The Coming Civilizational Reset: US, China & Singapore's Future - Ho Kwon Ping (4K)
Thank you for checking out The Front Row Podcast and my interview with Ho Kwon Ping.
Ho Kwon Ping is one of Singapore's most iconic entrepreneurs.
He currently serves as the Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, the international spa and resort group he established in 1994.
Under his leadership, Banyan Tree grew from a single resort in Phuket into a global luxury brand operating in over 30 countries. He runs the business alongside his wife and co-founder, Claire Chiang.
Beyond the boardroom, Ho is known for his candid perspectives on Singaporean society, the changing global order and what he thinks Singapore needs to succeed in the coming years.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction
01:37 - Singaporeans And Cultural Intelligence
07:07 - Singapore's Strength
14:10 - Maintaining A Cultural Core in a Globalized World
18:21 - Cultural Intelligence vs. Cultural Identity
19:52 - Redefining Luxury: Aspirational vs. Exclusive
26:30 - Status Obsession
30:03 - The Coming Civilizational Reset
39:43 - US and China As Civilizations
40:57 - Clashing Reference Points In Political Discourse
50:07 - Implications for Singapore in a Post-Western World
57:43 - Diversifying Knowledge: AI and Non-Western Civilizations
59:06 - Communitarian Capitalism
1:03:11 - Mindset Shifts for Thriving in a Messy World
1:12:36 - The Price of Sovereignty
1:13:27 - Avoiding Mediocrity
1:19:50 - Building World-Class Excellence
1:25:05 - Difference Between Leadership vs. Management
1:32:53 - Hope for Singapore 2056
This is the 75th episode of The Front Row Podcast.
One of the things I really enjoyed about reading your book was discovering the breadth of the Banyan Tree empire — over 100 hotels across the world, from Saudi Arabia to China, Vietnam, Japan, and most recently Singapore. I wanted to ask: what does being so global teach you about cultural intelligence that you think a Singaporean today might underappreciate?
KP 00:01:37
The biggest thing about cultural intelligence is a sense of humility and an openness to what you can learn from others. The reason why it's underappreciated in Singapore is that Singaporeans are generally very judgmental about other cultures because we've been brought up to believe that what we have is the best.
Much of it is true — we are very good in many ways. But it's insufficient to just look at what Singapore has achieved, because some of our success has been difficult due to our size, and some of it has actually been easier because of our size.
When I ask our general managers who the most difficult tourist is — and difficult is the word, not the most rude or violent, but difficult — they say without a doubt: Singaporeans. Because they're niao. You'd have guests who are violent or get drunk easily — the stereotype would be Russians and Brits. You'd have others who don't appreciate Western culture and essentially live communally, cooking their own food in hotel rooms — sometimes Arabs and Indians do that. These are stereotypes, but they have some truth. But what people say about Singaporeans is that they are really niao about little, little things. They won't let up.
Keith 00:03:37
Can you elaborate on what you mean by niao?
KP 00:03:40
Complaining about small things. Not demanding compensation, the way many English-speaking guests do — they're proficient in English, they know how to write complaint letters and threaten to sue. Singaporeans don't ask to be refunded. They're just very difficult to please. Always complaining, but not to the point of wanting a refund or thumping the table. Just always picking on little things.
To me, it probably reflects a lack of cultural intelligence. And that matters less for Singaporean tourists, but it's a real setback for a Singaporean trying to work as a businessperson or employee in a multinational or foreign setting.
Keith 00:04:47
There's a quote I think you said — that Singaporeans are hard workers but also world-class complainers.
KP 00:04:56
Yeah. There's a joke that whenever a Singapore delegation goes anywhere in ASEAN, at the social nights when everyone starts singing, Singaporeans don't know what to sing. They end up doing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" because that's the only thing they know. They're just not very comfortable in various milieus.
Keith 00:05:26
How does that hurt us?
KP 00:05:31
There are two types of hurt. One is what I'd call instrumental hurt — it prevents us from getting things done, whether as a nation or as individuals. The other is a deeper, more psychic one. It just doesn't allow us to enjoy things, to be more lighthearted, more appreciative of the world, rather than always looking for things to pick on.
It hurts us as people if we can't see the beauty of poorer cultures, or in meeting people who may not seem as bright or as accomplished as we are. And that's probably the root of it — if we cannot appreciate the outside world, we also cannot fully appreciate what we have inside, in Singapore, in our homes.
Keith 00:07:07
So let me ask the inverse question. Now that you've been out in the world and seen so much of it — what is it about Singapore that you've come to appreciate, that you find beauty in, that maybe other cultures don't have?
KP 00:07:24
I think there's a sense of pride that I appreciate. And maybe also because of our niao-ness, Singaporeans are very hard to intimidate, which is actually pretty cool.
