Shortly after opening its doors on a Tuesday morning in mid-December, the Rolls-Royce showroom in Singapore’s Redhill neighbourhood was already bustling. US-China tensions remain high, financial markets are skittish, the risk of global recession looms heavily: it is the perfect time to put down an $80,000 deposit on a hot pink Phantom.

The number of Rolls-Royce cars registered in Singapore surged in 2021 and remained at record levels in 2022 — waiting lists for the cars now stretch into years. One type of buyer dominates. For the cars that leave the forecourt a predictable future in the city-state awaits — shuttling the short routes between the mansions and apartments of Sentosa and other pockets of extreme wealth to luxury shopping malls, the discreet offices of their family funds and the private clubs of Orchard. According to employees at the showroom, the new buyers are overwhelmingly Chinese.

The flows are part of a transformation of Singapore that is becoming a proxy for the way in which one segment of China is dealing with geopolitical tension and decoupling.