Singapore Unlikely Power Chapter 9 - Can Singapore Be the Worlds Global Hinge?

Perry’s final chapter is the kind that makes you sit back and think. After eight chapters tracing Singapore from ancient Temasek through colonial port to modern powerhouse, he steps back and asks: so what does all this mean for the future? Can this tiny island actually become the hinge that connects the world’s great civilizations?

The Sea Still Matters

Here’s the thing. We live in a digital world, but physical stuff still moves by sea. Overwhelmingly so. Perry opens by pointing out that Singapore’s centuries of experience as a maritime hub have positioned it perfectly for the Internet age too. Undersea fiber-optic cables follow the same routes that trading ships once sailed. The port that once distributed spices now helps distribute data.

But ports have changed. They used to buzz with dockworkers and sailors. Now they are automated, almost invisible. Singapore has embraced that change, planning a massive consolidation of five port facilities into one mega port at Tuas. When finished, it will handle sixty-five million containers a year. The biggest American port complex, Los Angeles-Long Beach, handles under fifteen million.

That is a staggering number for an island you can drive across in forty-five minutes.

Between Two Giants

Perry makes a fascinating argument about Singapore’s strategic position between a rising China and a reviving India. Both countries are growing fast. Both have massive consumer markets. And Singapore sits right between them, with cultural connections to both. Its population includes ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indians, giving it a foot in each world.

For India, Perry sees only opportunity. For China, it is more complicated. Chinese capital might fund a canal across Thailand or a pipeline across Malaysia, letting ships bypass Singapore entirely. Arctic shipping routes could shift traffic north. But Perry is not panicking. Singapore’s real advantage is not just geography. It is the entire ecosystem of maritime services, financial expertise, and legal infrastructure built around the port.

And then there is the time zone argument. Albert Winsemius, the Dutch economist who basically helped design modern Singapore, pointed out decades ago that Singapore fills a gap in the global financial clock. When New York closes, Los Angeles is still open. When LA closes, Singapore picks up. When Singapore closes, Zurich opens. The money never sleeps, and Singapore is in the perfect slot.

The Venice Comparison

Perry draws a line from Singapore back to the great maritime city-states of history. Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam. All of them started with basic maritime trade and then climbed the value chain. Venice began with salt and fish. Genoa went from piracy to banking. Amsterdam was literally built on herring money.

Singapore has done the same thing. Maritime trade is now only about seven percent of GDP. But the port pulled everything else along with it. Shipbuilding, insurance, law, accounting, banking. The maritime sector was the catalyst, not the whole story.

But here is the problem. All those city-states eventually declined. Venice faded when Atlantic routes opened. Amsterdam could not compete with London. London’s own docks closed in 1981, barely sixteen years after Singapore became independent. Perry uses London as both inspiration and cautionary tale. London lost its port but kept its maritime brain trust. Lawyers, bankers, insurers, classification societies all stayed. But can the abstract survive without the material?

Singapore wants to become “the new London” for maritime business. A Norwegian consulting firm ranked it the world’s most important maritime center overall, though London still leads in finance and law. Singapore’s biggest weakness? Not enough skilled people.

The Freedom Question

This is where Perry gets most interesting, I think. Singapore wants to be a “thinking nation.” But Perry points out a real tension. IBM’s old slogan was “Think.” Apple’s was “Think Different.” Singapore has been much more IBM than Apple.

Steve Jobs, Perry notes with some amusement, would have been completely out of place in Singapore. Brilliant but unwashed, rude, rebellious. Singapore has historically discouraged exactly that kind of person. The irreverent, the dissatisfied, the subversive. Billions of dollars in museums and performing arts centers cannot create a culture of creative risk-taking overnight.

Perry quotes statesman George Yeo saying Singapore’s success comes from anxiety, and the anxiety is never fully relieved by success. That rings true. And he shares a wonderful joke from a cab driver: two dogs swimming toward each other in the Malacca Strait. The one from Indonesia says he wants a good job and air-conditioned flat. The one from Singapore says he just wants to bark.

That joke says everything about the trade-off at the heart of Singapore’s story.

The Real Challenge

Perry’s conclusion is honest. Singapore seized the right moment with the right people in the right place. The sea gave it everything. But the next challenge is different. It is about creativity, originality, what Perry calls “the intangible.” Material success has been achieved. The balance sheet looks fantastic. But as he quotes the scientist Edwin Land: “The bottom line is in Heaven.”

What is success, really? Singapore is still figuring that out. And Perry’s gentle suggestion is that answering that question will require loosening up, letting people bark a little, tolerating the messy and the rebellious alongside the orderly and efficient.

“Singapore will never be finished,” Perry writes. After nine chapters, I believe him. This is a country that has reinvented itself over and over. The question is whether the next reinvention can come from the bottom up instead of the top down.

Previous: Chapter VIII: Coming to the Present (Part 2) | Next: Final Thoughts