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would not be appropriate as a general principle to grant British nationality indefinitely and without restrictions to the descendants of British nationals. However we were urgently examining the problems of further generations in response to representations made by the non-Chinese community. We will obviously need to agree a new line if possible before the Committee Stage in the Lords on 14
March.
The argument which EXCO are putting is that our initial view that the second generation born to such people should in principle acquire Chinese rather than British nationality does not square with ministerial assurances that no-one would be rendered stateless as a result of the agreement. They argue that had it not been for the agreement Hong Kong would remain British and Hong Kong BDTCs would remain BDTCs with the right" of transmissibility. During the negotiations HMG had suggested that they had no objection to continuing to allow transmissibility of BDTC status and that it was only as a result of Chinese intransigence that we had dropped transmissibility. Non-Chinese Hong Kong BDTCs are now faced with the prospect of their grandchildren becoming stateless without them being able to do anything about it.
The situation has arisen as a direct result of the Hong Kong agreement.
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EXCO say that they understand the difficulty of expecting HMG to grant British nationality indefinitely to the descendants of British nationals, but they think that the special circumstances of the non-Chinese BDTCs we should consider granting BOC status to the second generation born after 1997 if they would otherwise be stateless, as well as to the first generation as we already agreed.
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have
This raises the question of where we would draw the line of transmitting national status. Clearly we could not allow indefinite transmission of nationality by descendants of British nationals in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong accept this. We have already agreed that the first generation of children born after 1 July 1997 to non-Chinese former BDTCs should automatically acquire BOC status if they would otherwise stateless. Hong Kong argue, to my mind with some justification, that the dividing line should be drawn on the basis of the legislation now applying to BDTCS. They point out that under Section 17(2) of the BNA a second generation descendant born outside the dependent territories to a person who is a BDTC by descent, and whose grandparent is
BDTC otherwise than by descent is entitled to be
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