The Asian values debate, cut off abruptly by the Asian crisis, revealed the international limits of the discursive framework for the evolution of Sino-Singapore ties, but it did not have a bearing on those relations themselves. By contrast, the hobbled fortunes of the Suzhou International Park (SIP), an ambitious attempt to build a Chinese township with Singapore characteristics, tested the limits of Singapore's engagement of China. The SIP, which began as a 65–35 joint venture between Singapore and China, encountered problems that ceased only when the two stakes were reversed. The Asian crisis played a role in the park's problems by exacerbating its competition for investment with a neighbouring industrial park, but the causes of the conflict in Suzhou went deeper: to a seemingly intrinsic incompatibility between the Singapore and Chinese ways of doing business in spite of ethnic affinity and empathy with each other's political systems.

The SIP's origins were economic. They lay in an attempt to supplement Singapore's economy with earnings made abroad. Singapore's regionalization strategy, which was formulated in the mid-1980s, encouraged overseas investment by Singapore companies and joint ventures to “combine the competitive strengths of Singapore and its partners to attract international investors”. The strategy led to official initiatives to establish growth triangles and overseas industrial parks. Thus, the SIJORI growth triangle became a partnership between Singapore, Johore in Malaysia, and Riau in Indonesia that “links the infrastructure, capital, and expertise of Singapore with the natural and labour resources of Johore and Riau”. Industrial parks in India and Vietnam, too, became a part of Singapore's efforts to develop an external wing for its economy to overcome the scarcity of its land and human resources, tiny domestic market, and its loss in comparative advantage as a result of rising costs. “Neighboring emerging economies serve as extensions or frontiers toward which Singapore transfers management know-how and administrative skills such as clean and efficient government (software).” Replicating its successful development experience served Singapore's aspirations to be a gateway for multinational corporations wishing to invest in the region.