TONFIDENTIAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
file
In lowell.
Mrs Regina Ip Security Branch. HONG KONG
Telephone 01- 233 4439
Hull 040/4
Your reference
7 FEB 1985
Our reference
HKK 040/4
Date
(129)
7 February 1985
(17)
Fear bagian
NATIONALITY:
ORDER IN COUNCIL
110 8.2 wichs to Mr. Powell
The Gre
Further to my letter of 17 January to John Chan, I enclose a copy of a letter from the Home Office, together with а second
1.
draft of the Order in Council.
2. As you will see, they have, in the light of your comments and those of FCO Legal Advisers, abandoned for the purposes of this draft their attempt to define "BDTCs by virtue of a connection with Hong Kong" as "Hong Kong belongers" and have replaced it with an approach suggested by FCO Legal Advisers. As Emery's letter suggests, however, they are not yet convinced that this is the right way to proceed.
3. We have been having considerable discussion with the Home Office on the question of "mixed" BDTCs. Our inclination at present is to take as a general principle the view that where it is necessary to establish a link with Hong Kong to establish BDTC status, the person should not be excluded from loss of BDTC status on 1 July 1997, but where BDTC status can be established without a reliance on any such link, the status is clearly by virtue of a connection with another dependent territory and should therefore be retained on 1 July 1997.
4.
As you will see, the draft Order continues to assume that automatic acquisition at birth of BOC status by those who would otherwise be stateless will be extended only to the first post-1997 generation. We are communicating separately on this by telegram.
5. We would be grateful for your comments on the second draft.
Youseer,
Rihard
RJ F Hoare
Hong Kong Department
CONFIDENTIAL