South African Court: 'Chinese South Africans Are Legally Black'
For those that do not know, there is a popular of Chinese living in the country of South Africa. Many had come to South Africa after the mid-19th century when there was a discovery of gold. During that time, the Chinese were considered as colored under the rule of the white minority.
This was due to the difference in wealth. While there were Japanese living in South Africa, but they were outnumbered by the Chinese. However, the Japanese held far more wealth than the Chinese. As a result, the minority rule had given status to Japanese of being “honorary white.”
Back in 1994, the white rule of South Africa was ended. With that, there laws were passed known as the Black Economic Empowerment Act (BEE) and the Employment Equity Action (BEE). Africans, Indians, and other colored were covered under both BEEs. However, both laws had excluded South Africa’s Chinese population.
In short, the Chinese in South Africa got shafted. The Chinese Association of South Africa (CASA) fought hard for eight years to be accepted under those two laws. Now, the Pretoria High Court has ruled that the Chinese population of South Africa will be included. However, these policies are considered to be controversial.
So far, the policies have good intentions. However, they can be exploited for self-gain which causes much damage. Under the BEE, large companies in South African must give a percentage of equity to entities run by Blacks. This was aimed to undo the decades of apartheid discrimination. However, it has been criticized as legal theft.
CASA chairman, Patric Chong said: “As Chinese South Africans we were officially classified as ‘Coloured’ and suffered under the same discriminatory laws prior to 1994. The logical inference was thus that Chinese South Africans would automatically qualify for the same benefits as the ‘Coloured’ group, post1994. This was not the case and Chinese South Africans suffered a second round of unfair discrimination.”
The brief synopsis is that South Africa’s Chinese community got the short end of the stick, twice.
There was no opposition to this case.
However critics are suspicious wanted to use a legal loophole to reap the benefits of BEE. They also cite the economic relationship between Africa and China as a possibility for this ruling.
Tags: South Africa , China , Chinese , South
