Abstract

During the period from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries, colonial Singapore played a central role as an Asian trading hub. From 1965, the Republic of Singapore, as a sovereign nation, attempted to uphold its former colonial position of dominance. The efforts undertaken by the Singaporean elites proved to be highly effective, surpassing even the ideological conflict of the 1960s. This resulted in communist nations like the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, and North Korea expressing a desire to establish commercial trade relations with Singapore. In the 1950s and 1960s, North Korea stood out as an Asian nation that had achieved notable industrial advancements. North Korean leaders sought to utilize Singapore as a platform for disseminating its industrial products and economic achievements. The efforts made by North Korean communist leaders can be analyzed through various activities carried out between Singapore and North Korea. In the case of Singapore, its leaders aspired to broaden its trading horizons by establishing connections with socialist nations and adopting the insights gained from North Korean industrialization. Through primary sources of Singapore news articles, North Korean news articles, South Korean diplomatic archives, and CIA archives, this paper focuses on the mutual interactions of Singapore, the trading hub, and North Korea, the industrial estate.