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Abstract
This article seeks to consider perceptions of the Chinese in the context of the illegal trade in molluscs (abalone), ungulates (rhino horn) and, more recently, equidae (donkey hides), which has scourged the coasts and hinterlands of South Africa for the Asian market for over half a century. Abalone is heralded as a delicacy for celebratory occasions, rhino horn is in high demand as a medicinal cure for a range of ailments and the more recent donkey hides are connected to the treatment of menopause and related conditions. Since its inception in the latter half of the twentieth century, this illegal trafficking by syndicates has been indelibly ascribed to the Chinese with hugely negative consequences and stereotyping becoming embedded in popular consciousness. This article attempts to untangle the perpetrators from the entangled Chinese diasporas by identifying three distinct historical waves of Chinese arrivals in South Africa and deliberates on how ignorance of this past has perpetuated a stereotyping which culminated in the current Chinese hate speech case in the Equality court.
Notes
1 The Chinese Association Gauteng, Press release, 17 February 2017.
2 The Chinese Association Gauteng, Press release.
3 M. Lake and H. Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 6; R. Dittgen and R. Anthony, ‘Yellow, Red and Black: Fantasies about China and “the Chinese” in Contemporary South Africa’, in F. Billé and S. Urbansky, eds, Yellow Peril: China Narratives in the Contemporary World (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 2018), 108.
4 K.L. Harris, ‘Paper Trail: Chasing the Chinese in the Cape (1904–1933)’, Kronos, 40 (2014), 133–153.
5 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised and extended edn (London: Verso, 1991), 6–7, 49.
6 Ibid., 52.
7 F. Dikötter, ‘Race in China’, in P. Nyiri and J. Breidenbach, eds, China Inside Out: Contemporary Chinese Nationalism and Transnationalism (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2005), ch. 7, 177.
8 Ibid., 177–8.
9 Ibid., 178.
10 S. Dubow, Illicit Union: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 3.
11 Ibid., 5.
12 Dikötter, ‘Race in China’, ch. 7, 178.
13 E. Hobsbawm, 1990, 66 as quoted in Dikotter, ‘Race in China’, ch. 7, 179.
14 Dikotter, ‘Race in China’, ch. 7, 179.
15 Dikotter, ‘Race in China’.
16 Ibid.
17 E.W. Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978).
18 J.M. MacKenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), xii; J.A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 5th edn (West Sussex: Wiley–Blackwell, 2013), 497–498.
19 MacKenzie, Orientalism, xii.
20 C. Mackerras, Western Images of China (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1989), 44–45.
21 MacKenzie, Orientalism, xii.
22 Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms, 497.
23 Ibid., 500.
24 Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, 5–6.
25 W.E.B. du Bois, ‘The souls of the white folk’, Independent, 18 August 1910, 339 as quoted by Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, 1–2.
26 Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, 6.
27 U. Ho, ‘Hate speech is blind ignorance’, The Times, 14 February 2017. Ho is a third generation SABC and author of the book Paper Sons Paper Daughters: Growing up Chinese in South Africa (Johannesburg: Picador Africa, 2011) .
28 H.F. Mac Nair, The Chinese Abroad: Their Position and Protection – A Study in International Law and Relations (Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1924), vii.
29 L. Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora (London: Mandarin Paperbacks, 1990), xi.
30 Dittgen and Anthony, ‘Yellow, Red and Black’, 108; see also K.L. Harris, ‘Anti-Sinicism: Roots in Pre-industrial Colonial Southern Africa’, African and Asian Studies, 9, 3 (2010), 213–231.
31 Y. Park, ‘Perceptions of Chinese in Southern Africa: Constructions of the “Other” and the Role of Memory’, African Studies Review, 56, 1 (2013), 131–153; Dittgen and Anthony, ‘Yellow, Red and Black’, 108.
32 For a discussion of a possible earlier encounter see K.L. Harris, ‘Early Encounters between China and Africa: Myth or Moment?’, South African Journal of Cultural History, 17, 1 (2003), 47–71.
33 J.C. Armstrong, The Chinese at the Cape in the Dutch East India Company Period”, paper presented at the Slave Route Conference, Cape Town, October 1997, 4–5.
