+1 on this. I didn't think Singapore gave out citizenship just by country of birth (only if one parent is a Singapore citizen) and is very strict about everything re: this. My nephew and nieces are children of Singapore-born Singapore citizens and all grandchildren of Singapore citizens (3 Singapore-born - all 4 being Singaporeans at independence). Only the one niece born in Singapore is a citizen. I'm not sure if the other nieces and nephew ever applied for Singapore citizenship (would have to renounce citizenship of where they were born) but the nephew had to fulfill his conscription obligation to remain after his 18th birthday.

Could be that the poster is female and is free and clear. Or exempt for whatever reason (e.g., not ethnic Chinese).

I didn't pay much attention to Crazy Rich Asians but was interested to read that the author was conspicuously absent from the premier showing in Singapore and why. I think he, like many others, is in a Catch-22 situation: Can't (independently) renounce Singapore citizenship before reaching 18 (or some such) but liable for conscription once turnng 18.

Ethnicity background does not free you from NS obligations. The only publicly known person in last 30 something years who was allowed to postpone NS obligations not for health reasons (note - postpone, not to bail off) is Joseph Schooling, who won (the only) gold medal at last Olympics as a Singaporean citizen and it was special bill by parliament.

For all males who are not older than 18 and are citizen or PR, NS is mandatory and there is no way around it. Parents who applied for PR and did NOT include their son(s) in PR application will have the application denied and there have been reports that consequences of such denial is that their Employment Passes are not going to be renewed.

Correct. He mentally does not identify himself with Singapore because has not been living here since he moved to us at age of 10, but Singapore does not care about it.

One more thing - it was mentioned that one of these 4 citizenship is from Germany.

Please correct if my information is incorrect, but AFAIK Germany has routing procedure to inform their new countrymen's original citizenship countries when such person becomes German citizen. If so, most likely Singapore ICA already has information about this.

Why would anyone who travels globally want to be a USA citizen???

The IRS is awful. Try getting out of their clutches!

Because US citizenship enables you to do global travel?

I find it especially bizarre that he wrote a whole book on the rich people of Singapore wilt presumably never setting foot there in the past 20 years.

Still has family and is well-connected with Singapore's very wealthy. From what I read, his great grandfather was a founder of OCBC.

Hey, he was attending Anglo-Chinese School here. Just a notion - that school recently posted 'humble request' to parents to stop bringing and dropping their kids to the entrance of the school on Bentleys and Lamborghinis... Gives you some insights.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

So do many other nationalities which are not regarded with as much disdain...

Consider the corollary of you question. Or perhaps ask yourself if US citizens travel globally.

You are right. Most of them do not have passports.