some particularly sensitive deputy heads of department). It is cl that the norm will be a Chinese civil service, though exceptions w be allowed. This is hardly surprising: most countries, including Britain, have a citizenship qualification for those in public service.
The minorities also fear that they will face other forms of conscious or unconscious discrimination as Hong Kong becomes more Chinese and less Western. A small number have a genuine fear of persecution or second-class status: one wrote "Things are changing mood-wise extremely rapidly in Hong Kong especially with the formation of the basic law Consultative Committee. There is beginning a state of estrangement and in my case hostility towards Indians. We implore your organisation to help us'35. Others merely note the inevitable changes compulsory Chinese language in the civil service, legislature and courts, the increased visibility of China's spokespeo- ple in Hong Kong - and feel that they will be aliens in their own country.
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It is of course right and inevitable that Hong Kong should see its future as part of China and explore a new identity based on that vision. It is also likely that in that process there may be hostility to people who are not Chinese and are particularly identified with the colonial regime which is coming to an end. Those people are in Hong Kong only because it is a British colony and therefore ought to be able to expect protection from the colonial power.
STATELESS BRITISH
But the most important and critical difference between Chinese and non-Chinese BDTCs is their citizenship rights. Chinese BDTCs who become BN(O)s by 1997 have a genuine citizenship, that of China, which guarantees them the right to live in the country of their citizenship. Non-Chinese BDTCs do not. They will be in exactly the same position as British Asians in East Africa, who were deprived of the right to enter Britain in 1968 and had nowhere to go when the regime in their adopted country changed and they faced expulsion. Britain's treatment of those British nationals was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights as 'inhuman and degrading'.
Some of those affected are rich enough to be able to live in any other country in the world. They do not want to, as Hong Kong is their family home, but some of them feel that Britain's intransigence leaves them no option. As the South China Morning Post said, Britain is giving
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