immigrated to the country. South African Chinese are dispersed throughout South African cities. During the Apartheid regime (1948–93) Chinese South Africans were classified as "Coloureds" or "Asian South Africans", while certain East Asian nationals (such as Japan and Taiwan) in South Africa were declared "honorary whites" and thus avoided most forms of official discriminatory laws (they could live in reserved "white" neighborhoods unlike native/black, and "Asian"-Indian South Africans), since Apartheid created a strict racial segregation system for non-white/European persons (esp. the black majority) in South Africa.