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Sir S Y Chung said that with the doubts caused by the nationality legislation it would be very difficult for the British and Hong Kong Governments to stand up to the Chinese Government if a crisis similar to that of 1967 arose in the future. There would be bound to be doubts over the Toyalty of the Hong Kong Chinese population. Hong Kong was unique among Dependent Terri- tories in facing only the alternatives of dependence on Britain or absorption by China: it ad no independence option. He looked to Britain to stand by its obligations to Hong Kong. He asked that the position should be reconsidered and that some kind of arrangement be made to provide for Hong Kong people in case of need. One way
of doing this would be in the provisions for naturalisation, perhaps by an escape clause whereby people in Hong Kong could, at the discretion of the Home Secretary, apply for naturalisation as British Citizens without residence in the United Kingdom, Mr Cheung said that the White Paper had appeared to give a discretionary power for the naturalisation of all Crown Servants, but the draft bill limited this to persons in the service of the Government of the United Kingdom. This had only emerged during detailed study of the Bill which explained why no representations had been made to IMG on this point.
6. Mr Cheung suggested that enabling legislation should be included in the Bill so as not to exclude from naturalisation people in Hong Kong Government service. One possibility would be to allow service to the Crown in Hong Kong to be taken into consideration provided that applicants met other criteria. It should also be possible to draft the legislation on a contingency basis in order to meet the circumstances of a particular situation in the future. This was important because developments in China could not be foreseen far ahead, while immigration pressures on the United Kingdom might in themselves diminish with time.
7.
Mr Cheung raised the problem of children of illegal and legal immigrants from China to Hong Kong who had children before they themselves had established resident status in Hong Kong. Under the new legislation the children would not be entitled to register as CBDTs. Mr Raison had undertaken to examine this point. The numbers involved were not very large but significant to the individuals concerned: we would be creating new categories of stateless people, which was obviously unsatisfactory.
8.
Mr Choung asked for confirmation that IMG would support Hong Kong passport holders under the new citizenship system who had difficulty in getting entry to foreign countries, The require- ment of countries such as German, Spain and Janan, that visitors from Hong Kong should obtain visas was unjustified and a bureaucratic impediment. Lord Carrington confirmed that he would use his good offices on behalf of Hong Kong as in the past.
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