A Northern Ireland political party has announced it will field the region's first Chinese candidate in elections next year, in a move to address growing racial discrimination in the British territory.
Hong Kong native Anna Lo Man-wah, a veteran social worker, will run for one of six seats in the South Belfast constituency in elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly on March 7.
Ms Lo, who is chief executive of the Chinese Welfare Association in Belfast, will be a candidate for Northern Ireland's Alliance Party. She will also be the first ethnic minority candidate to run for a 'winnable seat' in the assembly.
'I am delighted to have been selected by the Alliance to contest South Belfast, and am looking forward to the campaign,' Ms Lo said. 'The Alliance's message of building a shared future and building inclusive politics is the only credible way forward in Northern Ireland, for all our citizens.'
Ms Lo's candidacy is seen as a move to highlight the racial harassment problems faced by Chinese and other minority communities in Northern Ireland. The territory's population of 1.7 million is still 99 per cent white, according to the 2001 census, but immigrants have been arriving in growing numbers. The 8,000-strong Chinese community is the biggest ethnic minority in Northern Ireland.
The Chinese in Northern Ireland have long suffered quietly from racist attacks, which have grown worse since the signing of the Good Friday peace agreement in April 1998 ended the 30-year-long Troubles.
As that conflict, involving intense communal violence between Catholics and Protestants, has calmed, violence has been redirected at other groups, including the Chinese.