Singapore’s Moment Is Here. Will It Last?
Rising U.S.-China tensions, housing bubble are looming threats to city-state
By Nathaniel TaplinMay 4, 2023 9:18 am ET
PHOTO: ROSLAN RAHMAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Singapore, Hong Kong’s longtime rival, is having a moment as Hong Kong struggles with the fallout from its political crackdown and China sends decidedly mixed signals on its own openness to foreign capital.
The Southeast Asian city-state is also dealing with the sudden downsides of success: namely, an epic surge in housing prices. To keep the march it has stolen on Hong Kong, it will need to tame its housing market—and demonstrate that it truly is neutral territory in the intensifying competition between the U.S. and China.
Singapore has some distinct advantages. Unlike Hong Kong, it is its own nation state, meaning it isn’t hostage to the capricious political winds from Beijing that proved so damaging to Hong Kong during the pandemic and in the aftermath of the 2019 protests. This included a draconian national-security law; asset freezes targeting government critics; the arrest of nearly the entire political opposition; and an onerous, epidemiologically questionable 21-day Covid quarantine. Singapore also has a unique, managed float currency regime, which provides it more flexibility than Hong Kong’s dollar peg.
Perhaps most important, Singapore has invested heavily in public housing and largely avoided the land-price bubbles that have damaged Hong Kong’s manufacturing sector, stoked inequality and inhibited the growth of new industries such as tech.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/singapores-moment-is-here-will-it-last-eaf788d7?mod=markets_major_pos1
