"[3] Furthermore, with the inclusion of other East Asians from Taiwan and Hong Kong as honorary whites complicated matters on how the local Chinese were treated, and apartheid regulation on Chinese varied from department to department and province to province as locals could not distinguish East Asians apart from each other, due to similar genetic traits and physical appearance.
This caused confusion and discontent among the local Chinese community as they had fewer rights compared to their Hong Kong and Taiwanese counterparts despite no differences in ethnic background and physical appearance.
This uncertainty fueled the emigration of the Chinese South Africans to other countries in similar manner to other "Coloureds" under the Apartheid regime, as it demonstrated that such a status was primarily influenced by geopolitical factors rather than racial considerations.
[5][6] In spite of the tense relations between the apartheid regime and the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, a British colony at the time, continued to engage in trade with South Africa.
At the time, Japan was going through a post-war economic miracle, and this designation assisted a trade pact formed between South Africa and Japan in the early 1960s, when Tokyo's Yawata Iron & Steel Co. offered to purchase 5 million tonnes of South African pig iron, worth more than $250 million, over a 10-year period.
Johannesburg's city officials even decided that, "in view of the trade agreements", the municipal swimming pools would be open to all Japanese guests.
Until the early 1970s, opposition party politicians and the press questioned why Japanese were granted special privileges, citing hypocrisy and inconsistencies with apartheid.