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Formula One is about serious speed, cutting-edge engineering and transformative technology. But mostly it’s about money. Like no other sport, Formula One (F1) follows the money. That’s why the F1 merry-go-round stops in Singapore this weekend.
Only in its seventh running, the Singapore Grand Prix has already become iconic. It is the only night race on the F1 calendar. Set against a glittering cityscape, the Marina Bay Street Circuit – incorporating a pair of bridges and an underpass – provides both exciting racing and stunning television images. And although the F1 caravan will have packed up and moved on just hours after Sunday evening’s race, Singapore’s rapid emergence as a Grand Prix venue to rival Monaco’s status as the ‘jewel in F1’s crown’ points to more permanent changes in where global economic power resides.
According to a recent McKinsey publication, the decade from 2000-2010 witnessed the fastest-ever change in the world’s economic centre of gravity. Economic influence is tracking from Europe to Asia, we are constantly told. Yet absorbing and interpreting these trends and statistics, and especially what they portend for the future, is difficult. Far easier to digest is the F1 calendar, which functions like a one-page global balance sheet, providing an annual snapshot of who is flexing economic muscle.
Examining changes to the F1 calendar over time provides tangible insight into understanding contemporary global power dynamics. In 1998, the year before Malaysia hosted its first F1 race, eleven of F1’s sixteen races (70%) were held in Europe, the sport’s traditional heartland. The Americas (Brazil, Argentina and Canada) hosted three races, with two long-standing appointments in Asia rounding out the calendar (Australia and Japan). By 2013, only fifteen years later, Europe’s share of races had dwindled to less than 40% (seven of nineteen), despite the addition of three extra races to the schedule. Australia, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Japan, India and South Korea all hosted Grands Prix during 2013, meaning Asia was home to as many races as Europe.
Analysing F1’s calendar a little more closely reveals more than just the recent economic ascendency of Asia. Western governments, including Australia’s, are becoming increasingly reluctant to commit public funds to hosting big global events. Their publics are increasingly agitated by the inevitable inconveniences these events bring, while corporate donors chafe at associating their brand with such ‘expensive toys’ at a time of fiscal constraint. Each and every year, the pressure grows to demonstrate exactly how much the race injects into the local economy. The viability and impact of such events is determined according to ever-shorted time horizons. Returns on investment must be observed immediately. The bottom line is interpreted in purely financial terms.
Governments of emerging states view the prospect of hosting a Grand Prix much differently. For them, the cost-benefit calculus is less constrained. Demonstrating short term returns is less of a concern. They focus on the future and ponder the potential upside. They conceive of a Grand Prix as part of a something bigger. More than a stand-alone event, they provide an opportunity to project to the world how they want to be seen.
Malaysia, for instance, used its Grand Prix as a symbol of a broader modernising project. The resources and expertise of the wholly government-owned oil and gas company, Petronas, have been central to a strategy of introducing modern Malaysia to the world. Petronas has been the title-sponsor of the Malaysian Grand Prix since its inception in 1999 and lends its name to the other grand symbol of modern, vibrant Malaysia; Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers. Petronas is also the lead sponsor of the Mercedes F1 team, this year’s championship leaders and a co-sponsor of the Chinese Grand Prix. The team’s silver cars streak around the world’s circuits flashing the aqua Petronas logo.
For Singapore, too, hosting a Grand Prix is a powerful symbol, reinforcing our associations of the city-state as a global transport, shopping and technology hub where East and West can meet, especially to do business. Like in Malaysia, the Government has partnered with leading national brands – Sing Tel for the first six years, and now Singapore Airlines – to collaboratively promote the Grand Prix, their own products and YourSingapore.
Of course, there is significant risk in hosting a Grand Prix. Obtaining a licence to stage a race is exceedingly expensive and doesn’t give the host television rights, meaning all profits must come from ticket sales. Bernie Ecclestone – F1’s commercial supremo – is an exacting paymaster, as India, South Korea and Turkey can attest; each had their races cut from this year’s calendar. But the very fact that these states sought, and were awarded, the rights to host Grands Prix in recent times is itself instructive, as is the list of states lining up to take their place. This year, Russia joins the circuit for the first time. And it has just been announced that Mexico will feature next year, in an expanded 20-race season. Ascendant states are jostling for their place in the diary.
In a contemporary expression of the developmental state, their Governments are competing with each other to leverage the opportunity F1 affords them to demonstrate their state belongs in the top tier. In doing so, they display a boldness many Government’s in the West appear to lack. The changes in the F1 calendar, therefore, also reveal something more problematic for the West than their loss of relative economic clout; an apparent discomfort to actively embrace, wield and cultivate soft power. Joseph Nye, who popularised the term, defines ‘soft power’ as “the ability to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes.”
Formula One, the most-watched global sport outside the Olympics and the football World Cup, represents a prime opportunity for emerging states to project themselves as global players. (It’s no coincidence that the states clamouring for a place on the F1 calendar have also recently sought to host the Olympics and the football World Cup). Singapore, already so adept at projecting itself effectively on the world stage, has packaged its Grand Prix to reinforce its key selling points. The ability to frame the agenda is more valuable to Singapore than the pure monetary value the influx of visitors and race receipts bring this weekend.
The constrained fiscal circumstances in the West are a hand-brake to investing in soft power. More worryingly, these conditions have prompted some to suggest it’s prudent to retreat from international engagement. But globalisation means you can’t afford to take a pit stop. In today’s increasingly competitive world, the ability of states to actively and effectively position themselves in the global marketplace is becoming ever more important.