You see what's happening geopolitically today — a lot of countries are bending over. Europe in particular has been grovelling. I hope Singapore will not grovel. Most Singaporeans wouldn't want to, because we've been brought up with the mentality of being this little red dot — nobody, but a tough little red dot. That sense of vulnerability, of being small, has made us quite spunky.
Another aspect I've spoken about before is what I'd call an egalitarian spirit. Not equality — there's very high income inequality in Singapore, just as there is in the United States. But egalitarianism is different. It's an attempt to reduce the social friction of apparent inequality.
Japan has a very egalitarian culture. Singapore had that too. The joke between myself and Hong Kong friends is this: in Hong Kong, if you could barely afford a Rolls Royce, you'd buy one just to show off. In Singapore, the super rich would drive a normal Mercedes because they didn't want to stand out, even though they could easily afford a Rolls Royce.
Now you're beginning to see people in Singapore flaunting their wealth. But that egalitarian spirit was something the PAP, as a founding generation, clearly cultivated. People forget today that the PAP was born as a democratic socialist party — it was a member of the Socialist International. It espoused a very egalitarian culture that has in some ways persisted, but is now eroding.
The first generation of Singaporeans — whether in business or politics — went through the hardships of colonialism and World War II. People who have lived through hardship generally take no pleasure in flaunting wealth. The achievement of wealth was about proving you could escape poverty, not about displaying it.
Now, wealth has become so easy for an entire generation. And it has perhaps worsened in Singapore because we've shifted from a manufacturing-based economy to a more financialised one. Financial services became the main source of economic growth after the global financial crisis, and with financialisation comes capital begetting capital — accumulated to obscene amounts.
The flaunting of wealth is so much easier when you're a private equity guy who made money quickly, compared to someone who built wealth through manufacturing. And you see it in the second generation — Indonesian rich kids driving Lamborghinis in Singapore, or Singaporean second-generation wealth flaunting it. It's beginning to fray.
Keith 00:14:10
It's very globalised, so naturally the cultural influences from other parts of the world are going to be more obvious. But that openness is what keeps the economy going. The question is: how do you filter out the parts that are harmful?
KP 00:14:28
Do we have a big enough core? It's unfortunate, because it's not just the wealth culture of private equity in the West. China has a very strong culture of hard work. But the people coming from China — the family offices, the money launderers, the crypto guys — they live lives and display inequality far more than even family offices in the West. Their displays of wealth are truly obscene.
So we get the worst, because we are so welcoming. And particularly, we welcome not because of agriculture or mining, but because of financial services. You get people with great amounts of capital coming here — whether money launderers from China or legitimate family offices or private equity firms. It's all about capital. And because of that, a certain culture develops — the pubs, the bars, the private clubs, and so on.
We should have a strong cultural core in the Singapore heartland. But we are very small. Compared to Dubai or Monaco, we luckily have a larger local population, because those are two examples of city-states going in directions I would hope we avoid. Their local populations are so small that they have very little cultural ballast of their own, and they become essentially hotels where the rich come to play.
Then you have societies of similar population size to Singapore — Denmark, Switzerland — but with far longer histories and a hinterland that gives them a deep sense of who they are. We inhabit a difficult in-between place.
Keith 00:17:12
And we're also a relatively young nation. Given that we're a multicultural and multiracial society in a very heterogeneous region, that makes it even harder to build a stronger core.
KP 00:17:33
For sure. It would have been much easier to build a strong core if we'd wanted to be like Hong Kong and just build up the Chineseness of Singapore. But that would have been a mistake.
So at a time when Singapore was so young, the leadership elite — not just the PAP, but religious leaders, business leaders — all agreed that we had to try to build a truly cohesive multicultural state, otherwise we would fall apart. And at the same time as you're trying to build that sense of identity, you're getting outside influences that are not always positive. It has not been easy.
Keith 00:18:21
How does a sense of cultural intelligence emerge out of all this?
KP 00:18:24
I think there's a difference between cultural intelligence and cultural identity. Identity is an internal recognition of who you are. Intelligence is something that manifests when you deal with people.
The cultural identity of Singaporeans is moving in the right direction — a greater sense of who we are, not defined by shallow things like cuisine or landmarks, but by a growing awareness of who you are through knowing who you are not. Singaporeans become more acutely aware that they are Singaporean when they travel overseas than when they're here. Here you're just floating like little guppies. But out in the big world, you suddenly realise you're a kopi, and when you see another kopi, you bond.
Cultural intelligence, however, is a different thing. It requires self-awareness about how to behave and think about other cultures. That one, I think, we're still lacking.
Keith 00:19:52
When you talk about the erosion of egalitarian culture in Singapore, you're also operating in the space of luxury — which I think is an interesting paradox. Most people think luxury means being ostentatious and showy. But you're offering a luxury service through your resorts. How do you think of luxury differently?
