“I mentioned before that if you want to know the history of Singapore you need only know about the history of my own humble family. My father was a lieutenant with the British Army, Malaya Command, stationed at Fort Singapore with the 30th Fortress Company, Royal Engineers, when the Japanese invaded. When the British Army surrendered, my father disappeared into the rainforest, eventually joining up with a Malaysian rebel unit where he met my mother. In between blowing up bridges and shooting Japanese, they fell in love. They married after the war.”

Dr. Fairchild pointed at the Japanese battle flag. He smiled broadly. “My father kept several souvenirs from the war, including me. He decided to stay in Singapore rather than return to Blighty, and started a small firm, which has since become Dalfan Technologies.”

“Impressive,” Jack said.

“I attended university here, where I met my wife, the mother of my two precious children. She was half Chinese and half Indian. She and I spent the first years of our marriage in London, where I earned my doctorate in electrical engineering, before returning here to start our family.”

Jack had read his wife’s online obituary on the plane ride over. “I’m sorry for your loss. Dr. Fairchild was an accomplished woman.”

“Thank you. I miss her still.”

Paul’s research into Dalfan hadn’t included the personal stuff. He was touched by Fairchild’s grief, an emotion he understood too well.

Yong set his coffee down. “As you can see, we are a proud Singaporean family, but typical of our people. We work hard, obey the laws, take risks, create wealth, pay our taxes. Singapore is successful because it has allowed families and companies like ours to prosper.”

“Sounds a little like the American Dream,” Jack said.

“Or what used to be the American Dream,” Yong said. “Your national debt, government corruption, and massive trade deficits put all of that at risk. The ‘end of history’ has a different meaning for the United States these days.”

Jack understood the reference. He had read Francis Fukuyama’s seminal 1989 article years before at Georgetown. Fukuyama’s thesis was that all of human history was progressing toward a final, culminating idea of liberal democracy that marked the “end” of historical development, and the United States was the epitome of that idea. Fukuyama’s argument seemed unassailable in the 1990s after America won the Cold War. Fascism and communism had been defeated by Western liberal democratic ideals. But America’s challenges and Europe’s crises in the twenty-first century suggested that liberal democracy itself might have seen its best days, at least in the declining West.

“Don’t count us out yet,” Jack said. “My country has a habit of coming back from behind to win.”

“I’m a huge fan of your father,” Dr. Fairchild said. “If anyone can revive the United States, it’s him.”