Chinese in South Africa learn to live with violence

An estimated 500,000 Chinese now call South Africa home, but violent crime is increasingly casting a long shadow over their African dream.

Just three days into 2015, a 25-year-old Fujianese shopkeeper was murdered in her store in Limpopo province, just north of Johannesburg. The married mother of one was repeatedly stabbed in the face during the robbery. No arrests have as yet been made.

Just one month earlier, a Chinese shopkeeper in Cape Town survived being stoned by a mob of 200, after he tried to prevent a gang member from looting his store.

Many Chinese migrants to South Africa open small shops. In Johannesburg, where 29 per cent of residents still live in informal dwellings, store owners are seen by some as privileged and therefore are vulnerable to xenophobic harassment, armed robberies and murder.

The Chinese Community Police Forum (CPF), an association established to focus on crimes affecting and committed by Chinese in South Africa, last year recorded 17 murders of Chinese nationals in the country - a 5 per cent rise on 2013. Between 2003 and 2013 more than 120 Chinese were killed in criminal incidents, says CPF chief executive Anderson Lee.