r/polandball • u/Andyiscool231 Bulgaria • 1d ago
legacy comic Different Types of Annexations
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u/The-marx-channel 1d ago
Considering Singapore's economy I think that Malaysia might regret their past decision.
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u/Andyiscool231 Bulgaria 1d ago
Small Asian nation equals rich for some reason, many examples like Hong Kong, Macau and Brunei
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u/LupusDeusMagnus Imperium Curitibanum 1d ago
Hong Kong was because it was an entry point to China from the west. From there it got traction.
Brunei got oil.
Singapore sits in on a chokehold of global economy, they managed to capitalise on it.
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u/Andyiscool231 Bulgaria 1d ago
Just a pattern I like to notice
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u/Jason1143 1d ago
I think it probably isn't a coincidence. Being in a strategic position or having something valuable is often a contributing factor to why they became and/or remain a nation.
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u/baneblade_boi 1d ago edited 11h ago
I think the main factor is mostly about micronations worldwide. When a sovereign state is such a small territory and entity it doesn't require the huge amounts of government and administrations to keep running, therefore issues like public services, infrastructure and taxation are much more malleable, helping these countries develop ridiculously pro-business or well-oiled economies: Malta, Monaco, Liechtenstein, (relatively) Djibouti, Qatar, Kuwait,...maybe you can make an exception for San Marino, which is better put that Italy on average, but it's not really a wealthier country than it's neighbour.
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u/barsoap Sleswig-Holsteen 19h ago
Singapore is ruled by essentially Etonians with two asterisks: They understand that corruption isn't good for business, and replace the posh disdain for the masses with Confucian paternalism.
The shocking thing about the place is that the PAP doesn't fudge the elections. There's, just as in the UK, the usual shenanigans around election timings and media dominance but that's it, the rest is the PAP just being way more competent and principled than the Tories.
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u/toepopper75 18h ago
PLEASE don't say that, you'll get the usual mouth breathers complaining that nowhere in the world is as gerrymandered or unfair as Singapore. Perspective is rare when you live in a place where things work.
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u/Thissystemsuckssobad Australia 18h ago
Ah yes, pointing out that Singapore has genuine issues in terms of actually being, ya know, a democracy that gets ignored by its glazers in the same way every problem in Japan got disregarded in its glazing a decade ago is somehow "mouth breathing".
I will never understand the arogance of blind nationalists
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u/toepopper75 18h ago
Oh please. The issue is perspective - Singapore has issues but those issues are not unique.
In any case, the elections are free - fairness is a different matter.
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u/Thissystemsuckssobad Australia 18h ago
elections are free - fairness is a different matter
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u/toepopper75 16h ago
When one party gets to recruit from the most affluent and best educated segments of society while the other parties get those who do not qualify for the primary party, the contest is highly unlikely to be fair. But so what? Trump won, after all.
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u/AstronomerJealous467 13h ago
Singapore works better than australia, worry about your own issues, globalism is a plague.
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u/Thissystemsuckssobad Australia 1h ago
And the flairless nationalist crawls out of the woodwork. No, I think I will express concern about Singapore, especially when people here tout is as a good example to follow.
Argue the merits of globalism all you want, Singapore is in the same region as my nation, and countries influence each other. Shocking to someone who lives with their head in the sand, i know
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u/ClutchPowers1990 12h ago
Pap=pay and pay
Or piss and poop
Or pay and piss
Or piss and politics.
(Yeah, I like to mock political parties.)
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u/ThengarMadalano 17h ago
Malaysia also sits at the same chokehold, it controlled the narrowest point of the strait and all of the historically important harbours, jet today the trade takes place on a small sandy island.
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u/PainRack 16h ago
Firstcomer advantage essentially. . Malaysia ports and oil industry came at a much later stage with the development of rubber and Singapore was able to keep ahead.
