Quora Answer: What is the Possibility of Singapore Merging with a Larger Country?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What is the possibility of Singapore merging with a larger country?” 

There is practically no chance of that happening, short of some sort of military action.  Firstly, there are only two countries that Singapore could possibly merge with from a practical sense: Malaysia and Indonesia.  Singapore has direct road connections with Malaysia, and a sea border with Indonesia.  Either candidate provides no political gain.  We have to consider that Singapore is multicultural to an extreme degree, being a trade centre from its very inception.  Malaysia’s political domination by a Malay Sunni majority would not be palatable to us . Indonesia’s domination by the Javanese likewise. 

There have to be strong economic reasons for Singapore to consider such a union.  Delving into the nature of this union, would that make Singapore an autonomous administrative region?  Would it be a federation?  Who controls this union politically?  How is revenue distributed?  Each of these questions would rule out a political union.  Singapore, being much wealthier than either country, and having a stable government, has little to gain from any such union.  It would end up being a junior partner in the relationship, yet bankrolling two poorer countries, with endemic corruption.  Also, political union would mean that our border with Malaysia or Indonesia would become an internal border.  We would be inundated with migrants seeking better prospects, and the overburdened infrastructure will be overwhelmed and fail.  This will lead to civil unrest brought about by tensions between residents and immigrants. 

If we consider a European Union style of common market, that is also impossible due to the wide disparity in development.  There is no basis for an equal common market.  The closest we can have, and what ASEAN works towards, is the elimination or reduction of tariffs within the group, and the creation of a free trade area.  That is the best-case scenario.