South Korea is way more impressive transition than Singapore. First of all, it is a large country with a local nation whose culture had to be preserved. Second, it was really poor, and after Korean war it was poorer than most of Africa.
It’s the age old complaint about the Romans by their conquered peoples as illustrated in the Life of Brian.
From the said region. This is objectively no.
Singapore and Korea are the only twos. Korea is not even in the region.
Other countries are rampant with corruptions, political problems, and incompetence. Think of Trump and multiply it by 10. My prediction is that Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines , Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, and etc. will never become developed. These countries are too big to change and the legacy systems (that are insanely corrupted) are too powerful.
Take Thailand for example. It's objectively bad to have military run the country. Apart from corruption, they are just incompentent; it's well known and blatant. Yet almost half of the country supports a military government.
I do not think this was much different historically. Europeans are not very present in Singaporean society.
They did before WWII and they certainly do now.
Whereas these 20% non-Chinese cannot turn a Chinese culture country to something else, hence the South Korean / Taiwanese / Hong Kong trajectory.
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