Singapore Has Taylor Swift to Itself This Week, and the Neighbors Are Complaining

Taylor Swift has descended on Southeast Asia, or one small part of it at least: All of her six sold-out shows are in Singapore, the region's wealthiest nation.
Many of her fans in this part of the world, which is home to more than 600 million people, are disappointed. But the Singapore leg of Swift's wildly popular Eras Tour, which began last weekend and ends Saturday, is a soft power coup and a boost for the country's post-pandemic economic recovery.

The shows -- and the undisclosed price that Singapore paid to host them -- have also generated diplomatic tension with two of its neighbors, Thailand and the Philippines.
Last month, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Thailand said publicly that Singapore had paid Swift up to $3 million per show on the condition that she play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. A lawmaker in the Philippines later said that was not "what good neighbors do."

Singapore pushed back. First its culture minister said the actual value of the exclusivity deal -- which he declined to name -- was "nowhere as high." The country's former ambassador-at-large later called the criticism "sour grapes." And on Tuesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters that he did not see the deal as diplomatically "unfriendly."
But that was no solace to dejected fans.
"I sometimes think 'When will I get to experience this?'" said Sherin Nya Tamara, 26, a Swift fan in Jakarta, Indonesia, who has liked the singer since 2011 but never seen her perform live. "I was hoping there would be additional dates and that Jakarta would be included, but nope."

At a time when Southeast Asian governments are dealing with tensions over the South China Sea and the fallout from a brutal war in Myanmar, among other serious issues, the controversy over Swift's Singapore shows is "kind of refreshing," said Susan Harris Rimmer, a law professor who has studied soft power in the region.
"It's nice to see them arguing about something this fun, I guess, instead of really, deeply difficult things," added Harris Rimmer, who teaches at Griffith University in Australia. "But it does show there is tension and jealousy and rivalry."
Swift's concerts in Singapore, which follow her stops