So, fueled by pure Dunning-Krueger from reading one and a half chapters of a book and a Le Monde article (though also bits and pieces across the internet in my search), here are my attempted answers to the homework:

• Who are the main political actors? Are they compradors, nationalists, international socialists, something else?

Singapore is essentially a one-party capitalist state. The opposition does technically exist and has a few seats, but the history of Singapore since its independence in 1965 has been rule by the People's Action Party, first led by Lee Kuan Yew, then by Goh Chok Tong who was in office from 1990 until 2004, and now Lee Hsien Loong (the son of Lee Kuan Yew, by the way), who has been Prime Minister since 2004. They are anti-communist nationalists who believe in Singaporean exceptionalism.

• What are the most salient domestic political issues; those issues that repeatedly shape elections over the last 10, 20 years. Every country has its quirks that complicate analysis - for example, Brexit in the UK.

I'm not really sure, but three factors that are at least pertinent are a) the demographics (~75% Chinese, the rest Malay and other groups) which has previously led to racial violence and sinocentrism, as well as all the foreign workers which support these citizens and yet mostly live in bad conditions and are repressed; b) absurdly high rent/housing prices, though GDP per capita is pretty decent if you ignore all those aforementioned foreign workers; and c) the fact that Singapore's land is very limited (though land reclamation from the sea is occurring) which limits new construction and such.

• What is the country's history? You don't have to go back a thousand years if that's not relevant, and I'm counting "history" as basically anything that has happened over a year ago.

Essentially there's five major periods of Singaporean history - the first is the pre-colonial period, stretching back definitely hundreds, probably thousands of years. Then there's the British colonial period, which essentially began in 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles, which is the most British imperialist name ever, took control of the island for the British Empire. Then, the war period (Singapore was relatively unaffected by WW1, but in WW2 was occupied by Japan from 1942 to 1945). Then the pre-independence period up until 1965, which seemed to have a fair amount of turmoil and desire for independence from Britain, and in 1963 they were briefly part of Malaysia before shit kinda fell apart and they became their own country in 1965. And finally, the post-independence period, which has lasted until this day.

• What factions exist, historically and currently? If there is an electoral system, what are the major parties and their demographic bases? Are there any minor parties with large amounts of influence? Independence movements? Religious groups?

Singapore uses a UK-inspired parliamentary system, with Members of Parliament. As mentioned before, the PAP has been totally dominant since independence (currently 79 seats), and the Workers' Party is the main historical opposition, and tends to skew a little left (but communists have been historically purged in Singapore such as in Operation Coldstore and Operation Spectrum), with 8 seats currently. The Progress Singapore Party is a recent addition, created in 2019, and seems pretty liberal as far as I can tell, mainly just arguing that the PAP is doing capitalism a little incorrectly; it has a grand total of 2 seats. There are also a small number of independent MPs.

• How socially progressive or conservative are they? Is there equality for different ethnic groups, or are some persecuted? Do they have LGBTQIA+ rights? Have they improved over time, or gotten worse?

Singapore has been and still seems to be relatively LGBTQIA+ friendly, with sex reassignment surgery legalised in 1973, though homosexual sex between men was technically illegal up until last year (it was de facto legal since 2007) - for women, it's always been legal. Same sex marriages are not currently recognized though.

I can't really speak on ethnic equality, but the whole "foreign worker" thing kinda makes that point anyway.

• What role do foreign powers play in the country’s politics and economy? Is there a particular country nearby or far away that is nearly inseparable from them, for good or bad reasons? Is their trade dominated by exports/imports to one place? Are they exploited, exploiters, or something in between?

75% of their exports go to countries in Asia, and a third of their exports go to China + Hong Kong - compared to 8% to the United States. Due to all the ethnic Chinese people, I get the vibe that they have good relations with China culturally, though they also have a decent relationship with the UK. Looking at Pew poll, apparently two thirds of Singaporeans had a positive view of China in 2022, but as tensions and Western propaganda ramp up I think that number will go down.

• If applicable, what is the influence of former colonial relationships on the modern economy and politics?

