Why is Singapore no longer "cool"?

we call it the rich version of north korean

I think Singapore's immigration policy is still interesting and relevant to western countries, but it's true it's also kind of similar to the UAE.

Essentially it's (relatively) easy to get work visas for areas where there's a genuine shortage but difficult to get permanent residency and almost impossible to get citizenship.

That's still a very different policy to what most western countries have right now.

The UAE has the most extreme version of this so the milder Singaporean version is less interesting as an example.

> Singapore’s free speech restrictions, whatever you think of them, no longer seem so far outside the box. Trump is suing plenty of people. The UK is sending police to knock on people’s doors for social media posts, and so on. That too makes Singapore more of a “normal country"

That seems like it should make Singapore _more_ cool, at least my personal theory is that this changed a lot of perception of China (at least in some parts of gen z social media, "it's a very Chinese time").

I think it is due to China. I remember Singapore was a large financial center for Asia, but China's rapid growth overshadowed Singapore.

I also think Hong Kong is going through the same thing, plus I believe China is trying to make Shanghai into its main Finance Center, letting Hong Kong's center fade away.

It hasn't been cool for a long time. My dad was offered Singaporean citizenship in the 1990s despite then being an Indian national but decided to immigrate to the US to work in tech in Silicon Valley instead and raise us. This is a pretty common story among Bay Area Chinese and Indian Americans who immigrated during that era.

In the 90s and 2000s, Singapore's value add was that it could act as a door into China, India, and ASEAN due to expansive trade and investment treaties, but why would I want to build an R&D center in Changi staffed with PRCs and Indians when I could just hire them directly in Shenzhen or Bangalore.

After China committed to being hands-off on HK business and contract law in the 2000s, SG lost some value as it didn't have the same connections that HK had legally speaking to enter the Chinese market.

SG continues to remain the best place to incorporate a business in Asia, but just because your lawyers and holding company is in SG it doesn't mean your operations, operational headcount, and capital expenditures is there.