Singapore, Sept. 2 -- Cross-border partnership is usually discussed as two parties meeting in the middle. The more accurate picture is a structure with one engineered end and one improvised end, and Singapore has spent a decade quietly building the engineered one.

The language of cross-border partnership is relentlessly symmetrical. Two parties, two markets, a bridge, a handshake, a meeting in the middle. It is a comforting way to describe a relationship that is almost never balanced, and the vocabulary does real damage, because it encourages companies to prepare for a negotiation between equals when what they are actually walking into is a structure where one side has done considerably more construction than the other.

The Day 2 keynot...