Siam’s first nationalism targeted imported Chinese, not colonizing Europeans

Evidence

The target of this nationalism, however, was neither the United Kingdom, which controlled 90 per cent of Siam’s trade, nor France, which had recently made off with easterly segments of the old realm: it was the Chinese whom his father had so recently and blithely imported. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 383

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ pattern of cross-cultural scapegoating: anti-Chinese ‘Jews of the Orient’ framing is a class-projecting moral panic analogous to dress-panic scapegoating.
• XREF: Echoes the Somervillian/Hunter pattern of ‘anticipatory strategy by threatened dominant groups’ Anderson develops throughout this chapter.

Related

• Official nationalism redirected resentment onto imported ethnic minorities (similarity 0.84)
• Migration and foreign labor eroded the nation-state’s prestige (similarity 0.79)