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Singapore wants cold war's casualties, not a truckload of new money As escalating violence on its border with China draws India closer to the US, globally-minded Chinese firms need neutral addresses to avoid becoming collateral damage
The more desperately Chinese firms seek a haven for their international operations, the more they’ll lean toward Singapore. Will their love be reciprocated? Amid the drumbeats of a US-China cold war, the Southeast Asian island-state is often talked about as a sanctuary for capital looking to flee the clash of superpowers. But aging Singapore, with excess savings of its own, doesn’t want a truckload of new money.
Business investments, however, are very different from potentially destabilising financial flows. They create jobs, provide new orders to local vendors, and spark optimism about the future, something rather badly needed amid the Covid-19 despondence. That’s why Singapore must be pleased to see Tencent Holdings, Alibaba Group Holding and ByteDance coming with investment plans worth billions of dollars. Alibaba is exploring a $3 billion investment in Grab Holdings, which is pivoting from a Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm to a regional super app with finance at its core. Grab has applied for a Singapore digital bank licence, and so has Alibaba-backed Ant Group, the world’s hottest fintech awaiting its initial public offering in Hong Kong. Reuters reported in June that Grab and Tencentbacked Sea, a Singaporean maker of online games, have made the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s shortlist....Read More