CONFIDENTIAL
181
A
Bb.f
BRITISH NATIONALITY LAW (WORKING PAPER FOR MEETING)
Background
1 The Home Office having accepted, at official level, the request
of the Governor, Hong Kong, that there should be a third category
of citizenship under the new legislation, to cover dependent
territories belongers, there is still dispute over the title for
this group.
Hong Kong (Hong Kong tel no 95), supported by Peking (Peking tel no 89), argue for the retention of the present title
'Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC)'. They forecast
a serious blow to confidence in Hong Kong from a change and a
consequent risk of misunderstanding with Peking. The Home Office oppose the use of CUKC for any category, arguing that it would be inconsistent with the aim of the legislation, which is to make the
legal definition of citizenship unambiguously consistent with
the rights of abode and entry of the various persons concerned.
2 A number of alternative titles have been suggested. Hong Kong's preference (after CUKC) is 'British Subject: Hong Kong Citizen'. However Peking have pointed out the disadvantages of any designation which suggests the establishment of a separate citizenship of Hong Kong. (In varying degrees this objection would apply also to
'British Citizen of Hong Kong', 'British (Hong Kong) Citizen' and 'British Citizen (Hong Kong)'. But this difficulty could be reduced if designations mentioning Hong Kong were only used as an
administrative local variant of a generalised category. A
representative pair of examples is:
a)
b)
Category: 'Citizen of the British Dependent Territories'.
Variant: 'British (Hong Kong) Citizen'.
CONFIDENTIAL
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