ABSTRACT
This chapter explores aspects of the economic development programme, which the Singapore government sought to introduce into a small, clearly defined geographic area of China: the China-Singapore Industrial Park in Suzhou. It argues that legal transplants or Singapore ‘software’ and ‘technical assistance’ seem to be resulting in the emergence of a new species of local administrative and regulatory legal measures within the Chinese national legal system. The chapter characterizes the nature of the Singapore model of law and development. It argues that far from converging with laws of the west and becoming a replica of western law, the Singapore model has diverged from its western roots into a more holistic and communitarian version in response to local political, economic, and developmental imperatives. The chapter explores aspects of the ‘transfer’ that seems to be taking place in Suzhou and concludes by speculating on whether the Suzhou experience is evidence of the replicability of the Singapore model of law and economic development.
