1
!
people who are most likely to want to leave). Only the Financial Times has argued for a positive attitude to the remote possibility of Hong Kong people needing to come here, on the grounds that it would revitalise our economy, produce a better age balance in our population, and potentially make Britian the workshop of the EEC.23
There is, however, one positive action which Britain could take to provide some form of safety net for its nationals in Hong Kong. The 1981 British Nationality Act already contains a provision in section 4(5) for British Dependent Territories citizens who have worked in a paid or unpaid capacity for the government to register, at the discretion of the Home Secretary, as full British citizens. The Home Secretary has to be satisfied that the 'special circumstances of the applicant's case' merit such registration. This provision is meant to be used only rarely but provides some degree of security for people whose positions in colonial service in Hong Kong might render them vulnerable after 1997. At present, it appears that no-one is being granted British citizenship under this section, in case it increases insecurity and causes dissension in the civil service. It is merely being held in reserve in case it is needed.
But civil servants are not the only people who could possibly be at risk in the period of unprecedented change facing Hong Kong: some of the grassroots leaders who are eager for change, or trade union leaders involved in organising strikes, could conceivably make themselves very unpopular with the local communist cadres or with Peking before 1997. Church leaders are confident that there will be religious freedom; but some of their members feel the need for a safety net in case this proves not to be the case.
The existing provision allowing some civil servants to register at discretion should therefore be extended to other British nationals in Hong Kong, and the criteria for granting citizenship in such cases should be clearly set out. There should be a right of appeal against its refusal (JCWI has for many years argued for a right of appeal against refusal of citizenship in all cases).
This should have little practical effect — if the British government believes its own public statements to the people of Hong Kong, who are constantly assured that the Agreement is watertight and trust in China is absolute, such a provision would be a blank cheque which would never need to be honoured. But it would be of great symbolic importance: it would signal to Peking that Britain was retaining a watching brief on its nationals in the new Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. Perhaps more importantly, it would signal to
15