Front Row Bulletin #3 (East-West Dialogue)

Here are the three reads and one snippet for your upcoming week.

Snippet Of The Week

I had a chance to interview Professor Tan Tai Yong, the Dean of SUSS, who discussed the 700 years of Singapore's history with me in great depth.

The biggest takeaway I had after reading his book and watching his lectures was that the idea of Singapore as a sovereign nation is the largest historical discontinuity of this island.

The idea that we would be a nation is an anomaly.

He puts it in better words here,

Before Singapore gained independence, it was primarily a port city with a transient population of immigrant workers. As the nation moved toward independence, there was a need to establish a political identity, leading to the introduction of citizenship and statehood.

Prior to independence, Singaporeans were considered British subjects. However, those who had stayed long enough and did not return to their homelands began to take on a new identity, culminating in Singaporean citizenship.

After 1965, when Singapore became a sovereign state following its separation from Malaysia, the concept of citizenship took on a new dimension. Singapore transitioned from being a colonial port to a nation-state with its own citizens who had a stake in their country's future. This marked a shift from a transient population to a settled one, committed to building a shared future in Singapore.

Here's the interview in full!

Within one generation, you can make disparate peoples of different races, religions and cultures identify with each other as fellow citizens.

This is why (contra Musk), Singapore will never go extinct.

Reads Of The Week

These week's reads come from this open-access collection of essays, East-West Dialogue.

Here are my top three.

Can The US and China Escape the Thucydides Trap by Justin Liu

In his chapter, economist Justin Yifu Lin examines the dynamics between a rising China and an established United States.

He challenges the notion of the "Thucydides Trap," which suggests that conflict is inevitable when a rising power threatens to displace an existing one.

Lin argues that China's ascent has been relatively peaceful, contrasting with the aggressive expansionist approaches historically adopted by Western colonial powers.

Lin posits that China's development model offers a new paradigm, demonstrating that growth can be achieved through peaceful and mutually beneficial means.

Part of the reason China is generally averse to war is that it is in a rush to achieve middle-income status. This sounds easy when you are, say, a country of 30 million.

Butfor a country of 1 billion people, achieving relative prosperity (i.e., eradicating poverty) requires ahuge focus.

Lin gives a sense of the huge upside China has in front of it,

"However, more than 50 percent of the Chinese population—or nearly 800 million people—live in central and western China, where the GDP per capita is about one-third of the United States"

Wars, in these cases, only serve to distract the government.

(*That is not to say that they do not use other forms of statecraft to get what they want)

To Understand China, You Need to See China for Yourself by Mark Levine

American sociologist and musician Mark Levine shares insights from his experiences since moving to China in 2005.

His view is that a way to alleviate the tense US-China relations is for citizens to travel to each other's countries.

I think at the private level, improving the U.S.-China relationship or the relationship between Western countries and China depends more on the people. The best way to communicate across cultures is for people with different cultural backgrounds to sit down and talk face to face.

Is media a sufficient proxy?

Probably not.

We must not forget that the U.S. launched the Vietnam War on the ground that its warships were attacked. It also went to war with Iraq on the ground that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction.

After visiting China a couple of times this few years, I agree with Mark.

Compared to a decade ago, I am surprised by how much more modern, cleaner, and safer China has become. It's not a country on the verge of collapse.

China’s Promotion of Common Prosperity Means New Opportunities for Multinationals by Shaun Rein

I interviewed this author on a recent episode.

In this interview, he has a view that could get him cancelled in the US:

The prosperity of the American middle class in the past decade is thanks to Chinese labour.

This is empirically backed up by data.

From 2003 to 2024, the prices of imports into the US from China, Mexico, and Canada and the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) reveal significant contrasts in inflation trends.

Over the two decades, import prices from China remained nearly flat, increasing by just 0.5%.

In stark contrast, imports from Canada experienced substantial inflation, with prices ending 68% higher than at the beginning of the period—surpassing even the US CPI, which rose by 65%.

Similarly, imports from Mexico saw a notable, though less extreme, increase, with prices ending 49% higher than at the start.

This suggests that China has become increasingly productive and innovative, improving the quality of its exports to the US with great price stability in the past 20 years.

Without China, the United States would have been a much poorer country over the past 30 years and would not have had so many middle-class people who can afford Apple and Nike products.

In return, China's workers were gainfully employed and were given opportunities to escape poverty.

This is a win-win situation that the current rivalry should not obfuscate.

May the sun shine upon your face,

Keith