DENG Xiao Ping, the Chinese reformer, was enthralled one time. Singapore, the tiny country he visited on the way to France to study in 1920, had been greatly transformed.

So, on his return from his first state visit to Singapore in 1978, Deng immediately sent 400 mayors, governors, and Communist Party secretaries to study in the Lion Country. "Learn from Singapore," he said, "and do better than them."

In 1960, the port country originally called Temasek