Finally the editor Christian Aspalter is describing Singapore! he himself sees the ambivalence to speak of Singapore as a welfare state at least as a residual one. The state hardly contributes anything to welfare. Nevertheless in the Central Providence Fund which he intensively describes, he finds a very fruitful welfare institution for the Singapore mobile Society.

It is not clear what sense the theoretical introduction makes, as nobody in the book is referring to this except the editor himself in a short passage in his description of the NGO's in Hong Kong. Strangely also that in this chapter he not even mentions the preceding general one of [Raymond K. H. Chan] on Hong Kong's welfare system, let alone integrating the analysis.

Richter reviews DISCOVERING THE WELFARE STATE IN EAST ASIA edited by Christian Aspalter.

Older people
Welfare
Nongovernmental organizations--NGOs