F1 is just one way to participate in this contest, of course. However, as Singapore and Malaysia have demonstrated, it can certainly be an effective one. Enjoy the race.
Benjamin Day (@benjaminsday) is a PhD candidate in the Australian National University’s School of International, Political & Strategic Studies, where he researches foreign policy decisionmaking. Image by chensiyuan.
Grand Prix or no Grand Prix, soft power or otherwise, Singapore to me is an authoritarian police state ruled by an elite Chinese oligarchy, getting rich by laundering dirty money from despots, war-lords, drug dealers, corrupt tycoons, smugglers, thugs, etc. from neighbouring countries, not to mention all that human trafficking of maids and migrant workers from poor countries like Burma. Who cares about some formula one race cars “trafficking” around Marina Bay. I am not rich enough to “enjoy” that kind of spectacle!
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Tocharian, congratulations on squeezing so many stereotypes of Singapore into a single paragraph. However, you may want to consider include Western countries in your list of ways Singapore has gotten rich. Vietnam War? Who hustled all that war materiel there? When Subic Bay closed where did the facilities go? Almost every major Western corporation used Singapore as an Asian HQ. And who made nearly all the hard drives in the early computers?
As for the maids, ask some of them where they would rather work – Singapore. There’s NO “trafficking” there, just the best pay possible in a sad and hard world market. If Singapore is to be condemned, look in the mirror first, Westerners. Sure, you have to keep your mouth shut in Singapore (where can you really open it anywhere in SE Asia?) – but you don’t get screwed economically quite so badly as in almost any other part of the world.
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This article is about Singapore and not about Monaco, so I stick to the topic. I don’t normally like people using cheap facile “tu quoque” arguments but I agree with you that Westerners with any ethical and moral values should boycott corrupt Singaporean banks.
I was told by a number of “white Westerners”, even students, who went to Singapore for some time, that there is a definite racial/social pecking order there. White people are normally treated much better than dark-skinned migrant workers and maids from places like Burma or Indonesia or Philippines in this “model Asian city state”, unless of course, you are a super-rich opium war-lord from Burma with money to launder like Lo Hsinghan and his clan. That is the hypocrisy and double-standards that I wanted to point out in my comment. Asking maids who are poor whether they would prefer to be even poorer than what they are is a morally despicable argument. I agree with you that the greedy morality of “making a quick dirty buck justifies everything” is not only a Singaporean thing, but we are talking about Singapore here and this mentality is blatantly obvious under all this squeaky clean, chewing-gum-free shiny fa├зade of a city with or without fancy F1 races. Soft moral power indeed!
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Just wondering if the recent Singapore general elections, and presidential elections are indicative of changes in the way Singaporeans think?
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Perhaps.
A city-state like Singapore is more of an anomaly and as we all know, Singapore was a British naval base established at a Chinese trading enclave in a non-Chinese surrounding and as I explained above Singapore’s wealth is not as “clean” as their glitzy exterior. To think of Singapore as a role model for Southeast Asia is an oxymoron. I hope Singaporeans would stop being so smug and arrogant (stop judging people based on money and skin colour) and realise how “lucky” they were to have profited from accidental geo-political circumstances, especially the rampant corruption and lawlessness in the surrounding countries. Money does not give you moral superiority and soft power needs an ethical dimension that Singapore lacks. What’s the point i of being so strict on small scale drug users if the banks were laundering money from big time opium war-lords like Lo Hsinghan? Hypocrisy is even worse than being “honestly evil” LOL
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This is interesting Tocharian — your views on morality.
The recent book by Garry Rodan and Caroline Hughes, “The Politics of Accountability in Southeast Asia – The Dominance of Moral Ideologies” argues that the Singapore government — like other regimes in Southeast Asia — rely on “moral ideas” of accountability.
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198703532.do
Are you suggesting that these governments are unaccountable within this framework?
Are you also suggesting that they are immoral or hypocritical, both or something else?
Thanks.
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@Greg Lopez
I haven’t read the book you mentioned, but it is clear from my comments above what my “answers” to your rhetorical questions would be. I do not want to engage in a purely academic discussion of the age old question of legitimising the authority of a State using moral or even religious arguments. Brainwashing the ant-like populace with ideological pheromones is a classic strategy used by the ruling class, especially in Asian countries. We now live in the age of the internet and the Higgs boson!
In any case, Singapore is not the Vatican and Lee Kwan Yew is not the Pope. Besides morality is not just about keeping the streets clean from chewing gum and petty drug-dealers if at the same time the real big-time thieves, despots and opium war-lords can bring in their dirty money and live off their riches with arrogance and impunity in Singapore. Even the Pope would agree with me on that!
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Thanks for sharing your views tocharian.
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Wishful. Not in a hundred years.
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Greg, on the recent Singapore general elections and by elections, see my co-authored paper alongside Stephan Ortmann’s piece in Asian Survey 54(4) July/August 2014.
As a Singaporean, I agree with almost everything tocharian says. Unfortunately, Benjamin’s narrow focus on the F1 race as an extension of Singapore’s soft power and its symbolic positioning as a global hub illuminates as much as it obscures. Left untold, are the stories of worker exploitation and marginalization, of domestic hegemony and identity, and of consumerism and inequality.
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Will do Elvin. Thanks.
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