It feels like Singapore managed to get a relatively good end result out of its colonial period, but this is probably more to do with its strategic location on the Strait of Malacca (which also has a shitload of undersea cables going through it) than anything else. At the very least, the Singaporean elite seem to have accepted their British heritage and history, even actively liking it, and the UK has been a very popular place to send students overseas. How the rest of society feels about the UK's colonial impact, I'm not so sure.

• Is the country generally stable? Do you think there will be a coup at some point in the future, and if so, what faction might replace them?

I think the honeymoon period of the country has been over for a number of years now - in the 1990s and 2000s, the vibe was "This is a hypercompetent government with no corruption and we're the best in the world in This and That", whereas now, the cracks are showing. Nonetheless, it still feels like enough people are behind the PAP that their position is secured for the years to come.

This reads to me as "Western expat goes to Asian country and accuses their national identity of not existing because obviously only superior Aryans™ can have nation states and everyone else is simply terra nullis, especially if they're not ethnically homogenous".

My anecdotal experiences with Singaporeans is that it is probably the only economically developed country that is truly multicultural. Ethnically, Singapore consists mostly of Chinese, Malays, and Tamils (the fact that the article doesn't mention Tamils makes me extremely suspect, imagine an article about America that handwaives American demographics as "60% White, the rest Black and other groups".). From what I can tell people of all three languages have something called a "home language" class where they learn their respective ethnic languages. My experience with Chinese Singaporeans is that these classes are fairly effective in teaching their heritage languages at roughly the same level they would've been taught in countries where these languages are the majority language. In contrast to America, also an Anglophone country, where you will meet Hispanic-Americans born in Mexico who can't even speak Spanish or Chinese-Americans who get offended at the very idea that they should be able to read/write Chinese. IIRC there's a California proposition that straight up bans bilingual education. On the other hand, Singaporeans do have their own national identity and culture. The vernacular dialect of English spoken is Singlish (although in the past the government has tried to eliminate it) which is distinct from American English and has fairly strong Chinese/Malay/Tamil influences. Singaporeans as a whole do not seem to identitfy with other Anglo countries, especially younger Singaporeans. Chinese Singaporeans are also probably the only Chinese diaspora group that isn't openly hostile towards China itself, while also maintaining a distinct identity. Most importantly, Singaporean law doesn't fall into the "freeze peach" trap and actively eliminates speech that promotes ethnic or religious tension.

You will see a fair bit complaining about the anti hate speech thing and other Singaporean laws by types and from what I can tell the average Singaporean will push back and defend their country's policies. Ironically Singapore is probably the Asian country that imo has the least amount of xenophilia towards the west. In situations such as this article, where western "journalists" do their standard routine of mischaracterizing Asian countries they do not understand, I see a fair amount of backlash and resentment from Singaporeans. I'm sure if you showed this article to a Singaporean, especially a leftist one, they would have some strong words to say about the article.

If you see the actual history of Singapore, at least as it is viewed by the average Singaporean, very little attention is paid towards Raffles or the British, instead there's a lot of hagiography around Lee Kuan Yew. the gist of it is: When the Japanese invaded Singapore the British were inept at defending it, the Japanese then proceeded to massacre the Island's Chinese population, leading to the death of any notion of English superiority. Post WWII the island became independent and Lee Kuan Yew wanted make it a part of Malaysia. The Malaysians didn't want Singapore to be a part of Malaysia because of the large population of Ethnic Chinese and also because they suspected Lee's party of being Communists, so they kicked them out. There's also this belief among Lee idolizers that Lee wanted to eventually become the president of Malaysia and the Malaysians expelled Singapore for of fear of this. If you watch old Lee Kuan Yew interviews there are quite a few anti-west moments such as when he complained about western journalists being hypocritical of their coverage of Singapore, or when he accused the CIA of trying to bribe him and started taunting them.

If you take into account the fact that Malaysia literally kicked Singapore out of federation due to its ethnic composition, combined with ongoing resentment towards the British/other Anglos, then no, you can't claim as the author does, that Singapore's national identity is somehow artificial or that they're "all the same".