I refer to the letter by W Auyang headlined, 'Not trying to learn language' (South China Morning Post, June 10).
I dispute whether there is a need to protect the 95 per cent Chinese majority by 'affirmative action'.
The purpose of such policies in the United States and elsewhere has been to seek balanced representation of different ethnic groups in education and the workplace so that their members can take their full place in society.
Although the reasons that such communities may be disadvantaged may have arisen from institutionalised discrimination in the past, the policies are not in revenge, 'to right past inequities', as your correspondent suggests.
Despite the laudable purpose of affirmative action policies, they have become discredited and there are calls for their scrapping in the West, since people who are hardly qualified can displace much better-qualified personnel just to fill quotas.
I fail to understand how affirmative action to appoint foreign doctors of Chinese descent can right the inequities suffered by local Chinese during the colonial period.
