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Comment by pcr0 | Hacker News Reader

Companies may start moving their Asia HQs to Singapore en masse.

It's a pity most of the obvious regional alternatives are either too unwelcoming to foreigners or haven't gotten their shit together enough to be in the game. One would hope that Tokyo or Seoul could soak up the refugees but they're just too difficult to live in for English speakers - not to mention their hostile visa regimes. And the large South East Asia countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia all have horrendous infrastructure deficits, internal stability issues, archaic financial systems and endemic corruption. And Australia's just too damn far.

Singapore wins just by being open, competent, non-corrupt and there.

What about South Korea?

Well I did mention Seoul - but the language and cultural barriers there are just too insurmountable for international staff to want to live there, IMO. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic city, but it's hard to imagine an english-speaking family relocating there for work with anything like the ease of somewhere like Singapore or, previously, HK. It is a LOT more foreign.

Having North Korea a stone's throw away doesn't exactly help either.

One of my thoughts is that China is trying to be more like Singapore with their social credit system. Remember at one time you could get caned in Singapore by bubble gum.

I don't know why you would think that - with the exception perhaps of a national preoccupation with maintaining order, the two countries could hardly be more different. For all its faults, and there are many, Singapore basically delivers on its promise - a fair and equitable legal system, a transparent and accountable executive, and an excellent business and financial environment.

Singapore's laws can be strict, to a fault, but caning has never been a punishment for chewing gum. Regardless - they are a known quantity and more or less fairly applied, and if the citizens really didn't like them there's a mechanism to have them changed. If China was anything close to having a system like that, we wouldn't be having this discussion!

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