STEVEN KUO: Neither good China nor bad, a nuanced view will reveal
Given that I am ethnic Chinese, born in Taiwan and living in SA, I’ve had to learn to live with my “Chineseness”. Like most kids of immigrants I had to play translator for my parents growing up in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal. I worked as a Mandarin-speaking tour guide in Cape Town, and went on to write my doctoral thesis on the Chinese UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia.
I have made a career explaining and teaching China to South Africans. Sometimes people pigeonhole me as an apologist for China. Then when I reveal my family are from Taiwan and I’m certainly against military action across the Taiwan Strait, people get confused...
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