KP 00:20:24
Egalitarianism does not mean equality. And in the same way, I make a distinction between aspirational luxury and exclusive luxury. Aspirational luxury is, to me, a little bit like egalitarian luxury.
Take an Apple smartphone. It's more expensive than many alternatives, and you get young people queuing for the latest model. In a way, buying an Apple is a certain kind of luxury. But Apple is an aspirational luxury, and it's inclusive — its sense of luxury is not based on exclusiveness. People are happy that the Apple community keeps growing. When you have an Apple and I have an Apple, we talk about the features, the design, the apps — we aspire to be part of that community.
Then you have what I'd call total exclusive luxury — and the clearest example is a Hermès Birkin bag, selling for 30,000 euros. The bag looks like any other bag. Its inherent value is nowhere near that price. Its sole value is its exclusivity — "I have, you don't have." It builds entirely upon the haves and have-nots.
Apple doesn't ask you to brag that you have an iPhone and someone else only has a Huawei. You're happy to be part of a community built on shared appreciation. Some luxury brands are built on aspiration; some are built on pure exclusivity. We are very clearly in the aspirational camp.
When we first set up Banyan Tree, we clearly said we did not want it to be luxury. Even now, I wouldn't call it a luxury brand. It's quite expensive because building beautiful pool villas isn't cheap. But we've always wanted to be aspirational.
We loved reading the guestbooks in our early days, particularly in Bintan — couples from HDB flats who'd saved up because they thought Banyan Tree was so special. We're proud of that rather than being seen as only for the rich.
When we set up, people kept asking why we didn't use Hermès soaps or branded fragrances. We refused — we said that doesn't make sense. We're trying to build our own brand, not borrow other people's exclusive ones. Instead, my wife sourced locally, we created our own fragrances, used small ceramic jars instead of disposable bottles because it was better for the environment. Now others copy us, but we did those things out of conviction. We're quite expensive, but we've never said we're about luxury.
Keith 00:25:56
Most people falsely equate price with luxury.
KP 00:26:02
Exactly. I would equate price with quality, not luxury.
Keith 00:26:09
And that idea of aspirational versus exclusionary luxury makes me think about status obsession — the way exclusive luxury builds on in-group and out-group dynamics, where status is derived from others not having what you have.
KP 00:26:30
Exactly. But look at how Patek Philippe has positioned itself, with a slogan unchanged for decades: you never actually own the watch, you merely look after it for the next generation. It's about the idea that it's expensive, but not to show "I have and you don't." It's expensive because it's a legacy, an heirloom you pass on. The ads don't show beautiful women on yachts. You own a Patek Philippe not to show it off — you own it to pass it on to your children.
Compare that to a Cartier or Chanel watch worn purely to show off. Status obsession is very real and it is growing everywhere in the world.
Keith 00:27:59
Maybe in this time of status obsession, Singaporeans should think more aspirationally rather than getting caught up in all of this.
KP 00:28:08
They should just think more for themselves. Like buying Uniqlo because it has real value and you like the values of the company. They position themselves as lifewear, not fashion. It's not just cheap — the quality is good, there's technology and fabric innovation behind it, and there's a clear philosophy of producing things you wear every day that you can mix and match into good fashion. Every brand has to have its own values and stand for something, and customers resonate with that.
Keith 00:29:09
And zooming out, it's not just relevant to brands — it's true of every family, every company, every country. You need a philosophy and a value system you have clear conviction in, not just because it's politically convenient.
KP 00:29:27
Absolutely. And I find it very facile when people talk about "brand America," because what American values should stand for — the values of liberal democracy — is not just a brand. It's a set of civilisational values: values about family, about the individual, about governance and community.
Keith 00:30:03
When you talk about civilisational values, one of the ideas you've put forward is this coming civilisational reset. Can you elaborate on why you use that specific term?
KP 00:30:26
I was quite surprised, and quite happy, when I saw Donald Trump's National Strategy Paper using the word. I started talking about a civilisational reset about two years ago, when I began arguing that what's happening now isn't best captured by the terms political scientists prefer — the shift from a bipolar to a multipolar world. I objected to that framing because those terms belong to the Cold War period, when bipolarity and multipolarity were understood primarily in quasi-military, security-oriented terms.
In the Cold War, there was no real civilisational clash of values. The Soviet Union was not a civilisation — Russia may have been, but not the Soviet Union. It was already a failed state with no values to speak of, only military power.
What I observed, beginning with MAGA, was the culmination of a long process: the decline of Pax Americana. After roughly 100 years — from the end of World War II to now — American civilisational power has been dominant. But the bigger thing happening is that the entire Western civilisation has been dominant, which is the only thing the whole world has known for over 200 years. Western civilisation was the dominant civilisation and therefore the reference point for everything.
