Singapore, Malaysia and the unevenness of good governance

The future is here. It's just not very well spread out. The diffusion of technological advancement has never been even. Why is it easier for some countries to make that leap into developed world status and not other countries? That's the question that you have to ask yourself when you're considering the diverging paths of Singapore and Malaysia.

With hindsight, we now know that Singapore and Malaysia diverged because Singapore had the right idea on how to go forward. As for Malaysia, to be fair to them, they had a lot going for them. But they were just less ruthlessly efficient than Singapore. I'm sure most third world countries would like to be Malaysia, even now.

So why does good governance have to mainly be confined to Singapore? Maybe it was better for all: Singapore needed the independence in order to have the freedom to implement its own ideas and demonstrate that our ideas were better. Malaysia could go its own way, but at least it can catch up and take a few ideas from a Singapore who showed how things could be done.

As for the separation, I thought that it was contradictory that LKY and the Tunku's government both agreed to the divorce without either side having to twist the other's arm. It was a mutual divorce. So both sides were happy with it in a way. But when you divorce, there has to be a display of sadness, and it is a real shame that two countries with so much in common could not find a way to carve out a future together. I used to think that this dual attitude was really duplicitious, but I've come around to the idea that both sides of the story need to be articulated.

And then I think about the story of the developed world and the third world. The developed world are countries which are a magnet which suck the best and brightest from the third world. The third world becomes mired in poverty and bad governance. This is a very unfortunate social dynamic. It's even happening within the US, and there are not just a gap between the have and have nots amongst people, but the regions are becoming more and more divergent in terms of their fortunes.

So was it necessary for there to be a separation, so that Singapore was allowed to be Singapore? Malaysia's fortunes have been pretty bad, until the great shock – actually not a great shock for BN to lose power a few years ago to PH. Then it took a few years after the Sheraton Hotel coup for Anwar to become the prime minister. One suspects that Malaysia is finally waking up after years of complacency because they're beginning to realise that the power and interests of the venal elite class is not as important as being able to rise up to the challenge of living in a world where US and China are starting a new great power conflict.

Does this mean that Malaysia can finally clean up its act to be a better version of itself? Will Anwar be able to shake up the power structures and point Malaysia into a better direction, going forward? Or is reformasi simply a lazy power slogan? Is he a temporary Barack Obama who will have a Trump succeed him and undo all the good things? It's very hard to tell. But I think a lot of observers can see that if Malaysia can get on the right track, it will be part of a southeast Asia which – for the next few decades at least – has a bright future.