Officially, China is a champion of black-African interests. The government has denounced South Africa's policy of apartheid and devoted the lion's share of its scanty foreign aid to assisting 45 friendly African states. Beijing also gives scholarships to 1,600 black students each year to study at Chinese universities. Unofficially, though, many Chinese consider blacks racially inferior and question their government's aid to Africa when citizens at home are tightening their belts.
Last week those resentments flared into a weeklong upheaval involving some 5,000 demonstrators in the eastern city of Nanjing. The turmoil began on Christmas Eve, when a fracas broke out...
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