Unlike Thailand and the Philippines, nationalism
entailed large-scale popular mobilization and involved dislocation and destruction of state institutions. Anti-colonial struggles, moreover, combined with the
problematically “foreign” identities attributed to immigrant mercantile minorities under colonial rule to prefigure strong support for economic nationalism
and for state intervention to redistribute wealth, promote social welfare, and
prevent the “free hand” of the market from perpetuating control by “foreign”
(i.e., Indian, Chinese, and European) capital.