I think we probably need to take a closer look at each country before assuming that for instance the Chinese have raced ahead in SEA without being handed racial privileges.
For instance, in Malaysia, this is one possible explanation -
https://www.statista.com/statistics/856 ... nic-group/
"The Bumiputera make up the majority of the Malaysian population, yet have one of the lowest average monthly household incomes in Malaysia. This economic disparity could be explained by the effects of colonial policies that kept the Bumiputera largely in the countryside. This resulted in an urban-rural divide that was characterized by ethnicity, with the immigrant Chinese and Indian laborers concentrated in the urban centers, a demographic pattern that is still evident today.
There was a considerable difference in urban and rural household incomes in Malaysia, with urban household income being around 3.6 thousand ringgit more than rural households. This was largely due to the fact that wages in urban areas had to keep up with the higher cost of living there. This thus impacted the average monthly incomes of the largely rural-based Bumiputera and the largely urban-based ethnic Chinese . "
Basically, it seems more like political propaganda that the MCs are so far ahead of the rest of the population. Similar thing seems to be going on in Indonesia where the Chinese are an even smaller percentage of the population.