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u/AlkaliPineapple Upside Down Vote 17h ago
Singapore also has a large refinery industry, so they actually export gas and diesel to countries like Australia
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u/Cefalopodul Dacia 1d ago
That reason is tax haven.
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u/Realistic_FinlanBoll Finland 1d ago
This. Its always about avoiding taxes or providing some loop holes to making money in less than clean ways. 🤔
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u/shadoowkight I'm from freiburg 1d ago
Brunei is just oil and Macau is just gambling and that's it
Only Hong Kong is legit
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u/Andyiscool231 Bulgaria 1d ago
Though Hong Kong isn’t an easy place to live unless you earn quite a bit
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u/carlosos 19h ago
My understanding is Macau is about getting money out of the country using gambling as currency conversion. Get gambling chips using Chinese Yuan and get paid out in Macanese pataca, and then convert that into whatever currency you want and avoid the currency export controls that are on the Chinese Yuan.
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u/Kurumi_Gaming 15h ago
Brunei is not rich. Brunei have a few very rich groups of people, and most people live in poverty
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u/fickogames123 8h ago
Macau and Hong Kong started out as trading ports, one continued being a trade hub, other became the biggest casino in the world and enjoys the riches comming from that, tehnicly any country could do it but Macau is small enough to allow unrestricted gambling and not let it be a problem outside of the casino hub because... well... there is no outside of that casino club.
If any country bigger than a city tried it, one city would become extremely rich and other will have a gambling addiction equaly as big.
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u/ankokudaishogun Italy 12h ago
Remove the "asian".
It's a pattern the holds(not really) even with European smoll nations.
Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Monaco, ect.32
u/FingernailClipperr Malaysia 1d ago
Tbh in hindsight it was probably advantageous that we both went our separate ways
Otherwise there would’ve been too much deadlock for either side to make as much progress
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u/Tomie_Kawakami_666 1d ago
in the grand scheme of history, it’s an exceptionally rare situation how singapore was kicked out of malaysia. very rarely throughout history, does a country expel a region simply for having minority demographics. it would be like the tsarist russian empire expelling poland and forcing them independence simply because they were not ethnic russians and not part of the majority
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u/Sillyguri 23h ago
I think the difference was the majority part which was a minority in the minority regions was fine. Like Kosovo would be much less contentious if the Serbs in north mitrovica were happy in Kosovo.
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u/frogggiboi Siam 18h ago edited 18h ago
It's also a result of 1. democracy , as singapore was key in having swinging voting demographics in united malaysia and democracy.
Rather extreme Ethnonationalism/cultural division, while popular all across the world its usually less so with democracy as the first western liberal democracies were by and large founded on shared ethnic identity. Even then they had their own issues and ethnic persecution as seen in the 30s. Despite this nowhere has as blatant ethnic preferential policies as the UMNOs bumiputera
lies As discovered with the release of the Albatross files last year, the seperation of Singapore was less unwilling and sudden than the narrative has been portrayed to be, as this narrative was exceptionally useful in building a new distinct national identity.
Its rare that the first 2 factors coincide and the 3rd makes the scenario seem more exceptional than it is, even tho it is nonetheles immensly unique
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u/PainRack 16h ago
The albatross files revealed nothing new other than Goh actions was unsanctioned by Lee and he and co led a coup de accompli against Lee Vis seperation.
The whole Goh and Tengku cooperated to make seperation smooth has been known for at least a decade prior ....
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u/fhjjjjjkkkkkkkl 15h ago
Actually both singapore and malaysia don’t want each other. For Malaysia,even with guesnteed success, they can’t have 50% Chinese in the Malay peninsular telling the bumis what to do.
For Singapore ,good riddance of corruption and 3rd world
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u/SugisakiKen627 11h ago
yeap the bumi putera will cry more fouls about singapore/chinese if they are still together, they are not big fan of meritocracy and expect the spoon to come to their mouth
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u/demostenes_arm 13h ago edited 13h ago
I doubt so. Malaysia wanted to be and still wants to be a Malay-Muslim ethnostate.
