Singaporean State Capitalism, And Singapore Airlines

China is by no means the only successful developing country that combined a strong state and vibrant market forces to achieve rapid economic growth on a sustained basis. In fact, some might argue that the blueprint for China’s growth strategy was laid out by two other highly successful East Asian economies — South Korea and Singapore. Those two countries started industrializing much earlier than China and as a result, they are much richer than China. Singapore is one of the world’s richest countries although one may question the relevance of the Singaporean experience for China. After all, Singapore is a small city-state of 5 million people while China is a continental country of more than 1.3 billion people. Singapore would not even be one of the biggest, top-tier cities in China. South Korea, on the other hand, is a real country of 50 million, although its land area is relatively small, about the size of Iceland or Kentucky. Nevertheless, Chinese policymakers have looked at both countries as role models to follow and emulate…