
Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations - shalmanese
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/singapore-urges-u-s-to-accept-china-s-rise-spare-other-nations
======
product50
Isn't the ball in China's court here? I am not sure what is the expectation of
US in this. China has a completely closed market while at the same time they
are reaping the benefits of selling in markets of other countries with no
penalties. How is that fair? Also, they force companies to share their
technologies/IP if they are interested in coming into Chinese markets - and
then they just steal it to undercut the foreign companies. This honestly needs
to change. When China was smaller, these tactics were ok - but to expect the
world will close their eyes on their practices at the current scale is fooling
oneself.

~~~
NotPaidToPost
China has done what every developing country should do (Edit: and what the
likes of Japan and Korea did before them)

If you open your economy when you are relatively undeveloped and weak then
foreign companies will immediately occupy your economy and you can forget
about creating national 'champions'.

China is not a closed market but they are careful not to fall into that trap.

~~~
ngokevin
Yup, they've set it up so money can flow within their own system and their own
economy can prosper, rather than money feeding out to Google or Facebook.
Quality of life in China has exploded massively, and things like restaurant
prices are reaching American prices, which is insane going back ten years.

And they remix the ideas of western tech and often improve upon it. WeChat is
orders of magnitude more convenient than what the US has to offer. Everything
is centralized and integrated, what Google tries to do, but adopted
everywhere. Book anything, pay for anything, tap phone to pay for anything. I
don't expect many places to take phone payments. In China, most _everywhere_
can take phone payments.

Their social networks also seem to do great at getting things naturally viral.
I posted a random video without any boosting and it got like 1.5K views in a
day.

~~~
teknologist
I would just like to say that contactless chip cards are ubiquitous, do not
require a battery, are more secure (no reliance on QR codes) and have been
around for years in the West.

~~~
njepa
It isn't the same thing by any means, and doesn't really offer much over cards
other than a slight improvement in convenience. Mobile payments in China are
essentially peer-to-peer and universal. The closest equivalent is probably
something like MobilePay or Swish, but that isn't as good or as widespread.

~~~
teknologist
Peer-to-peer in the same way that PayPal is peer-to-peer. There's still a
central entity somewhere holding all the money and data.

~~~
njepa
Sure, but cards are even more centralized.

The "feature" of WeChat is that it can be used for almost anything. It is a
cash successor more so that a card alternative. Anyone can print, display or
scan a QR code. Doesn't matter if it is a store, a friend or a random person.
Doesn't matter if it is in the physical world, on a website or in a chat. And
it is easy to do. And almost everyone uses it.

Contactless cards only matches WeChat in the same way something like Apple Pay
does.

~~~
teknologist
I am not seeing the value in being able to print QR codes unless your business
is selling fruit on the street (to be fair, a lot of businesses in China are
just this).

The more secure analogy comparable in price would be solutions like Square and
PayPal Here. Smartphones are ubiquitous.

------
rgbrenner
_China is highly unlikely to undermine the U.S.-led global system given it has
been one of its biggest beneficiaries, Balakrishnan said._

They undermine it every day they refuse to allow free trade. The US and others
spent a lot of resources building the free trade system of the world... and
China wants the benefits of selling into that global market, while reserving
their own market for themselves.

Every day they are not confronted on this, they send out the message to every
other country that free trade with other countries does not require you to
open your own markets. They encourage the breakdown of trade and the closure
of global markets.

Confronting China on this today is the US asking China not to undermine the
global system that has helped enrich China. Not to burn the bridge after
they're finished with it (that many countries have used to pull themselves out
of poverty: vietnam, korea, taiwan, japan, and even singapore).

~~~
apexalpha
The "free trade" the US propagates is horrible for anyone not in the top 20%
of society. Your manufacturing business has been decimated, many people
outside coastal areas have been seeing declining standards of living.

Even the EU has many import tariffs to protect its own industries from unfair
competition from China and others.

Why should someone who makes bikes in the EU compete with someone who does it
for $0,50 an hour in Vietnam or who knows where?

Protecting your own markets is the sensible thing to do. Any country with a
decent industrial policy does it.

~~~
mensetmanusman
Most peaceful era per capital in human history. Lowest percentage in poverty
in human history.

~~~
low_poly_shiba
Where have the biggest reductions in poverty taken place?

------
chvid
As others has observed the economies of USA and China are tied at the hip.

China sells goods cheaply to USA and takes the dollars it makes and invest in
US treasuries. This keeps inflation low and keeps interest rates low. And
allows the US to maintain an unnatural high living standard with low savings
and asset price inflation.

The central bank may be able to compensate from the lack of Chinese buying but
it is an unsustainable situation as the inflationary pressure from the lack of
imports would be in full force.

Also notice that Singapore seems to be saying: Please don't ask us to pick
sides ...

The US may have fewer friends in Asia than it assumes.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> Also notice that Singapore seems to be saying: Please don't ask us to pick
> sides ...

> The US may have fewer friends in Asia than it assumes.

Isn't Singapore political system famously authoritarian capitalist and its
people ethnically Chinese? It might be a mistake as viewing it too much of a
representative of the rest of Asia. It sounds very similar to contemporary
China, in many respects, so it may have an unusually strong affinity to it.

[https://www.hrw.org/asia/singapore](https://www.hrw.org/asia/singapore):

> Singapore’s political environment is stifling. Citizens face severe
> restrictions on their basic rights to freedom of expression, association,
> and peaceful assembly through overly broad criminal laws and regulations. In
> 2017, the country tightened the already strict limits on public assemblies
> contained in the Public Order Act, which requires police permits for any
> “cause-related” assembly outside the closely monitored “Speakers’ Corner.”

~~~
heraclius
> Isn't Singapore political system famously authoritarian capitalist

Most of Southeast Asia is increasingly authoritarian.

> its people ethnically Chinese?

Mostly (this is a trivial Google), but importantly not entirely.

Singapore was the last country to recognise the PRC instead of Taiwan. This
was for good reason. First, Singapore maintains internal harmony by pretending
to be multiracial. (It isn’t, obviously—the best candidate for the PM by far
was ignored because “the people aren’t ready for a non-Chinese PM”, even
though he was the most popular.) This involves insisting on English
translators when visiting China, asserting independence, doing military drills
in Taiwan, etc. Second, Singapore historically had to do the same thing to
convince its neighbours that it was not a Chinese puppet.

But the crucial difference is that Singapore optimises for minimal oppression
given a certain developmental outcome, whereas China doesn’t. Repression in
Xinjiang, the Tienanmen Square massacre, current crackdowns on liberal
thinktanks, etc. are not necessary to secure the régime. No Singaporean
government would bother. (That is why New Naratif is still around.) Singapore
is in fact qualitatively distinct from almost all other authoritarian states
in that it requires extremely little oppression in view of the outcomes
achieved compared to any other state, where the tradeoff is much worse.

------
chewz
> we also want China to be able to assume its rightful place as it develops
> and becomes a superpower in its own right,

Singapore economy is depending on trade and prolonged trade war will ruin
Singapore with its unsustainable debt.

But how does China 'assuming its rightful place' should look in practical
terms? Withdrawing US fleets from Pacific? Allowing East Asia to become
China's vasal teritory? Tolerating growing economic and military threat?

~~~
thaumasiotes
> But how does China 'assuming its rightful place' should look in practical
> terms?

> Allowing East Asia to become China's vassal territory?

Sure, in much the same way that it was in the past, and in much the same way
that all of North and South America are vassals to the United States.

It is not realistic for East and even Southeast Asian countries to care more
about what the US thinks than what China thinks; I don't understand how people
can advocate for this goal with a straight face.

~~~
NotPaidToPost
East Asia is vassal to the US at the moment...

I think countries like Singapore, Korea, etc do not want the US, Korea, to
leave. They are between a rock and a hard place and want to balance the US and
China in order not to become too dependent on one and to benefit from both.

Singapore, which is quite "China-friendly" is saying exactly that.

What I find interesting is that the West in general, and obviously the US in
particular, indeed cannot seem to imagine or accept that their complete
dominance of the world is coming to an end. This is a rude awakening.

Singapore, which has an history of promoting "Asian values" and is a former
British colony with 70%+ ethnic Chinese is very well place to tell us things
as they are.

~~~
chewz
> East Asia is vassal to the US at the moment...

