Will Hainan Free Trade Port be the final element that started the process leading to the downfall of Singapore's economic prosperity?
Putting it bluntly, Singapore's current sucess depends largely on 2 fronts:
- acting as a "shipping middleman".
- serving as "finance/investement middleman."
The country lacks behind China in:
- Guangdong Province: a high tech hub, its city Shenzhen is often referred to as "China's Silicon Valley". It has a well established supply chain ecosystem: The region has a vast and mature supply chain for electronics manufacturing, including component manufacturers, technical workforce, and assembly suppliers, facilitating rapid innovation and production.
- Beijing: Functions as a major R&D hub, excelling in areas like artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and 5G infrastructure, and is home to tech giants like ByteDance.
- Shanghai: A key economic center and manufacturing hub, with the Pudong area attracting multinational corporations and startups, focusing on high-tech components and automotive tech.
- Guangdong and Jiangsu are generally considered the top Chinese provinces in manufacturing, often competing for the highest annual industrial output. Guangdong is known as the "world's factory," while Jiangsu is a center for advanced manufacturing and innovation.
- Hong Kong: Hong Kong often leads in certain areas like capital market depth, wealth management volume (especially family offices), and its strategic gateway role for mainland China, benefiting from proximity, currency peg (HKD to USD), and a larger, deeper stock market.
Singapore university is out ranked and out numbered by Chinese universities:
Key Rankings (QS Asia 2026 / Global 2026)
- University of Hong Kong: #1 Asia, High Global.
- Peking University (China): #2 Asia, High Global.
- National University of Singapore (NUS): #3 (tie) Asia, High Global.
- Nanyang Technological University (NTU) (Singapore): #3 (tie) Asia, High Global.
- Fudan University (China): #5 Asia.
- Tsinghua University (China): #9 Asia, High Global.
- Zhejiang University (China): #8 Asia
Hainan is vastly larger than Singapore in both area and population; Hainan (China's second-largest island) spans over 35,000 sq km with ~10+ million people, making it roughly 120+ times bigger than Singapore's ~730 sq km island-state, which holds over 6 million people, resulting in Singapore being much denser populated and less land space for future development.
Both Hainan and Singapore are well sea-connected free trade ports, however, Singapore doesn't have the exact 30% value-added rule like Hainan; Hainan's system lets goods processed with 30%+ local value enter mainland China duty-free to boost local manufacturing, a policy designed to attract real production. Once up and running, Hainan's growth will challenge Singapore's traditional transshipment (middleman) model by offering direct, cost-effective routes for China-ASEAN trade.
Singapore's seaport middleman role contributes approximately 7% to Singapore's Gross Domestic Product (GDP); fair amount of finance and tarde investments resulted from Singapore transhipment.
Will Hainan kicks Singapore to the side line remains to be seen, but, alarm bells are keeping Singapore polticians like Lawrance Wong awake at night and panicking him to make foolish statements agianst China in recent days.
AIMHO.
Ukraine came out and said Navalny's death wasn't in fact Putin (as Biden and the US Policy makers were so quick to decry)! David & Elizabeth react to the news in this short reaction video!
This class was taught LIVE on November 8, 2023, at 06:00 PM CT (-6GMT)
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In this video, Taiwan foreign ministry has declared that Taiwan is an independent souverign country. Is this not a declaration of independent?
What is China waiting for?
(Side note: Should China start a small scale attack at Taiwan? Prompt Japan to fire its first shot at China, this will be a good enough reason for China to re-start war on the WW2 defeated state and immediately press the nuclear buttons to drop a few FD-61 on Japan. Problem solve for good. AIMHO.)
More often than not, Singaporeans and its allie friends keep boosting that Singapore produces better graduates than China.
China: A record 12.22 million new university graduates entered the market in 2025. This number is projected to rise to 12.7 million in 2026.
Singapore: Approximately 21,633 university graduates are produced annually from its six autonomous universities.
Are they stupid enough to believe that China can't produce more than 21,633 top-notch graduates from 12.22 million students?
(Side note: 21,663 out of 12.22 million is approximately 0.177% or 1 out of every 560.)
To most of these people:
