Singaporean officials had a bold proposition for their Indonesian counterparts at a top-level meeting on March 18th: why not let us “manage” one of your islands? Indonesia, after all, has so many islands—17,500 or so—that it has failed even to name, let alone govern, many of them. And Singapore, with its 4.4m inhabitants, is desperately short of space.

The Indonesian isle that Singapore is most interested in is Bintan, just a short ferry ride away (see map below). Singaporean firms have already built a string of fancy resorts and a few factories there. But, according to the latest idea, the government would ensure that buckets more Singaporean money would be spent on turning much of the rest of the island into a giant industrial park, which would be run like a clone of the rich and successful city-state.