34 For a detailed discussion of this see Harris, ‘Anti-Sinicism’, 213–231.
35 H. Heese, ‘Kriminelesake: Hofuitsprake aan die Kaap, 1700–1750’, Kronos, 12 (1987), 35.
36 Harris, ‘Anti-Sinicism’, 213–231.
37 Armstrong, ‘The Chinese at the Cape’, 61.
38 R. Daniels, Asian American: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1980), 19.
39 O.F. Mentzel, A Geographical and Topographical Description of the Cape of Good Hope, Part ii (Cape Town, 1925), 92.
40 Armstrong, ‘The Chinese at the Cape’, 36–37.
41 A. Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); S. Chan, Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882–1943 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991); M. Ip, Dragons on the Long White Island: The Making of Chinese New Zealanders (Birkenhead: Tandem Press, 1996); K.L. Harris, ‘“Not a Chinaman’s chance”: Chinese Labour in South Africa and the United States of America’, Historia, 51, 2 (2006), 177–197.
42 Public Record Office (PRO): CO 291/75 no 0687, 24 March 1904.
43 Statute Law of the Transvaal 1839–1910, Law 3 of 1895.
44 K.L. Harris, ‘Chinese Merchants on the Rand, c.1850–1910’, South African Historical Journal, 33 (1995), 155–168.
45 K.L. Harris, ‘A History of the Chinese in South Africa to 1912’ (PhD thesis, University of South Africa, 1998), 272–273.
46 Harris, ‘Chinese Merchants on the Rand’, 159.
47 M.Yap and D. Man, Colour, Confusion and Concessions – The History of the Chinese in South Africa, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press), 1996, 32–33.
48 Ibid.
49 G. Houston et al., ‘Bodies that Divide and Bind: Tracing the Social Roles of Associations in Chinese Communities in Pretoria, South Africa’ (Human Sciences Research Council Report, March 2103), 19–20; U. Ho, ‘Hate speech’; W.J. Pauw, ‘Chinese Associations and Associational Life in South Africa’s Gauteng Province since the End of Apartheid’ (MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2019).
50 P. Richardson, Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal (London: Macmillan, 1982).
51 D.J.N. Denoon, ‘The Transvaal Labour Crisis, 1901–1906’, Journal of African History, 17, 3 (1967), 481.
52 Labour Importation Ordinance no. 17 of 1904.
53 South African News, 21 January 1904.
54 Labour Importation Ordinance no. 17 of 1904.
55 P. Lewsen, John X. Merriman: Paradoxical South African statesman (Cape Town: A.D. Donker, 1982), 263.
56 P.C. Campbell, Chinese Coolie Emigration to Countries within the British Empire (London: n.p., 1923), 175–176.
57 Transvaal Archives Depot (TAD): Secretary of Native Affairs (SNA) 94, 198/03, Secretary East Rand Vigilance Association: Letter to Mr Chamberlain re native labour, 16 January 1903; T.W. Pearce, ‘Chinese Coolie Labour in South Africa’, Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, September 1904, 228.
58 E.S. Beesly, ‘Yellow Labour’, Positivist Review (April 1904), 82.
59 F. Frescura, ‘When Celestials Came Among Us: Chinese Miners on the Rand, 1904–1910’, The SA Philatelist, October 2010, 160; A. Rose, ‘Chinese Write Aways’, SA Philatelist, February 2011, 160; T.T. Huynh, ‘Loathing and Loving: Postcard Representations of Indentured Chinese Laborers in South Africa’s Reconstruction’, Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies, 9, 4 (2008), 395–425; I.L. Walker and B. Weinbren, 2000 Casualties (Johannesburg: SATUC, 1961), 17.
60 Pearce, ‘Chinese Coolie Labour’, 228.
61 Anon., ‘Chinese on the Rand’, All the World, May 1904, 244–245; B. Tuck, ‘The History of the Salvation Army in South Africa’ (MTh thesis, University of South Africa, 1982), 157.
62 J. Chesneaux, ‘Secret Societies in China’s Historical Evolution’, in J. Chesneaux, ed., Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China, 1840–1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), 4.
63 PRO: CO 291/81 no. 7589/05, Chinese on Simmer and Jack Mine, Arrests for forming a secret society, March 1905; CO 291/85 no. 33492/05, Chinese labourers, Maintenance of order among, 28 August 1905; TAD: FLD 218 58/4 and 58/11, Secret societies, 1905.