Even if it were true I am not sure if people of Singapore, Korea, Japan,
Thailand or Taiwan would like to swap places with people of Xinjang or Tibet..

~~~
codedokode
They don't want to change places with people of Iraq or Syria either.

------
mensetmanusman
It would be so much easier to accept China's rise if they weren’t pulling a
North Korea and imprisoning a million minorities with dystopian technology
solutions.

I don’t think China realized how that policy is going to backfire in terms of
their relationship with the West.

We want to see countries with individual rights rise, not authoritarians.

~~~
throwaway552231
Aren’t the people they are imprisoning criminals that broke the law? For
perspective, the US has 2.2 million minorities in prison.

~~~
heraclius
There are 11 million Uighurs, and about a million in the camps. There are over
30 million blacks in the US, and under a million blacks in jail. (2.2 million
is the total number of prisoners.)

The situation in Xinjiang is therefore much worse.

Most of the people concerned should not be locked up anyway—think of people
who can’t afford to pay fines in the US, or people who pray in Xinjiang. It is
extremely rare that a population is so poorly socialised that it is necessary
to imprison over a tenth of the population. Perhaps they are in some strict
sense “criminals”, but China can choose who to criminalise (as can the US),
and it is clearly making unhelpful decisions.

------
lenkite
Please read about the colonialist-style policies openly being carried out by
China in co-opting land and territory of poorer nations:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-
lank...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lanka-
port.html)

Speaking personally as a citizen of a neighbouring nation - I would rather
have a democratic and open nation like the United States as the sole-
superpower of the world. China as an established super-power would be a
tyrannical nightmare.

------
nailer
As someone who watches the very unusual moderation of China-critical comments
on HN (+3 one moment, -3 a few hours later) I'm wary of a political piece
praising China hitting #1 on HN.

I also don't see the value of Singapore - which is openly anti democratic
([https://www.huffpost.com/entry/singapore-challenges-
democrac...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/singapore-challenges-
democracy_b_7933188)) providing advice here - as the same concerns about
authoritarian corruption that apply to China also apply to Singapore.

~~~
ptah
it is up to each nation to choose it's form of government. it is not one size
fits all

~~~
nailer
Saying the people of China have 'chosen not to choose' is bizarre and
disingenuous - you are twisting the notion of freedom to imply Chinese people
have chosen not to be free. The Chinese people have never in recent memory
chosen the Chinese communist party to represent them exclusively.

~~~
ptah
as opposed to the illusion of choice provided in de facto two party
"democracies"?

~~~
nailer
Yes, there's a world of difference between being able to choose from one
option or 2.

As to the choice being an illusion because two parties often rule: tell that
to the Whigs (one of the two parties that no longer exists in the UK), or to
anyone that's held a balance of power in a coalition government.

------
macspoofing
Singapore: Don't make us choose because we will choose China.

------
rangibaby
Lee Kuan Yew had some interesting and prescient insights about China in 1967:
[https://youtu.be/VexrmTacOAA](https://youtu.be/VexrmTacOAA)

~~~
xuki
You should read his book: One Man's View of the World

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18297494-one-man-s-
view-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18297494-one-man-s-view-of-the-
world)

It's very concise, written in fairly casual tone and in my opinion, spot on
for the most part. One point he kept making throughout the book is Singapore
will not stop working with a superpower because another superpower don't like
it.

~~~
rangibaby
Thanks for the suggestion, I will check it out

------
baybal2
Many people are talking about Vietnam now, but without realising that they are
dealing with the same Chinese factory companies who just expanded their
business there.

------
runn1ng
US should make policies that are good for its citizens, its factories and its
companies, not Singapore.

Singapore can survive as a country with mostly trade, IP, high tech, low
taxes, services. Singapore doesn’t even have power plants, all from Malaysia.

But despite the dreams of some people, a big country like US cannot just be a
service economy like Singapore.... so while I disagree with Trump on many
other issues, I cam’t really fault him here, and I hope next American
democratic president will not soften its stance.

------
sinuhe69
I wonder why Singapore didn't say such things decades ago when the
confrontation between US and the Soviet Union hit up? Because today
confrontation still looks very much similar: between the free democratic bloc
and a communist aggressive country (or bloc, maybe). Admittedly, the current
conflict involves a lot of money and trade but most of all it's about
geopolitical power, not soybeans or chips.

~~~
genmud
Because they didn't have nearly the developed economy that they do now? They
probably also didn't have as much influence and maybe weren't really seen as a
regional player?

