Honorary Whites is a term that was used by the apartheid regime of South Africa to grant almost all of the rights and privileges of Whites to certain favored non-White groups.
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The designation was applied to Japanese people in the 1960s to assist a trade pact formed between South Africa and Japan in the early 1960s, when Tokyo's Yawata Iron & Steel Co. offered to purchase 5,000,000 tons of South African pig iron, worth more than $250,000,000, over a ten-year period.[1] With such a huge deal in the works, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd determined that it would be tactless and disadvantageous to their trade arrangements to subject the Japanese people to the same restrictions as other non-White ethnicities, since trade delegations from Japan would now regularly visit South Africa for business. Thenceforth, Pretoria's Group Areas Board publicly announced that all Japanese people would be considered White, at least for purposes of residence. Johannesburg's city officials even decided that "in view of the trade agreements" the municipal swimming pools would be open to all Japanese guests.[1] The designation gave Japanese almost all of the same rights and privileges as Whites (except for the right to vote, as well as being exempt from conscription).
The new designation granted to the Japanese seemed grossly unfair to South Africa's small Chinese community (roughly 7,000 at that time), who it seemed, would enjoy none of the new benefits given to the Japanese. "'If anything, we are whiter in appearance than our Japanese friends.' huffed one of Cape Town's leading Chinese businessmen. Demanded another indignantly: 'Does this mean that the Japanese, now that they are [considered] White, cannot associate with us without running afoul of the Immorality Act?'"[1]
Chinese people could, however, sometimes benefit from passing as Japanese - at least at the swimming pools - because, as the chairman of the city council's Health and Amenities Committee stated, "It would be extremely difficult for our gatekeepers to distinguish between Chinese and Japanese".[1] In 1984, South African Chinese, now increased to about 10,000, finally obtained the same official rights as the Japanese in South Africa, that is, to be treated as whites in terms of the Group Areas Act.[2][3]
Up until the abolition of apartheid, the "Honorary White" status was eventually extended to people of other East-Asian nationalities, including those from South Korea and the Republic of China (Taiwan). The latter was due to the good and important relations between South Africa and the Republic of China.[4]
The "honorary White" status was also given to a number of special visitors belonging to other races, including:
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