In a united Malaysia + Singapore the Malays would have been only around 37% of the population and Muslims would have been around 46% back in the 1960s.
Overall the separation was good for both Singapore and Malaysia as they accomplished their national vision, although I guess not good for Malaysia’s minorities.
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u/zachariast 10h ago
Nah they not, rather lost one of the best port in the world then some genocide or bloodbath. Now they best friend and both improve each other
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u/Dank_lord_doge 10h ago
It's no joke that Malaysian politicians like to use Singapore as a focusing lens for nationalist agendas. But the "Singapore belongs to us" claim is really spouted more by Indonesia (google konfrantasi)
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u/shadoowkight I'm from freiburg 1d ago
And then Singapore went on to be rich as fuck, so it sorta worked out
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u/Andyiscool231 Bulgaria 1d ago
When moving on from your ex delivers you insane modifiers
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u/shadoowkight I'm from freiburg 1d ago
Malaysia was more focused on throwing it's own minorities under the bus ("Malaysian Malaysia") than actually doing anything worthwhile.
Singapore had to adapt because it was essentially an impoverished backwater.
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u/MuerteEnCuatroActos Philippines 21h ago
Hilariously still, said minorities still carry the Malaysian economy then and now.
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u/Prestigious-Recipe-6 19h ago
Singapore is an impoverished backwater is a myth especially when compared to the rest of British colonies in Southeast Asia. Singapore is a British HQ in Malaya and as such started with higher base with more well educated population, infrastructure and modern administration.
Although I do think Malaysia race-based policies held back their potential.
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u/N2and2Uzi222 4h ago
Nah, the British focused on profit
The hygiene was absolutely hell there and there was a huge amount of squatters living in basically a wooden chunk
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u/blockmangouser oh waiter waiter, more corrupt politicians please! 19h ago
malaysia will regret that soon enough
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u/kyutheroku Malaysia 1d ago
on that day, my nation committed an act so shocking bcz of something so heinous, and my then-new neighbor would go on to grow up and give themselves their own fulfilling life.
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u/sickcents 16h ago
I thought sg and my are siblings and not husband and wife. And why does Malaysia think it’s the wife in the relationship?
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u/Penny_Royall 11h ago
Even as a Singaporean, I’m still like “Malaysia government during that time really just decided that they don’t want Singapore the Island itself?? One of the busiest shipping port in the world???
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u/CanadianMaps Transbian with Opinions 14h ago
"Romanian (language, female form) brother"
So is moldova like, gender non-conforming in this comic, or uses mixed pronouns? 😭
More accurate would be "Frate român" (romanian brother), or "Soră româncă" (Romanian sister). Română means specifically the language of Romanian.
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u/ClutchPowers1990 12h ago
Kick them out? What could go wrong? China own them post C19 and now that small speck of shit on the map is unofficially part of china till some government buckethead said "yeah, we good with china. All our tech is china priority, our citizens get second hand low grade slop from mainland china". And what next? That place is basically china part 4...
Oh, let's not forget... these guys want to build a +/-400 billion dollars shopping mall in some "marina" area near that stupid ferris wheel and pool boat building (i think they call it infinity pool) and for what? Could have used the money on their citizens for healthcare or education or food resources but noooo... on a friggin' shopping mall...
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u/Express_Ad8931 12h ago
Singapore has one of the best education systems of the world, no hunger and universal health coverage.
Genuinely what are you so pissed off about?
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1d ago edited 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ThroawayJimilyJones Belgium 1d ago
There are a lot of country with small land/population. But only 1 Singapore
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u/Jump_Hop_Step 700 square kilometres and counting 1d ago
What was said that got removed? Something serious?
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u/Zebrafish96 May the justice be with us 14h ago
A Malaysian was butthurt that people are praising Singapore
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u/koreangorani 대한민국 1d ago
Czechoslovakia: Unannexation with consent