Did PM Lawrence Wong poke the dragon?

On 19 November 2025 at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum gala dinner in Singapore, Lawrence Wong was asked to analyse, from the view of Asia, the contentious and intense China-US rivalry and its spillovers in the region, with "this spat going on between Japan and China". Singapore's prime minister called for stability and de-escalation. Mr Wong even called for a normalisation of ties between Japan and China. His subtext: China's policy of nurturing historical grievances to fuel jingoist nationalism must seem bewildering and abnormal to the peoples living in Southeast Asian nations, which experienced a long Cold War in succession to WW2. (Or indeed, anyone living in the European Union.)

Right on cue, outraged online mobs in China were whipped into a frenzy by one Peking loyalist and online influencer Yu Pun-hoi in Hongkong and his ultra-nationalist collaborators in Shanghai. And then, panic and concern from various segments of Singaporeans who now feel Wong should not have poked the dragon and sparked off a bonfire.

Was Lawrence Wong unnecessarily provocative? How much of this controversy is his fault? Or was the online mob just the latest chapter in a long-running but increasingly ineffective Chinese influence campaign to decouple Singapore from the American security apparatus in the Asia Pacific? Or is this a sign that Singapore has a vocal homegrown faction that stands for realignment and Sincization?

Mob with pitchforks and torches, from Young Frankenstein.
"A riot is an ugly thing. And I think it's just about time that we had one!"

Should Singapore still mourn the loss of The Projector?

It has been exactly a month since the sudden closure of indie and second-run cinema operator The Projector. The closure may have provoked widespread despair and outrage online, however performative or overwrought, but for the sake of public education this discussion must now move beyond narratives marked by self-regarding romanticism, naive sentimentality, and uninformed anti-capitalism.

What different things can we learn if, for example, we took a production of culture perspective? What if we treat watching an indie or foreign film in a shabby chic cinema as an end result of the interplay between organisational structure, industry culture, market forces, audience preferences, and contractual agreements and unwritten norms within the wider movie industry? That is: What does it really take to screen a movie in a cinema? And if a cinema operator like The Projector fails, whose fault is it really?

Woud've been appropriate and poetic, but
The Projector didn't end its run with a screening of Goodbye, Dragon Inn

Modelling the 2025 General Election: Was it right to apply Dunleavy to Singapore?

Almost a full month before Nomination Day, we at Illusio used Dunleavy’s dominant party system framework to drive our predictions for the outcome of the general election. We made 3 predictions, only of which  was correct: that the People’s Action Party (PAP) would maintain its dominance due to its perceived competence. No reasonable person would've gotten this wrong, with or without a model. The others landed somewhat off the mark. Yes, WP picked up ZERO new wards but they did not lose a GRC. To quote the Black Knight: Let's call this a draw.  No, the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) did not pick up a GRC in the west. That one was a total dud.

Do the outcomes mean Dunleavy's framework has finally broken down and is not applicable to Singapore? Or do the outcomes mean there's something else going on, which complictes but doesn't invalidate Dunleavy?

Will PJ Thum present the first and only poll of the election?

Cancel your appointments for the night of 24 April 2025. If you have decided to attend an election rally, you need to reconsider your life priorities. Sure, you can spend 3 hours in a field or stadium experiencing attempts by politicians and their plants in the crowd to whip the crowd into a frenzy. We at Illusio have found a far more important, more exciting, more elusive event in Singapore's political history, one that is literally singular and may never be repeated again.

A political rally, from Wikimedia

This is why you should attend Dr PJ Thum and New Naratif's The Citizen Agenda at 7pm, at The Projector at Golden Mile (yes, it's a free event).

Was Pritam Singh crying wolf? Modelling the 2025 Singapore General Election

It must've been an annus horribilis for the Wokers' Party for its leader Pritam Singh to muse publicly that his party could face a wipeout in the imminent 2025 general election. Was it the crushing defeat of the government-appointed Leader of the Opposition in the State Court, on charges of lying under oath to a parliamentary committee and a stinging rebuke by the judge? Or its second ever sex scandal? But then, what would we make of the completely opposite forecast by foreign observers who say this is the most competitive general election of Singapore's history, where the opposition is poised for game-changing victories that will surely transform the political landscape?

Only one of these two predictions can be true, but which? Is Pritam Singh voicing a rare warning to his partisans, or is this an attempt to rally his troops by reusing the boogeyman from the previous election?

Pritam Singh prefers to play a game of electronic football with Death!