Singapore has government enforced racial quotas, both in housing policy and in PR/citizenship grants with the goal of maintaining a stable 75/15/7.5. So it's really not a good example of merit based

Racial quotas for non chinese :)

Being 'Multicultural' means keeping the peace between cultures. As much as the government loves to tout that they are a 'melting pot' where innovation happens, there isn't much going on there that is particularly attributed to being multicultural. Generally in companies you're either in the chinese culture or the western one.

I think it also speaks to the fact that without forced integration people will naturally converge to whatever is familiar to them, eventually forming enclaves.

But that is what's happening in Singapore.

Yea and that's why restrictions should be put in place, even at the cost of freedoms.

There are far more Chinese people in the world and the US than Indians, so it's not because of numbers

Huh? There are more Chinese than Indian in the US.

But Indians have much lower barrier to cultural entry, given colonialist history

Many Chinese Americans have been here for generations, since the 1800s. Few Indians lived here before 1950. Ease of assimilation doesn't explain it.

But my impression is that Chinese Americans are pretty much white biologically and culturally by the third or fourth generation because of the high rates of interracial marriage.

Many Chinese Americans, sure. But how many in relationship to the Indians ?

There are more 2nd+ generation Chinese Americans than all Indians combined. Indians are a tiny and recent immigrant group.

And specifically one aspect of it - language. English for Indians is like a first language.

And being myself from USSR, i think there is another cultural aspect - that coming from former socialist country impact Chinese somewhat similar to how it impacts Russians.