| Abstract | Every now and then, a business deal comes along that just cannot fail. Or so the two governments backing the $20-billion Suzhou Industrial Park near Shanghai would like to believe. In 1992, patriarch Deng Xiaoping made the call for China to "learn from the experience" of Singapore. Two years later, Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, signed an agreement for the Lion City to help finance, build and manage the Suzhou project, which at 70 sq km is more than a tenth the size of his country. The partnership brings together Singapore's expertise and China's low labor costs and potential as the world's biggest market. The third "partner": multinationals whose bosses know they must get into the China game now -- but who may feel safer in a Singapore-run enclave than in the mainland's commercial jungle. |
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