> Singapore, not being tied at the hip to a superpower w/ enormous and diverse geopolitical interests
I lived in Singapore for 2.5 years as an exchange student. Singapore almost made me to believe it being the "Chinese Dream" come true.
I was fortunate to meet two former TSMC engineers closing on their mid fifties who pretty much took patronage of me back then and corrected my attitudes. I thank them for pulling out that "Singapore dream" porridge out of my brain.
I was of very high opinion of LKY as a leader, but later I realised that he was a very cheap man, just with a lot of charisma and verbal skills he got from British education.
First, he was the most ardent anti-colonialist, but the moment Malaysia got independence, he was first to cling to "mama Britania"
He was oratorising on inter-ethnic unity through early independence years, but was first to jump the moment talks of separation started
He was an ardent democrat in his talks, but used red scare to purge all credible opponents, including ones from his own camp
He claimed to firmly be on side of capitalism, but spent 30 years running Sing as a borderline statist/socialist state (the notion of Sing as a freewheeling capital hub is relatively new thing, and would've been completely contrary to country's self image in Seventies)
He said, on the record, many times, promising to keep his family out of power, but you see yourself how it went.
He promised to go when it will be the time for it, yet he spent his last decade in power in semi-demented state, and ill health.
And finally, despite him almost screaming all those 50 years of Singapore being a neutral country, the story of him doing "special relationship" ("selling out", in plain language) with the USA and American business is what every Sing citizen knows too well
I bet, would US government get interest in your servers, they would not need even to go through formal diplomatic channels, a single call to Istana would do that.