Pickpocket slapped and shamed by foreigner on Chinese subway

Tourists and foreigners are usually the favourite targets of pickpockets on public transport, regardless of the country.

But a Chinese thief has been subjected to a brand of vigilante justice he wasn’t expecting in a video posted on WeChat in recent days.

In the video a black man slaps and lectures a much smaller Chinese man cowering after reportedly being caught trying to steal the man's phone, Shanghaiist reports.

"Don't you ever do that! Don't you f---ing ever take my phone again," the man says after smacking the shamed pickpocket in the side of the head.

"I'll take you to the police right now."

The Daily Mail reported the stoush began when the alleged pickpocket called the foreigner a "black devil", a highly-offensive racial slur in Mandarin.

The confrontation happened in Guangzhou.