I don't remember if I was being hasty and didn't read your whole comment, or if you added to it, but I only thought your first paragraph was insightful. ("It’s really obnoxious that the author allows this facile analysis to pass without any attempt to provide context. Hong Kong and Singapore were Western colonial corporate/financial/trade centers for a giant continent which was otherwise mostly blocked off, and so were bottlenecks through which massive amounts of capital flowed (and goods: HK, Singapore, and Shanghai are the busiest ports in Asia). The UAE is a tiny country with one of the largest oil reserves in the world.")