Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"In 1965, a fateful event occurred in Southeast Asia. Singapore, the crown jewel of British colonialism in this realm, seceded from the recently independent (1963) Malaysian Federation and became a sovereign state, albeit a tiny city-state. With its unparalleled relative location, its multiethnic and well-educated population, and its no-nonsense government, Singapore then overcame the severe limitations of space and the absence of raw materials to become one of the four original Asian Tigers in the late 1970s. . . . Benefiting from its relative location, the old port of Singapore had become one of the world’s busiest even before independence. . . . Crude oil from Southeast Asia still is unloaded and refined in Singapore, then shipped to East Asian destinations. Raw rubber from the adjacent Malay Peninsula and from Indonesia’s nearby island of Sumatera is shipped to China, Japan, the United States, and many other countries. Timber from Malaysia, rice, spices, and other foodstuffs are processed and forwarded through Singapore. In return, automobiles, machinery, and equipment are imported into Southeast Asia and distributed almost exclusively via Singapore." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 444-5]