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Honorary Whites is a term which was originally given by the apartheid regime of South Africa to the Japanese after they formed a trade pact with Japan to sell 5,000,000 tons of pig iron worth $250 million, and was extended to people of other East-Asian nationalities. Tokyo's Yawata Iron & Steel Co. offered to purchase 5,000,000 tons of South African pig iron over a ten-year period. With such a huge deal in the works, South Africa was not able to show disrespect that would be shown to the Japanese that now would regularly visit the country for business. Soon, Pretoria's Group Areas Board announced that all Japanese from here on would be considered white, at least for purposes of residence, and Johannesburg's city fathers decided that "in view of the trade agreements" they would open the municipal swimming pools to Japanese guests.
Under the rules of apartheid, Asians in South Africa for years were subject to many of the same restrictions as the blacks. One law forbid their sex relations with whites; another forced them to live in nonwhite areas. They could not buy liquor without a permit, were not allowed in white hotels and restaurants. The government of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd changed these rules for Japanese nationals after the trade pact. Likewise Honorary White status was granted to, South Koreans, Taiwanese and other Nationalist Chinese, but not to Chinese from Communist China, out of diplomatic considerations - namely, the (then) anti-communist alliance between South Africa and Nationalist China.
Since the 1960s until the fall of Apartheid, Honorary Whites were granted practically all the privileges held by White South Africans, except that they did not have the right to vote, and (in case of males) were exempt from conscription.
The term was sometimes also used to refer to Asians in other "White" Western countries, especially Asian Americans (primarily the Chinese) in the United States.
In addition, some foreign elite black athletes like the West Indian rebel team who were invited to South Africa during the apartheid regime, were awarded "Honorary White" status to circumvent legislation.
References
- Time, January 19, 1962
- http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/06/19/in-south-africa-chinese-is-the-new-black/?mod=yhoofront