64 Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor, 20.
65 A.E. Munro, The Transvaal Chinese Labour Problem (London: n.d.), 85–87.
66 TAD: SNA, 33, 1255/03, Asiatic Affairs, re Indian immigration: R.V. Loveday – T.A. Brassey, 33; A.W., ‘Yellow slavery – and white’, Westminster Review, clxi, (5 May 1904), 478.
67 TAD: SNA, 33, 1255/03, Asiatic Affairs, re Indian immigration. R.V. Loveday – T.A. Brassey, 33.
68 Anon., South African Native Opinion, 8 December 1903, in TAD: SNA 188 na 3138/03, South African Native Opinion: Introduction of Chinese, 76.
69 A.W., ‘Yellow slavery – and white!’, Westminster Review, clxi (5 May 1904), 487.
70 H. Samuel, ‘The Chinese Labour Question’, The Contemporary Review, 85 (April 1904), 458; C.K. Cooke, ‘Chinese Labour: Its Moral, Economic, and Imperial Aspects’, The Empire Review, January 1904, 205.
71 M. Boyd, ‘Oriental Immigration: The Experience of the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Populations in the United States’, International Migration Review, 5, 1 (1971), 48.
72 Statutes of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, Act 37 of 1904, The Chinese Exclusion Act, 1.
73 The author’s experience of reactions over three decades when presenting papers and talks at both academic and lay forums.
74 See L. Callinicos, Gold and Workers, 1886–1924: A People’s History of South Africa, volume 1 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1980), 69.
75 See Yap and Man, Colour, Confusion and Concessions.
76 Census Statistics of the Cape of Good Hope: 1891, 1904, 1912, 1913 and 1921.
77 Harris, ‘A History of the Chinese’, 333.
78 D. Accone, ‘“Ghost People”: Localizing the Chinese Self in an African Context’, Asian Studies Review, 30 (2006), 261.
79 Harris, ‘A History of the Chinese’, 3.
80 M. Schmidt, ‘Study throws light on triad gangs in SA’, Sunday Argus, 28 November 2004, 18; P. Gastrow, ‘Triad Societies and Chinese Organised Crime in South Africa’, Institute for Security studies, Occasional paper no. 48, 2001, 10, http://www.iss.co.za/Pubs/Papers/48/48.html, accessed May 2017.
81 For a full discussion of this see K.L. Harris, ‘Accepting the Group but Not the Area: The South African Chinese and the Group Areas Act’, South African Historical Journal, 40 (1999), 179–201.
82 K.L. Harris, ‘Chinese in South Africa’, in M. Ember, C.R. Ember and I. Skoggard, eds, Encyclopedia of Diasporas (Human Relations Area Files, Yale University, New Haven: Kluwer Penlum Academic, 2005), 737.
83 Harris, ‘Accepting the Group’, 179–201.
84 Accone, ‘Ghost People’, 265.
85 K.L. Harris, ‘The Chinese “South Africans”: An Interstitial Community’, in G.Wang and L. Wang, eds, The Chinese Diaspora: Selected Essays, Volume II (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998), 275–301.
86 Anon., ‘Chinese community: No politics please’, Financial Mail, 10 July 1981, 6.
87 Anon., ‘Home from Taiwan’, The Argus, 20 October 1980.
88 Yap and Man, Colour, Confusion and Concessions, 421.
89 Y. Park, A Matter of Honour: Being Chinese in South Africa (Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2008); Accone, ‘Ghost People’, 257–272.
90 Accone, ‘Ghost People’, 265; Yap and Man, Colour, Confusion and Concessions, 421.
91 Anon., ‘Chinese values mocked’, Sunday Times, 6 October 1991, 18.
92 Ibid.
93 Ibid.
94 Anon., ‘Perlemoen prices leave a nasty taste’, The Sunday Times, 16 January 1983, 17.
95 Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor, 338; Gastrow, ‘Triad Societies’, 5.
