[adventured]

Singapore has been in the 'first-world' economic tier for at least 30 years. Their economic success is not recent. 30 years ago their GDP per capita was on par with Hong Kong and Spain, ahead of Greece, and far ahead of Portugal or South Korea (and it was nearly 40 times higher than China).

China is a legitimate story of recent economic success. China is only now at a stage of median development that Singapore reached in the 1970s and 1980s.

[chrisco255]

Singapore is basically run like a business though, isn't it? Also, it's more of a city-state than a nation, in my mind. Same for Taiwan and Hong Kong.