China

Dec 06, 2025

Rare Earth Mania: When China Squeezed the World's Tech Supply

Your phone has rare earths in it. Your laptop has them. If you drive a hybrid or electric car, it is full of them. Wind turbines need them. Flat screens need them. Pretty much every piece of modern technology needs a tiny bit of these 17 metals that most people have never heard of. Chapter 39 of Torsten Dennin’s “From Tulips to Bitcoins” (ISBN: 978-1-63299-227-7) tells the story of what happened when one country controlled almost all of the supply and decided to squeeze.

Dec 06, 2025
From Tulips to Bitcoins

Rare Earth Mania: When China Squeezed the World's Tech Supply

Jul 26, 2025

The Chinese Copper Trader Who Vanished Without a Trace

In November 2005, a 36-year-old copper trader for the Chinese government stopped answering his phone. His apartment door stayed shut. He did not show up at work. His employer, the State Reserve Bureau, first told the London Metal Exchange that the man did not exist. Then they said he acted alone. Then they stopped talking. Chapter 20 of Torsten Dennin’s “From Tulips to Bitcoins” tells the story of Liu Qibing, who shorted up to 200,000 tons of copper on the LME and vanished when the bet went wrong.

Jul 26, 2025
From Tulips to Bitcoins

The Chinese Copper Trader Who Vanished Without a Trace

Jun 14, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years - Final Thoughts on the Book

So we made it through all 11 chapters of “Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years.” That’s a lot of diplomatic history, economic data, and joint projects. Here’s what stuck with me after reading the whole thing.

Jun 13, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 11: Chinese Studies in Singapore - How a Tiny Country Watches a Giant

Chapter 11, written by John Wong and Lim Tai Wei, tells the story of how Singapore built serious intellectual infrastructure for studying China. Not just the language or the classics, but real-time political and economic analysis.

Jun 12, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 10: What Chinese Media Really Thinks About Singapore

Chapter 10, by Huang Yanjie and Zhao Lingmin, is about how Singapore looks when viewed through Chinese eyes. Not the diplomatic version. The media version. Official newspapers, TV dramas, pop songs, travel blogs, internet forums. All of it.

Jun 11, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 9: The Chinese Community in Singapore - Culture, Identity, and Connections

Lim Tai Wei’s chapter is about the “soft” side of Singapore’s Chinese community. Not the money, not the politics, not the diplomatic handshakes. Instead, he looks at culture, food, education, traditions, and identity. The stuff that shapes how a community actually lives day to day.

Jun 10, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 8: Students and Schools - Singapore-China Educational Exchanges

Zhao Litao’s chapter on educational exchanges reads like a story about two countries slowly figuring out they need each other’s schools. Not for sentimental reasons. For very practical ones.

Jun 09, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 7: How Singapore Exports Its Development Know-How to China

This chapter is different from the rest of the book. It’s not written by academics. It’s written by Singbridge, the company that actually builds these projects on the ground. So instead of theory, you get the practitioner’s view. How does a Singapore company walk into a Chinese province and say, “Let us help you build a city”? And then actually do it?

Jun 08, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 6: Tianjin Eco-City - Building a Green City From Scratch

Chapter 6 is written by Chen Gang, and it’s about one of the most interesting things Singapore and China have done together. They decided to build an eco-friendly city from scratch. Not renovate an existing one. Not add solar panels to some buildings. They picked a 30-square-kilometre patch of mostly useless land, salt farms and wastewater ponds, and said: “Let’s build a green city here.”

Jun 07, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 5: Suzhou Industrial Park - Singapore's Boldest Project in China

This is probably my favorite chapter in the whole book. Lye Liang Fook writes about the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), and it reads almost like a startup saga. Two countries decided to build an entire industrial township together. They clashed on how to do it. Things got rough. Then it actually worked.

Jun 06, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 4: How Tourism Became a Bridge Between Singapore and China

Chapter 4, written by Chiang Min-Hua, is about how tourism exchange between Singapore and China grew from almost nothing into a multi-billion dollar flow of people and money in both directions. And the numbers in this chapter are genuinely surprising.

Jun 05, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 3: The Money Side of Singapore-China Relations

Chapter 3, written by Sarah Y Tong, is basically the spreadsheet chapter. Tons of tables, percentages, growth rates. But behind all those numbers is a pretty wild story: two countries that didn’t even officially recognize each other kept trading anyway, for decades, because money talks louder than politics.

Jun 04, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 2: Lee Kuan Yew and His Special Connection With China

Chapter 2 is all about one man: Lee Kuan Yew. Written by Zheng Yongnian and Lim Wen Xin, it makes a strong case that Singapore’s special relationship with China was built on Lee’s personal connections with five generations of Chinese leaders, from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, and the fact that China genuinely wanted to learn from Singapore’s success.

Jun 03, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Chapter 1: Looking Back and Forward at 50 Years of China-Singapore Ties

Chapter 1 is by John Wong and Lye Liang Fook, and it tries to do something ambitious: cover the entire arc of Singapore-China relations in one chapter. Centuries of trade, Cold War politics, panda diplomacy, military exercises, and a whole web of institutional frameworks. The through-line is clear: pragmatism made this relationship work, and institutions are what will keep it going.

Jun 02, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Singapore-China Relations: The Introduction That Sets Everything Up

The editors, Zheng Yongnian and Lye Liang Fook, start with something refreshingly honest. They admit the project scared them. World Scientific Publishing asked them to write a book commemorating 50 years of Singapore-China relations, and they thought: huge topic, not much time.

Jun 01, 2019
Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years

Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years - A Book Retelling Series

So I picked up this book called Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years, edited by Zheng Yongnian and Lye Liang Fook. It’s part of a whole series about Singapore’s first 50 years as a nation. And honestly, the story of how Singapore and China built their relationship is way more interesting than you’d expect.

China

Rare Earth Mania: When China Squeezed the World's Tech Supply

Rare Earth Mania: When China Squeezed the World's Tech Supply

The Chinese Copper Trader Who Vanished Without a Trace

The Chinese Copper Trader Who Vanished Without a Trace

Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years - Final Thoughts on the Book

Chapter 11: Chinese Studies in Singapore - How a Tiny Country Watches a Giant

Chapter 10: What Chinese Media Really Thinks About Singapore

Chapter 9: The Chinese Community in Singapore - Culture, Identity, and Connections

Chapter 8: Students and Schools - Singapore-China Educational Exchanges

Chapter 7: How Singapore Exports Its Development Know-How to China

Chapter 6: Tianjin Eco-City - Building a Green City From Scratch

Chapter 5: Suzhou Industrial Park - Singapore's Boldest Project in China

Chapter 4: How Tourism Became a Bridge Between Singapore and China

Chapter 3: The Money Side of Singapore-China Relations

Chapter 2: Lee Kuan Yew and His Special Connection With China

Chapter 1: Looking Back and Forward at 50 Years of China-Singapore Ties

Singapore-China Relations: The Introduction That Sets Everything Up

Singapore-China Relations: 50 Years - A Book Retelling Series

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