96 P. Krost, ‘The Invasion of the Triads’, Saturday Star, 26 July 1997, 18
97 H. Geyser, ‘Perlemoen Industry Investigation’, The Argus, 13 December 1978, 1.
98 B. Van Delft, ‘Is there a con in the can of SA Perelemoen’, The Star, 12 July 1981, 14.
99 See for example K. de Greeff and S. Abader, Poacher: Confessions from the Abalone Underworld (Cape Town: Kwela, 2018); Schmidt, ‘Study throws light on triad gangs’; C. Chow, ‘The Ecological, Industrial and Drug War Behind the Abalone on Your Dinner Table’, Africa–China, Wits Journalism, 31 May 2017. https://africachinareporting.co.za/2017/05/the-ecological-industrial-and-drug-war-behind-the-abalone-on-your-dinner-table/ accessed June 2019
100 H. Parker ‘Closed shop is at the root of the Perlemoen Wars’, Business Day, 30 January 1995, 4.
101 D. Kneen, ‘Poachers strip tons of Perlemoen’, The Argus, 23 December 1993, 6.
102 M. Gosling, ‘Cape’s Abalone is well on the way to extinction’, Cape Times, 20 November 2012; Anon., ‘Conservationists team up to save the rhino’, To The Point, 3 August 1979, 26; D. Potgieter, ‘Undercover Squad routs rhino horn smugglers’, Sunday Times, 20 January 1991, 3.
103 J. Cameron, ‘Harbour swoop’, Cape Times (2 December 1993), 1.
104 Anon., ‘T’kei–Far East Link in Smuggling Ring’, Daily Dispatch, 2 March 1991, 1; M. Gosling, ‘Chinese director of Swazi firm may face charges for poached SA Perlemoen’, Cape Times, 29 November 2002, 3; K. Gillet, Review of ‘Poacher confessions from the Abalone underworld’, South China Morning Post, 4 October 2018.
105 Chow, ‘The ecological, industrial and drug war’.
106 Sapa, ‘Perlemoen poaching syndicate cracked’, The Citizen, 26 November 1994, 12; D. Simon, ‘Abalone War’, Cape Times, 6 January 1995, 1; Gastrow, ‘Triad Societies’, 2.
107 Gastrow, ‘Triad societies’, 1.
108 L. Vigne, ‘Stop pseudo hunters from buying “trophy” rhino horns’, Business Day, 10 November 2011, 11.
109 Y. Nair, ‘Rhino horn gangs can “forfeit” bail’, Daily News, 20 June 2012, 7; K. Somerville, ‘Rhino Horn and Conservation: To Trade or Not to Trade, That is the Question’, The Conversation (13 September 2016).
110 J. Rigoulet, ‘Why is the Illicit Rhino Horn Trade Escalating?’, The Conversation (21 April 2017).
111 K.L. Harris, ‘Rising Chinas and the History of the South African Chinese’, in B.P. Wong and C.B Tan, eds, The Rise of China and its Impact on Ethnic Chinese Communities (London: Routledge, 2018).
112 Houston et al., ‘Bodies that Divide and Bind’, 21; Accone, ‘Ghost People’, 30, 265.
113 See Zapiro’s play on the idea of an Asian tsunami depicting China (and India) flooding the African continent, in the Mail and Guardian, 1 June 2006.
114 C. Alden, ‘Solving South Africa’s Chinese Puzzle: Democratic Foreign Policy Making and the “Two China's Question”’, South African Journal of International Affairs, 5, 2 (1997), 80; C. Alden, “China and South Africa: The Dawn of a New Relationship”, South African Yearbook of International Affairs, 1998/1999 (Johannesburg; South African Institute of International Affairs, 2000).
115 Anon., ‘Exit RoC’, The Citizen, 30 December 1997, 6; Alden, ‘China and South Africa’.
116 Harris, ‘Anti-Sinicism’, 217.
117 Y. Park, ‘Perceptions of Chinese in Southern Africa: Constructions of the “Other” and the role of Memory’, African Studies Review, 56, 1 (2013), 136.
118 G. Mohan, and M. Tan-Mullins, ‘Chinese Migrants in Africa: New Agents of Development? An Analytical Framework’, European Journal of Development Research, 21 (2009), 588–605; J. Wilhelm, ‘The Chinese Communities in South Africa’, in S. Buhlungu, J. Daniel, R. Southall and J. Lutchman, eds, State of the Nation: South Africa 2005–2006 (Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council, 2006), 352; Y. Park, ‘South Africa’s Dance with the Chinese Dragon’, unpublished paper, The Africa Institute of South Africa (25 March 2009), Abstract.
