Introduction

Singapore has become a model for authoritarian regimes from around the world and for China in particular. For Chinese observers, no other country in the world has seemingly managed economic modernization so successfully and curbed corruption so thoroughly. It has an effective and efficient administrative state without having also introduced substantial political liberalization. This introduction first examines the literature on authoritarian learning and explores its relevance for understanding Chinese observers’ interest in the “Singapore model.” Then it turns to the question of why Chinese observers were long so fascinated by the lessons that they found the city-state seemed to hold for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese context in which this interest developed.