Since the British East India Company founded a trading post in 1819, modern Singapore has been a multiracial and multilingual society. The earliest prints in Singapore were in languages such as English, Siamese, Malay, Arabic and Chinese. This section focuses on the evolution of early printing in the Chinese language during the 19th century, its development in different stages and the impacts it made on the Chinese language and Chinese communities. T

Chinese newspapers in Singapore played an important role in passing down Chinese cultural traditions. The rise of Chinese newspapers was a testament of the growing influence and strength of ethnic Chinese and Chinese culture. Its development accompanied the evolution of Singapore history and mirrored the challenges experienced by the local ethnic Chinese community. The establishment of Lat Pau (《叻报》) in 1881 marked the beginning of the Chinese daily in Singapore.

Chinese commercial enterprises have been characterised by bang trade specialisations originating from the dialect-based power structure in Chinese society throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Certain trades were, and still are, dominated by different dialect groups. Dialect trade specialisation has long been noted in Singapore since the early decades of the 19th century, despite the cohesion provided by Chinese culture and the long history of inter-dialect business contacts.

Chinese business and entrepreneurship has long played an important role in the history of Singapore. The changes in the structures and strategies of Chinese big business in the last two centuries have reflected the transformations in the political economy of Singapore in the colonial period and as a nation-state, as well as the shifts in the global economic and political environments. This section attempts to provide a broad survey of the changes in the structures and dynamics of Chinese business, especially big business, in Singapore, between 1819 and the present, and to locate these shifts and continuities in the contexts of local, regional, and global political and economic environments.