After World War II, that dominance was largely benign. It was very good for countries like Singapore and many others. But what it did, almost invisibly, was make the West the reference point for everything.
Now you're beginning to see, particularly with the rise of China and the rest of Asia, a civilisation of 5,000 years that has never been broken — not like Egyptian or Greek civilisation, but a continuous civilisation with its own wholly coherent set of values. Its own reference points on family values, on the rights and responsibilities of the individual, on political governance. It's not just Xi Jinping being an autocrat. China has had thousands of years of dynasties — wise emperors, unwise emperors, good dynasties, weak dynasties. The Communist Party, in my view, is essentially the current dynasty.
So what I see happening is a reset. And what I find very interesting is that Trump's own strategy paper refers to the exact same phenomenon, but from a completely different viewpoint — they call it civilisational erasure.
The same words, different meaning. Civilisational reset and civilisational erasure are two sides of the same coin. From their perspective: "We, Western civilisation, are no longer going to be the single dominant force because we are being erased — by Muslim immigrants, by China threatening Taiwan, by people who are no longer white or Christian." I'm saying exactly the same thing. White Christian civilisation is no longer going to be dominant. They see it as erasure. I see it as a reset — back to a few hundred years ago, when Western civilisation was an important one, but not the only dominant one. You had a very vibrant Islamic civilisation before it went into its own crisis. You had a very vibrant East Asian civilisation — Japan and China — with its own set of values, which then declined and is clearly rising again.
There are aspects of Western civilisation, beginning with the Age of Enlightenment — the secular state, industrialisation — that led to an extraordinarily positive confluence of events. It was not bad at all, and all of us thrived for quite a while. I would certainly hope that liberal democracy, which much of Western civilisation has created for all of us, does not go down the drain. But at the same time, liberal democracy is no longer the only reference point for good governance.
Twenty years ago, many people were writing that China was going to collapse, or that China would eventually become like us. Both arguments shared the same reference point: only liberal democracy can truly thrive. Either China becomes like us, or China collapses. But China has been essentially an autocratic dynasty — at its best, a benevolent autocratic dynasty — as we saw with the Han, Tang, and Song dynasties. No elections, and emperors like Xi Jinping. It's a governance system that has worked for China. And the Western world can no longer claim to be the only reference point against which we measure everything.
Keith 00:39:43
It reminds me of a quote from Wang Gungwu, who said that America and China are both civilisations dressing up as countries. On one level they are states, but at a deeper level, they have civilisational aspects that are not determined by borders or boundaries.
As you were articulating this shift in reference points, a question was forming in my mind: with now a multiplicity of views, don't you lose a sense of coherence? When the West-is-best mental model prevailed, there was a single ideal — rightly or wrongly. Now it's going to be a much more confusing world.
KP 00:40:42
That's why cultural intelligence is so much more important.
Keith 00:40:44
Where do you see the areas of conflict being played out between these civilisations — or however many there are?
KP 00:40:57
The conflicts arise from different reference points. Let me give you two examples: territorial ambitions and governance.
On territorial ambitions, Chinese historians have written quite interestingly about the difference in civilisational reference points. They observed that European civilisations — whether small Portugal, Norway's Vikings, the Romans from a small part of Italy — outgrew their ability to expand internally because they were in climatically hostile places with limited agricultural prospects and rapidly growing populations. A tiny Holland ended up controlling all of Indonesia. A tiny United Kingdom controlled the entire British Empire. And the United States expanded westward with Manifest Destiny, conquering Native Americans. So conquest as a means of expanding your people's reach is very much embedded in Western civilisation.
In contrast, Chinese historians argue that Chinese history is characterised by an enormous amount of internal conflict — warring states within a relatively fixed geographic area. Because of this, stability became the main governing principle for Chinese civilisational elites, whereas overseas expansion became the main governing principle for European elites.
That's why some Chinese historians say the West has misread China: when you see a powerful country, you immediately assume territorial expansion — because that's what powerful countries in your civilisational history have always done. But for China, the imperative is stability, not expansion.
On governance, Western society progressed through monarchies that maintained legitimacy through bloodline succession and clearly oppressed people. Out of that oppression emerged the primacy of individual rights — and eventually, one person, one vote, and elections as the prerequisite for legitimate governance. That is deeply embedded in Western thinking.
In Chinese thinking, there have never been elections in thousands of years. But embedded in Chinese history is the concept of legitimacy — the mandate of heaven. And embedded in Chinese history is the willingness of peasants to overthrow a dynasty that had simply failed, without any contortions about lineage or succession. In Western society, they go through extraordinary lengths to find the right nephew or cousin to be king. In China, a general can overthrow a failing emperor and start a new dynasty.
