and that the longest someone was held in detention without trial in Singapore was 23+9 years [^3]. That person was never charged.

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Law_(Temporary_Provis...

[^2]: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/my-views-on-...

[^3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chia_Thye_Poh

I'll take "begging the question" for $500.

Cool? Out of all the major world commercial hubs, wasn't it always the hottest and muggiest?

OP's critique feels like a celebrity economist's variant of those travel magazine pieces that tell us why Zermatt, Phuket or Nantucket is no longer a "cool" vacation spot. On some sort of momentary buzz meter, sure.

But the factors that help Singapore be an Asian or often global hub in so many respects are still running strong, no? Worrying about whether a couple dozen X/Twitter legends are hyping you today feels silly.

There's an extremely low fertility rate paired with a rapidly aging population. When I visited there were endless advertisements for geriatric type care / end-of-life type planning / etc, and a notably older population working quite low wage jobs in a place where everything was crazy expensive, especially relative to its northern neighbor. It felt depressing.

It seems like one of those places that is probably quite nice if you're loaded, but it seems like a pretty rough place if you're not already well off. I was also surprised that many of the stereotypes about 'one fine city' were not quite on the mark. Jaywalking, crossing against a cross-walk light, and various other little infractions were ever-present which left me feeling a bit odd as when in Rome do what the Romans do, but yeah... not gonna risk that.

Singapore was never cool, they were always the most authoritarian place on Earth without an actual dictator in charge.

>Yet today’s American political right is not very interested in technocracy.

That is a deeply weird statement to make in 2026.

> Singapore is a much more democratic country than most outsiders realize

Yeah no.

In Singapore you have a single party which has used it's constitution, laws, courts and media control to enforce a defacto one-party state for 60 years. Singapore citizens can (and do) vote but those votes have absolutely zero chance of changing anything.

Is it technically democracy? Well they vote so yes? Is there any chance at all of peaceful regime change through voting? Technically yes, in practice? Probably not. I would expect extreme suppression and HK style riot crushing. They have been doing it quietly for decades, targeting and legally destroying/bankrupting any opposition to the PAP.

So the only real difference vs say China is that while both are authoritarian regimes the Chinese didn't bother with a mechanism to pretend you can throw them out.

To be clear, I don't object to their form of government. I think it works for them and thus it's completely ok. If anything I find Singapore a really safe and efficient place and visit frequently.

I do object to people pretending it's somehow a liberal democracy though, that just ain't the truth.

What a strange premise. Aside from the brief period of infamy around the Michael Fay case (mid-90s, a teenager caned for acts of petty vandalism), when were Americans ever paying attention to Singapore?

The author keeps referring to "right-wing" this and that, so presumably he is buried too deep in some weird political subculture to realize that his question makes little sense to the rest of us.