Singapore Unlikely Power - Why Should We Even Care About This Tiny Island?

Perry opens with a memory from his childhood in 1930s New Jersey. A small wooden model boat, a Malayan prau, that he loved carrying around as a kid. His parents had lived in Southeast Asia in the 1920s, working on a rubber plantation. Their house was filled with exotic stuff: a tiger skin on the floor, an elephant-foot wastebasket, brass trays, opium pipes, batik hangings. For a kid growing up in suburban Maplewood during the Great Depression, this was basically having a portal to another world sitting in your living room.

His parents would tell stories that started with “Out in the East.” Tales about turbaned servants, rickshaws, cobras showing up uninvited at the bungalow. And occasional trips to Singapore, where the famous Raffles Hotel still had what they called “thunder boxes” for toilets and giant ceramic jars for bathing. One clueless guest actually climbed inside the jar instead of scooping water out of it. Found it “cozy but tight.”

It’s a warm, personal opening. But Perry is setting up something bigger here.

Why Should We Care About Singapore?

Here’s the thing most Americans don’t realize. The US has twice as much money invested in Singapore than in all of China. Let that sink in. A place most Americans can’t find on a map holds more American corporate investment than the world’s second-largest economy.

And it’s not just money. Since the US gave up its naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines, Singapore has become a key strategic asset for the American Navy. The biggest aircraft carriers dock there. Littoral combat ships are stationed there. In a region where the US keeps talking about its “Pivot to Asia,” Singapore is basically the parking lot.

But Perry’s most interesting argument is about what Singapore represents as a concept. As nation-states get messier and less efficient, city-states might actually be the future. A Singaporean minister named George Yeo made this exact point back in 1995, saying the most important unit of economic production in the coming century would be the city, not the nation. Kind of like Europe before nation-states existed, when maritime city-states like Venice and Genoa ran things.

Singapore even markets itself as “the new London.” That’s a bold claim for a place you can drive across in under an hour.

A History of Nearly Dying

Here’s what I found most fascinating about the preface. Perry frames Singapore’s entire history as a survival story. Not a steady rise. A series of near-death experiences.

Seven centuries ago, hostile neighbors nearly wiped it off the map as a significant port. When the British showed up in 1819, London almost shut the whole thing down before it even got started. They only gave grudging approval to the settlement after it was already growing.

Then Britain won Hong Kong in the Opium War of 1839-42, and suddenly Singapore’s whole reason for existing, being the “gateway to China,” evaporated. Hong Kong took that role. Singapore had to find a new purpose or fade away.

The Japanese occupation in World War II was devastating. And when independence came in 1965, it wasn’t some triumphant moment. Singapore got kicked out of Malaysia. Unemployment was through the roof. Strikes everywhere. Riots in the streets. Communism looked appealing to a lot of people. Indonesia, a much bigger and more aggressive neighbor, was right next door.

Even Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister, called the idea of a modern maritime city-state “a joke.”

Then in 1971, just as things were stabilizing, Britain pulled out its military. Those bases had been generating almost a fifth of Singapore’s entire GDP and employing one in ten workers. Imagine losing that overnight.

Perry nails the psychology of the place with two words: ambition and anxiety. The leadership has consistently used anxiety to push people harder. Former PM Goh Chok Tong put it plainly: Singapore has “no certainty of future success” and must stay competitive while “navigating a choppy sea.”

So How Did It Actually Work?

The numbers are staggering. By 2015, Singapore ranked sixth among cities in economic power, behind only New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Paris. The World Bank rated it number one in the world for ease of doing business. Per capita GNP went from $500 to $15,000 in thirty years, and by 2014 hit $55,150. That’s a third more than Britain, their former colonial ruler. Unemployment under 2 percent.

Perry points to several factors.

Geography. Singapore sits on the Melaka Straits, connecting the Indian and Pacific oceans. Nearly half the world’s seaborne trade passes through these straits. If they ever got blocked, China, Korea, Japan, and eventually America would all feel the pain. The harbor is naturally deep, sheltered from typhoons, and tides keep it clean without dredging. It’s basically the perfect port location on the planet.

Timing. Singapore’s independence in 1965 happened to coincide with a massive leap in world trade, the containerization of shipping, and the breakdown of old colonial empires releasing pent-up economic energy across Asia.

Education. “Singapore math” is now studied by American teachers trying to figure out why their students can’t keep up. Singaporean students rank at or near the top globally in math and science. The country is multilingual, with English as the primary language plus a second or third tongue. Government jobs attract top talent by paying private-sector salaries.

Pragmatic governance. The government accepts climate science without debate. “Intelligent design” is not taught in schools. Genetic research faces no ideological restrictions. They enforce savings through the Central Provident Fund, giving the government a massive capital pool for infrastructure while providing people housing and pensions.

And here’s something that stopped me: Deng Xiaoping once told Lee Kuan Yew, “If I had only Shanghai to worry about… But I have the whole of China!” Even the leader of the world’s most populous country was envious of Singapore’s manageable size.

The Dark Side Nobody Ignores

Perry doesn’t hide the authoritarian angle. Lee Kuan Yew’s own words are telling. In a 1991 speech he said the key to a nation is “how you select your people, how you train them, how you organize them, and ultimately how you manage them.” Perry highlights that last word: manage. People aren’t just governed. They’re managed.

Most Singaporeans have gone along with it because living standards kept rising. But Perry raises the question: what happens when the generation that remembers 1965, that remembers how bad things were, is gone? Will younger people who never knew hardship keep accepting strong-handed government?

Lee Kuan Yew died in March 2015, and Perry notes the global response was revealing. World leaders praised him. But so did dictators and would-be dictators, who saw in Singapore a justification for their own autocratic rule. Singapore’s prosperity as cover for authoritarianism. That’s a complicated legacy.

Why This Preface Matters

Countries all over the world want to be “the next Singapore.” Dubai studies its business practices. Rwanda’s president wants to be “the Singapore of central Africa.” Panama calls itself the “Singapore of Central America.” Georgia’s former president wanted “Switzerland with elements of Singapore.” Even a real estate developer in Flushing, New York, wants his shoreline “to look like Singapore.”

Everyone wants the results. Few want to examine what it actually took to get there.

And that’s what Perry’s book promises to explore. Not just the shiny modern skyline, but the centuries of crises, the brutal decisions, the lucky geography, and the relentless anxiety that built it all. As Lee Kuan Yew himself said: “Without the harbor, we would not be half ourselves.”

The preface sets up the whole book perfectly. Singapore isn’t a miracle. It’s a survival story. And survival stories are always more interesting than fairy tales.

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