The Communist Party are good students of this history. They may not care about elections, but they read Chinese dynastic history closely and understand that political legitimacy is critical. If you lose it, suppression alone cannot save you. That's why there are all these anti-corruption campaigns — they recognise that the inability for internal self-renewal was what caused dynasties to fail. In the West, elections cause the self-revolution. In China, the party must generate it internally.
If these two great civilisations — Western civilisation as manifest by the USA and Western Europe, and East Asian civilisation as manifest primarily by China — cannot understand where each comes from, and how each civilisation's thinking is determined by its own historical experience, then I think you're going to have a genuine clash of civilisations.
Keith 00:49:24
It reminds me of a point a guest made earlier — that the Thucydides Trap is itself a Western frame. When political theorists from the West apply it, they assume it's universal.
KP 00:49:33
Exactly. Everything in Western civilisational thinking is assumed to be universal. That's what I meant about the West always being the reference point. They are beginning to recognise that many of their values are good values — but not necessarily universal.
Keith 00:50:07
What are the implications of all this for a small country like Singapore, which has for so long been so dependent on a Western-led world order? So much of our growth was underwritten by American FDI, American MNCs, Western cultural imports. How do we make sense of this transition? It's going to feel very messy and discombobulating.
KP 00:50:44
There are two levels at which we need to deal with this.
The first is the superstructural level — our government navigating the tensions between China and the US, not getting caught by either side. This Trump "Board for Peace" is childishly ridiculous, but it's a real test. If you say no, Trump targets you with 100% tariffs. If you say yes — which I would never advocate — no self-respecting sovereign country, other than Middle Eastern regimes totally dependent on him, would want to join that. So I think adroit diplomacy is what's required. And we need to be very careful, because things said innocently can offend other countries.
But there's a deeper level that requires a completely different civilisational mindset — a broader one. Let me give you an example. A Chinese researcher once argued that AI researchers in China would do no favour to the rise of AI in China if they simply chased Western benchmarks — making AI faster, more energy-efficient, and so on — because that would again just use Western reference points.
The argument this researcher made was that to the extent AI draws upon everything written on the internet, it will always be biased towards what dominates the internet. So even Chinese political scientists trained in the West, applying AI, will only draw on Western reference points. There's so much written on Western political philosophy — from John Stuart Mill onwards — while the Chinese political philosophers, from the Legalists to Mencius and beyond, are barely represented online.
So if AI is to draw upon civilisational knowledge, it's incumbent upon Chinese and Asian AI researchers to increase the access to non-Western civilisational knowledge. And this applies not just to political theory, but to science and medicine as well.
The relevance to Singapore is this: we have the potential ingredients for something remarkable, because we are multicultural. We come from several deep civilisations — Indian, Islamic, and Chinese — for which most younger Singaporeans have barely scratched the surface. Our educational system, our political systems, our economic linkages have all oriented us entirely towards Western civilisation. But we have the potential to go back and draw from our parent civilisations and extract far more value.
You could make the argument that tiny Singapore has, within itself, the basis for a very active AI community that is genuinely intercultural. AI researchers who want to work on India's wealth of knowledge — in literature, in Ayurveda, in Indian science — could do that from Singapore. Someone applying AI to traditional medicine could access knowledge from Indian, Chinese, and Southeast Asian civilisations all from one place.
Keith 00:57:43
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There is a need to essentially diversify the dataset, or the data points. Gita Wirjawan from Indonesia told me that Southeast Asia is about 14% of the global population but produces less than 9% of the world's text output. So if AI is simply taking the world as it is, going back to your point, it's going to be very Western.
KP 00:58:23
Yes, and it's not just about political thinking — though I don't think that's shallow, because political philosophy is the lens through which we look at everything. But take something very tangible, like medicine. Every old civilisation has had its traditional medicine. We've barely scratched the surface of applying AI to centuries of TCM or traditional medicine from these civilisations. Even getting the source data has been difficult, but it's all there.
Keith 00:59:06
You made a very good point that the lens of political thinking actually dictates how you conduct business and how you live. And one example you've given consistently is the idea of communitarian capitalism — which I'd describe as a synthesis of West and East. In the West, at least among certain elites, there's an almost unadulterated worship of capitalism itself, which has created disillusionment among many young people. Your view seems to be that capitalism should be moderated by a sense of egalitarianism and communitarianism.
KP 00:59:53
I'd push back even on the word "moderated," because that again takes Wall Street capitalism as the reference point.
Look, economics is a science. The laws of supply and demand, pricing, competition — those are tangible facts. China today is a totally capitalist system. Communism is really a political system, not an economic one, and it simply doesn't work economically. So the whole world is capitalist in the fundamental sense.
But it is part of Western, and particularly Anglo-Saxon, civilisational dominance — the rise of the UK and then America — that the so-called rules-based order was basically an anglophone world, with Germany and Japan having to conform. And when you clear your eyes of that dominance, you notice that capitalism already has multiple forms.
