Chinese is the new black

For those interested in South Africa and international politics, Chinese will now be treated as blacks...

As a reminder, South Africa is still very much racially divided into blacks, whites and coloureds.

Chinese were once viewed as coloreds, the lowest racial class in South African culture. The apartheid government (which lost its power in the 1990s) had "upgraded" the Chinese from coloureds to white status during the early 1980s.

The high court's ruling (classifying Chinese-South Africans as black) will now allow the Chinese to have access to post-apartheid benefits that are available to nonwhite ethic groups.