Not according to Singapore’s government. I would say they tend to agree to disagree with other countries.
I don’t disagree. They locked up political prisoners for three decades without charging them under the ISA. I disagree with that more than their draconian drug laws, which I think provide a level of public safety, especially in such times when opioids and other drugs are popular.
China Lite 2.0 
The issue is supposed educated organizations like a government are dumb enough to lump things like cannabis and heroin into “drugs are bad” and take in untold cash flows from ethanol and nicotine. Objectively unintelligent.
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The laws didn’t provide a level of public safety. East Asian culture provides a level of public safety. Singapore isn’t that special.
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Singapore has become the Switzerland of Asia whereas other neighbouring countries in South East Asia have not. I would argue it is because of the leadership to a certain extent (and I am not a fan of the late LKY). So no, it isn’t the overcall culture. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand etc. are not as safe.
East Asia, not Southeast Asia. Singapore is in SE Asia but its population is mostly East Asians. Its culture is similar to Japan/Korea/Taiwan/HK’s, and all 4 have low crime rate like Singapore.
A lot of Singaporeans would take offense to being lumped in the same category as Taiwan crime wise.
Take a trip down memory lane:
Gun pulled on Taichung foreigner, police don’t care - Taiwan / Living in Taiwan - Forumosa
what about the Converse Asia executive whose wife was killed in her house back in Taichung in the late 1990s?She was killed in 1997 in front of her two children in her house in a gated community with private security guards. This international executive stayed in Taiwan for a year afterwards trying to get the government to do something. Complete waste of time. Somehow someone got in with a truck, stole their big TV etc. etc., murdered her, and the guards and security cameras saw nothing. Must have been ghosts. There were suggestions at the time that the security company and guards (all ex-police) were involved in the murder and being protected by the local cops.
How do you know this?
As we’ve established, this means nothing. Ibuprofen is a drug. Alcohol is a drug.
So if you took away the weed those people would be productive doing something? I doubt it. The same for people who drink all day, they weren’t doing anything else if they’re doing that with their life.
Point is, it’s ridiculous to make it a criminal offense. What someone does in their own time to themselves is nobody’s business. Sending them to prison is even dumber.
I worked there. 
They admire Taiwan’s traditional Chinese culture but see it as not having the same calibre of planning.
You worked there, OK. How many Singaporeans is “a lot”, then?
I got around.
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Yeah … in 1997 
Crime rate has nothing to do with “planning” lol.
Really? How did Singapore develop from a malaria-infested backwater into the Switzerland of Asia? And go from communal and race based violence to social harmony with almost zero crime?
Let me guess, they just waved a magic wand? No planning involved.
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Not true. It if were true, I’d be delighted. Maybe one solution is to legalise low-strength weed and execute anyone selling the stuff on the black market. Singafornia.
But I don’t think you can blame a society for saying: (i) we think such-and-such drugs are harmful for society and therefore we will ban them, and (ii) we think tolerating the criminality inherent in black market supply is harmful for society and therefore we will harshly stamp it out.
There have been several economic miracles in Asia. And Singapore is more like the Ireland of Asia than Switzerland of Asia. The economy size is incredibly bloated for being a corporate tax haven.
And again, Singapore isn’t anything special crime-wise compared to other Asian countries.
I hear that more about South Korea given the love of soju (drinking) and excelling in the arts (relative to the population)
Drinking maybe, but arts? Are Ireland and Korea known for arts?
How many literary greats, actors, singers, etc. relative to Ireland’s small population? And for Korea–just look at the music and Netflix domination. Pretty impressive.
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