There's Nordic-style capitalism. There's Japanese-style capitalism, which people laughed at, but frankly, it hasn't been so bad for the Japanese people to have avoided the wrenching bankruptcies and the poverty that came with America's market-clearing mechanisms and creative destruction. Japan didn't go through that — and has it really been so bad?
You have the extreme law-of-the-jungle capitalism, and then you have the more muted communitarian capitalism. The mere fact that we take Wall Street capitalism as the reference point and say we need to "moderate" it — that's a reference point I reject. We should not see them as the norm and ourselves as the anomalies. They may actually be the anomaly.
Keith 01:02:55
I say "moderate" because I think Singapore has genuinely imbibed and imported a lot of Wall Street capitalism — that's the natural consequence of being so dependent on American multinationals.
KP 01:03:00
Yes, absolutely — because we have.
Keith 01:03:11
So the follow-up question is: if you look at the way we conduct business as companies and as individuals, what are the mindset shifts we need to make in order to thrive in this coming messy world?
KP 01:03:33
Let's talk about survival first and see where it takes us. Because I think you're right to pull it back to something practical — what will enable a normal Singaporean to prosper in the future?
To me, it's going to be largely economic. And I think where our government has gotten it right from the very beginning is that Singapore is no soft European state that sold its national defence needs to someone else for a peace dividend. We've spent a lot on our sovereignty.
And there's a wisdom in LKY's approach here — we refuse to ever be an ally. We're not an ally of any state. We don't have American bases. We facilitate the Americans having a presence, so we give them something — refuelling rights and so on — but even though Singapore is tiny, you could easily have imagined us becoming like the Philippines, which is a much larger country that is totally allied to America. A huge country like Australia has totally sold its soul to America.
Tiny Singapore has basically said: we will be a poisonous shrimp to everybody, to everybody. If Donald Trump wanted to threaten to invade Singapore, I think we would say bring it on. Of course you could invade us, but it's going to hurt you. You cannot go and kidnap Lawrence Wong from the Istana the way you did Maduro. We have no offensive needs, only defensive needs. We're so small, nobody really wants to invade us, but if you tried, it will hurt you — very much like the Swiss concept.
So I don't doubt for a minute that our sovereignty is at risk. The question most Singaporeans worry about is not civilisational values — it's how long this good life can go on. Being one of the wealthiest countries in the world on a per capita basis.
I think it can go on. But the question I think is important is: have we had sufficient discussion about the trade-offs that are going to be necessary?
Take the example of family offices. We went pretty extreme in one direction — welcoming them by the hordes, giving generous benefits, not being very scrutinising. Then some coming from China turned out to be money laundering. In Monaco or Dubai, which are solely dependent on this kind of capital, the government would have swept it under the carpet. Singapore made a big deal about clamping down. It has hurt us — a lot of wealth has not come here because Singapore is now seen as much tougher. But the government, I think rightly, took that decision. And if it hadn't, I would be concerned we'd be moving towards becoming a Dubai or Monaco — totally dependent on other people's money, essentially a tax haven and nothing else.
These trade-offs are going to happen all the time. Some areas where we've wanted to succeed, we haven't. Our intention to become an advanced manufacturing economy has not really succeeded. We haven't been able to go into AI and robotics the way the Chinese have. We haven't been able to turn A*STAR into the unicorn factory we hoped for. The National Research Foundation has spent a lot of money on research that hasn't been successfully commercialised — through no fault of anyone, but that's the reality.
So what do we pivot towards? One clear strength is our position as a financing hub. We don't have many indigenous startups, but Singapore has become one of the most important places for startups to come for funding — venture capital and PE firms have set up here, and startups from India to China come here for capital.
In aviation, we can't do manufacturing, but we're strong in MRO, potentially strong in avionics. Changi Airport may no longer be the clear premier airport in the world — Dubai is getting very strong — but are we still strong in aviation as a combined cluster? Leasing, repair and maintenance, sophisticated avionics manufacturing?
You have to build upon these clusters constantly. It's a daily exercise. As long as we can do that, I think we'll thrive. If we don't, we'll become a second-class, mediocre economic state.
Keith 01:12:36
On the price of sovereignty — I had a conversation with Tommy Koh recently, and he was saying that Lee Kuan Yew always positioned Singapore as a friend, not an ally, because a friend can tell you the truth and an ally can't. Being an ally to America means, to a large extent, subservience.
On mediocrity — you've spoken before about Singapore potentially becoming an A-minus or B-plus city, which is good by most standards, but perhaps not what we should be striving for. What would cause Singapore to become mediocre?
KP 01:13:27
Largely, it's people. And it's government. A government and its people that are no longer hungry.
