ABSTRACT
This chapter moves from away the Singapore model per se to China’s perceptions of and efforts to learn from it. Over the past four decades, China has shown tremendous interest in the ‘Singapore model’, through sending tens of thousands of cadres to Singapore for leadership training and executive education. Utilizing a unique dataset of over 1,350 mid-level cadres graduating from the ‘Mayors’ Class’ in Singapore from 1995 to 2016 and follow-up surveys and interviews, this chapter intends to fill this empirical and conceptual gap. It found that the most appealing characteristic of the ‘Singapore model’ for these mid-level officials lies in practical governance lessons and their potential transferability to China rather than ideologies. This finding challenges conventional wisdom that the most plausible rationale of China’s learning from Singapore is political. This chapter also examines Chinese leadership’s view of the Singapore model and its relevance to China’s national agendas in building a ‘learning nation’ and strengthening the CCP’s resilience through intraparty regeneration. The conclusion places the China–Singapore case in the changing trajectories of the intra-Asia knowledge transfer and implications for transnational governance in the global South.
