In apartheid South Africa Chinese people were neither white nor black. While they have been mistakenly accused of enjoying honorary white status, that was afforded only to the Japanese.
Today Chinese people, whether they are South African-born, Taiwanese or recent arrivals from the People’s Republic of China, still suffer from similar problems, as they are not considered previously disadvantaged. They remain simply non-white, which is a classification they no longer have to share with anyone.
So while immigrants from the China continue to pour into the country, many South African-born Chinese emigrate. In the new South Africa they are not black enough to benefit from affirmative action.
Contrary to popular belief, the first Chinese to set foot in this country were not the indentured mine labourers who arrived in 1904. Most of these labourers were repatriated once their contracts expired. The first Chinese labourers to arrive in the country were brought by the Dutch from Batavia in the 1660s.
In the mid-18th century a dozen or so Chinese were restaurateurs and traders in the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1875 the Natal Colony brought in labourers and artisans from China to work on its roads and the harbour, according to South African Chinese researchers Melanie Yap and Dianne Leong Man.
The first Chinese to arrive in the Transvaal were seven gold prospectors in 1876. The initial mass of Chinese immigrants sailed for South Africa at about the same time.
Because of restrictions limiting how and where they could pursue business opportunities, many set up restaurants and tea houses, laundries, market garden shops and general stores in the western part of Ferreirastown, an area that became known as Chinatown.
While official figures are difficult to ascertain, according to Yoon Park, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Johannesburg’s centre for sociological research, there are about 20 000 South African-born Chinese in the country.
Another wave of immigrants from Taiwan began arriving in South Africa in the late 1970s as a result of warming relations between the two countries.
The latest wave of immigrants, which continues today, comes from China. Starting in the late 1980s and accelerating in the period leading up to this country’s official recognition of the People’s Republic of China, large numbers of legal and illegal immigrants have entered the country from mainland China, overshadowing the South African-born Chinese community.
‘The last official figure I had from the Chinese embassy, in 2005, said that there were about 80 000 immigrants from China. There are estimates from the Institute for Security Studies from 2001 that there are at least 100 000 to 200 000 illegal immigrants,†says Parks.
While the oldest generation of the earliest immigrants are still referred to as shopkeepers, an indication of their core area of business, the Taiwanese first arrived here as industrialists. By 1992 they had established about 300 factories. More arrived as students, restaurateurs, importers, exporters and entrepreneurs.
Of late trade between South Africa and China has flourished. Chinese imports to South Africa exceeded South African exports to China by R23-billion in 2005. Many of the immigrants from China are wholesalers and traders. Others are mining and construction magnates.
Park says it is difficult to generalise about the core business areas of immigrants from China, as they are very diverse. ‘A lot operate under the radar as well, importing low-cost goods, from T-shirts to tennis shoes and all sorts of plastics,†she says.
Because it is difficult to establish exactly how many Chinese immigrants there are in the country, it is similarly difficult to quantify their economic impact, says Park. Furthermore, many might also be working for South African companies as professionals.
The official line of the Chinese Association of South Africa is that they are non-political and they neither side with China nor with Taiwan. ‘Unofficially, South African-born Chinese have had mixed feelings on China,†she says. ‘Most of them had family members who suffered under communist rule, but recently China has been doing well economically and there have been democratic reforms, so everyone’s opinions are changing.
‘In 1999 I did about 70 interviews of mostly older Chinese people and they were anti-communist … The apartheid government itself was anti-communist and, for a long time, there were no new immigrants because the government feared new immigrants from red China.†Park writes that between 1952 and the late 1970s fewer than 100 Chinese were permitted to enter the country.
‘But even in 1999 younger South African-born Chinese people didn’t have strong opinions one way or the other. And with the interviewees I have kept in touch with, there has been a strong shift in sentiment [in favour of China].â€
Chinese immigrant communities and, to an extent, the Taiwanese, have a tenuous bond with their adopted country. While many accept this country as home, many descendants of the earliest Chinese immigrants feel no patriotism towards South Africa, particularly because of their treatment during apartheid.
Under apartheid many Chinese South Africans were ascribed non-white status and today many still feel alienated by their exclusion from the language of affirmative action and black economic empowerment.
The Mail & Guardian will host a Critical Thinking Forum entitled: Are Chinese Black? as part of the Chinese in Africa public seminar taking place at The Pyramid, in Village Deep, Jo’burg, on July 28