We are obviously no longer hungry in a material way — we have everything materially. So hunger has to come from somewhere else. Hunger is either hunger in your stomach or hunger in your soul.
Societies that make the fastest economic climb are those with hunger in their stomachs, because that is such a powerful and imperative driver. But when you are a developed country, the question becomes: do you have hunger in your soul? Does the society have a vision and a goal for what it wants to be?
Look at old Europe today — so exhausted, so coddled. People have no national goals anymore. They just want their working week protected more and more, more work-life balance. I believe in those things too. But you also need a sense of who you are.
The Nordic countries seem to have maintained their social fabric far better than Western European countries like the UK, France, and Italy. That may be related to immigration, I don't know the full answer. But I think the converse of national ambition and vision is a fraying social fabric — because if the social fabric frays, it becomes impossible to have a common vision for the future.
That's probably why the government spends so much time talking about national identity and cohesion. Because if we start to fray, we will fray faster than other countries given the relative youth of our society. And once we fray, it becomes almost impossible to build a common vision. Then we become a capable, mediocre, relatively prosperous society — comfortable on our reserves, good education system, people will still come here. But you become mediocre.
You can sense that mediocrity when foreigners talk to Singaporeans and find them only interested in little material things, with no vision for what they want the country to be.
Keith 01:17:51
And in a world where the Singapore premium exists, the cost of mediocrity will be higher.
KP 01:17:59
Yes, and the Singapore advantage is reducing. Singaporeans were very much sought after by multinationals for leadership roles across Southeast Asia. Now you have very well-educated Indonesians, Thais, and Malaysians working in those same roles. Indian nationals, driven by the historical necessity of a less prosperous home economy, went off to multinationals and headed up many of them.
Singaporeans, not willing to travel, comfortable, always wanting to be at best the head of a multinational's APAC operations — well, with technology changing corporate hierarchies, many multinationals are no longer even basing APAC heads in Singapore. The opportunities for Singaporeans to become multinational leaders begin to shrink.
And interestingly, those with a strong Chinese background — like Singaporeans who've built familiarity with China — have a greater advantage than those who purely went through RI and ACS.
Keith 01:19:50
You're one of the few Singaporean outliers who has built a truly global hotel brand that stands alongside the Kempinski's, AHGs, and Mandarin Orientals of the world. You can speak to world-class excellence and to escaping the mediocrity trap.
For a young aspiring Singaporean today, looking at what you've built — what are the right lessons to draw? Can they make their mark on the world?
KP 01:20:44
One would be: always be hungry, always be ambitious. I'm 74. We have 100 hotels, and I think we've barely scratched the surface. We're doing a significant deal now in a part of the world a Singaporean company would normally never go to — when you find out about it, you'll understand what I mean.
So one principle is: be always very humble about how weak you are, and always be hungry for more. This mixture of ambitious humility is what has propelled me. Hubris, I've said many times, is the first source of collapse. When you think you're so great and you really aren't, you take on more than you should. Humility is critical to survival precisely because it keeps you aware of how vulnerable and frail you are.
And yet on the other hand, this ambition — to want to break out and be something meaningful. There's a constant tension between knowing how small you are and wanting to do more. That tension has been one of the reasons for our relative success. I am never content with where we are, but I always recognise we are far from what we want to be.
The other thing is recognising that because I operate in so many different cultural environments, the world is a very large and very different place — which is part of what makes experiential travel so exciting. But at the same time, people are all the same everywhere. You cannot judge them.
One thing I attribute to whatever relative success I've had is that I have always been an outsider. I grew up in Thailand — I'm definitely not Thai. I'm as familiar with American politics and literature as any American — I don't feel American. I don't feel I belong anywhere. I studied neither in Singapore nor in Thailand nor in America long enough to form that deep network of friends from school days.
But that outsider feeling is liberating. It frees you from being stuck in a particular mindset and allows you to look at everywhere you go and say: I can be successful here. So what I would tell a young Singaporean is: be humble, be hungry, and be completely open to every place you go. See the excitement and beauty of that place without bringing along your own baggage of superiority.
Keith 01:25:05
You don't come to where you've come by just being a boss — you needed to be a leader. You've spoken about the difference quite clearly. What do most people get wrong about leadership?
KP 01:25:28
I've always said there is a world of difference between leadership and good management, and most people assume the two are the same.
Management is a skill — the ability to coordinate minimal resources for maximum outcome. It's measurable. There are management tools, management education. All that is management.
Leadership, I think, is more transcendental. Leadership is the ability to motivate people to aspire beyond themselves.
With that definition, you can clearly associate transcendental, aspirational leadership with religious leaders, with great political leaders who exhort people to go beyond their little selfish selves to do public good. But there's this weird assumption that business leaders should not need to be aspirational. That business leaders just need to be good managers — make the most money for shareholders, give the highest salaries, produce the most competitive product.