119 R. Anthony, ‘Xenophobia in South Africa: Implications for Chinese Communities’, CCS Commentary, Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch (30 April 2015); Park, ‘Perceptions of Chinese in Southern Africa’, 137.
120 C. Alden, China in Africa (New York: Zed Books, 2007); G.Yu, ‘Introduction’, in D. Shinn and J. Eisenman, China and Africa (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), ix; S. Grimm, ‘Editorial’, The China Monitor, 60, 3 (March 2011); K.L. Harris, ‘The Construction of “Otherness”: A History of Chinese Migrants in South Africa’, in S. Cornelissen and Y. Mine, eds, Afro–Asian Encounters: Migration and Agency in a Globalizing World (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
121 Business Day, 22 September 1992.
122 For a detailed discussion of this see K.L. Harris, ‘“The Formidable, Unwelcome Competitor”: Overseas Chinese Merchants in South Africa’, in Z. Guoto, ed., History and Perspective: Ethnic Chinese at The turn of the Centuries (Fujian: Fujian People’s Press, 1998).
123 K. Nkosi, ‘R2m Fong Kong bust’, Sowetan, 19 June 2006, 6; A. Khoza and Y. Omar, ‘Mixed feelings to “Fong Kong” trade’, Sunday Tribune, 7 August 2011, 20; Dittgen and Anthony, ‘Yellow, Red and Black’, 108.
124 Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act no. 2003.
125 D. Accone, ‘Case of the Chinese can’t be made in black or white, but only in yellow’, The Sunday Independent, 19 July, 1998; U. Ho, ‘Chinese locals are black’, Business Report, 19 June 2008; V. Ndlovu, ‘Chinese not black’, The Sowetan, 20 June 2008.
126 K.L. Harris, ‘En route to “Dignity Day”: The South African Chinese and Historical Commemorations’, Historia, 55, 2 (2010), 147–162.
127 Gastrow, ‘Triad Societies’, 9.
128 Chow, ‘The ecological, industrial and drug war’.
129 Ibid.
130 DAFF, TRAFFIC, Image Initium Media cited in Chow, ‘The ecological, industrial and drug war’.
131 Chow, ‘The ecological, industrial and drug war’.
132 Z. Feni, ‘Number of abalone poachers growing’, Cape Argus, 22 June 2007, 10
133 A. Smith, ‘Ngcuka lifts veil on triad activities in abalone trade’, Cape Times, 23 May 2003, 3; M. Waldner, ‘Chinese gangs dole out drugs for abalone’, City Press, 24 July 2005, 6; A. Hyman, ‘Abalone theft fuels Cape’s drug wars’, The Times, 29 September 2016.
134 W. Khuzwayo, ‘Rhino horn more valuable than gold’, Star, 21 January 2011, 15.
135 Y. Groenewald, ‘Rhino poachers’ hides on the line’, Mail and Guardian, 9 April 2009, 8.
136 Somerville, ‘Rhino Horn and Conservation’; ANA, ‘Rhino poaching in SA placed on agenda’, The Citizen, 4 December 2015, 9; W. Hartley, ‘Government too in “awe” of China to push rhino issue’, Weekend Post, 28 January 2012, 8.
137 Vigne, ‘Stop pseudo-hunters’, 11.
138 Ho, ‘Hate speech’.
139 D. Chambers, ‘Hands off African donkeys’, Sunday Times, 2 October 2016.
140 The Chinese Association Gauteng, Press release.
141 The Chinese Association Gauteng, meeting 18 February 2017.
142 The Chinese Association Gauteng, Press release.
143 The Chinese Association Gauteng, TCA hate speech case in the Equality Court– update, 7 August 2019.
144 The Chinese Association Gauteng, TCA hate speech, 7 August 2019.
145 The Chinese Association Gauteng, Press release.
146 Accone, ‘Ghost people’, 267.
147 Ho, ‘Hate speech’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Karen L. Harris
Professor KAREN LEIGH HARRIS is a full professor and Head of the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies at the University of Pretoria, lecturing undergraduate and postgraduate students in history as well as heritage and cultural tourism. She is also the Director of the University Archives and Chairperson of the Historical Association of South Africa and the Africa representative on the Executive Board of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas.