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Amendments were tabled in March giving Citizens of British
Dependent Territories (CBDTs) living 5 years in the UK the right
to acquire British citizenship through registration, and gave the
Home Secretary discretion to register as a British Citizen anyone
who had been in Crown Service under the Government of a dependency
or had been appointed by or on behalf of the Crown to certain forms
of service in a dependency.
10.
Unofficials' concern over nomenclature however evident
during Secretary of State's visit in March/April.
Strong
representations in favour of a citizenship title that would clearly
state the British nationality of CBDTs. Sir S Y Chung wrote to
the Secretary of State on 27 May requesting definition under the
Bill of 'British National' status. The Home Office not prepared
to accede to this. However, Mr Raison gave assurances in the
House on 4 June that Bill would not change HMG's relationship
and commitment to Hong Kong, and confirmed that CBDTs would remain
UK nationals in the sense that the UK would represent their
interests internationally.
11. The Bill begins its Second Reading in the House of Lords
on 22 June.
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
12. Number of refugees in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement now
below 16,000. This does not include a sizeable group who have entered Hong Kong illegally after resettlement in China and are to be repatriated to China. There are, however, some signs of a renewed outflow from Vietnam although Malaysia and Thailand are still taking the brunt of it. At the same time, numbers from China arriving in Macao and Hong Kong have greatly increased
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