That's all true, but insufficient. A great political leader like Lee Kuan Yew didn't just deliver efficiency. He gave Singapore a vision — from third world to first, from fear of being small to pride in being a tough little red dot. That's leadership.
So why is it so odd for business leaders to speak on things beyond their balance sheets? Why is it so odd for them to inspire their employees about the meaning of what they do?
I've spoken to companies across many industries and I've always said: you can always find something noble in the work of your business. Take hospitality. It seems glamorous from the outside, but on the inside it's tough — low pay, shift work, getting scolded by guests. So as a leader, what must I do?
First, create a culture and atmosphere so that even a lowly waiter wakes up in the morning and actually wants to go to work. Second, preserve self-respect — which is what we all want in life. We created a service culture around the idea of "I am with you" — you serve someone not out of servitude, but out of empathy. You try to understand where that person is coming from. If they're nasty to you, you try to understand why, and you don't lose your self-esteem.
Third, you must help your people feel that the company itself stands for something beyond giving them a salary. So we have values around sustainability, around community building, around the idea that tourism can be a force for peace — because when you bring people of different communities together and they understand each other more, that's a genuine contribution to peace.
With all of that, a young waiter at Banyan Tree may not religiously believe in the brand, but they do believe the company has a purpose. And if the company has a purpose, there is a purpose for them in it too. That's leadership.
Keith 01:31:29
Are there any leaders in your lifetime you've looked at and thought — that's a great leader?
KP 01:31:41
People who can build a vision and execute on it — to me those are leaders. Lee Kuan Yew was clearly one. In the world of business, Steve Jobs was clearly one. Leaders don't always have to be nice — many of them aren't — but there has to be a compelling vision.
And Elon Musk, before he went off the rails. He clearly is a genius, and in the beginning, probably also a good leader — inspiring people with his dreams for Tesla, SpaceX, and so many other things. But then, possibly because of Asperger's or other factors, he's gone off in his own direction and no longer really inspires in the same way.
Keith 01:32:53
I deeply admire Tharman Shanmugaratnam. I think he's an example of a great leader.
Last question. You wrote an essay about Singapore in 2045 — a science fiction piece about a futuristic Singapore — something about our first Malay Muslim Prime Minister and microchips, if I recall. I'll point it out to you later.
But looking forward — what's your hope for Singapore in the next 30 years? What do you think we can accomplish by 2056?
KP 01:33:45
I value the diversity we have in Singapore. We have ethnic and cultural diversity. But I'm not sure we have what I'd call intellectual diversity — and intellectual diversity has to come from greater political openness.
The government, including Tharman, has been very successful in building a relatively cohesive society, one where identity politics hasn't taken hold the way it has elsewhere. But I think, for reasons best known to themselves, the government has not been building as creative, as diverse, or as open a society as it could have.
You no longer get jailed for making statements the government disagrees with, but you still get ridiculed, you get put down. There is still, to me, not a real flowering of the Singapore creative spirit.
When that creative spirit is truly encouraged, there will be some rebellious aspects to it — but I think Singapore's electorate is mature enough to handle it. They've shown it, repeatedly re-electing the same government out of genuine sober confidence in how Singapore is governed, not out of lack of alternatives. Populist and demagogic political parties are shunned at the ballot box. So why can't we be more open? Why can't we be tolerant of truly diverse views?
The inner circle that determines Singapore's future is still very small. It could be opened up more.
Keith 01:36:58
So in 30 years, we want to be much more open.
KP 01:37:02
I would like to see a much stronger civil society. I thought we'd have one by now, and we don't. I'd like to see much more diversity of views.
A great man who recently passed, and was a good friend — Liu Thai Ker — was not always particularly revered because he was quite independent. He made a famous comment once, after which the whole debate was shut down. He said: let's have a discussion on what population size Singapore can sustain, and he put forward 10 million. That whole debate started, and then the government shut it down. No discussion today on that question. None of the think tanks will touch it, even though other countries discuss it openly.
Anything about the future that is not within the close scrutiny of what's acceptable — according to script — just isn't discussed. So how can you have genuine openness? We don't even debate the optimal population for Singapore. Liu Thai Ker brought it up and it was shut down. That's hardly radical.
Keith 01:38:52
It's a pity we don't have that kind of discourse. So the hope is that in the future, we have a more open space for discussing these core issues.
KP 01:39:05
I think Singaporeans are mature enough now. There are many other issues I think we'd all benefit from discussing more openly. It could be done under Chatham House rules. There's got to be greater trust between the governed and the governing — a sense of shared vision, of being brought into the conversation.
Right now we have a very competent, very capable government, but there is still a distance. The Singapore Conversation exists, but there's so much more that could be discussed.
Keith 01:39:51
With that, KP, thank you so much for coming on.