A high court in South Africa has ruled that Chinese-South Africans be reclassified as “black,” a term that includes black Africans, Indians and others who were subject to discrimination under apartheid.
 
As a result, ethnically Chinese citizens can now benefit from government affirmative action policies.
 
Filing suit in 2006, the Chinese Association of South Africa argued that Chinese-South Africans had been treated unequally under apartheid and should be reclassified in order to redress wrongs of the past.
 
Classified as “colored,” the Chinese had been forced to live apart from whites, and denied educational and business opportunities along with the right to vote. By the early 1980s, however, Chinese-South Africans were exempted from some of the discriminatory laws that applied to other non-whites.
 
The ruling applies only to Chinese who were South African citizens before 1994 (and their descendants) - around 10,000 to 12,000