samb61, Those countries have to run like a military outfit otherwise they are going to get infiltrated and weakened ready for regime change.
Don't forget that China is now running Hong Kong under their one country two systems policy and it's working well. China is also working with Singapore and could adopt a similar style of government sometime in the future when it's safe to do so.
Here's a short article in the Singapore Straits Times (Sept 2017) about the China-Singapore relationship.
Quote: "Since then, Singapore has become one of the most important overseas training places for Chinese officials, with the most well-known training programmes offered by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Centre for Public Administration at Nanyang Technological University. So far, nearly 50,000 Chinese officials of different levels have participated in study or training programmes in Singapore."
