Grassroots community leaders who felt most positive about the retu to China and the future of Hong Kong realised the need for specie provision for other groups who could not be expected to share their enthusiasm. Others thought that, though there might be initial resentment, the majority community would accept the need for special treatment for the minorities. There were, of course, people who disagreed and who made it clear that they would feel their own exclusion from Britain even more bitterly if others were given favoured treatment. The Chinese newspaper, the Express, claimed that even to allow third generation minority children to register as British Overseas citizens was to show 'that the British government is taking a discriminatory attitude against Chinese BDTCs'." Yet in general we were surprised by the generosity of those in responsible positions, committed to making the Agreement work, towards non-Chinese British nationals in Hong Kong. Their generosity made the British government's refusal to grant any real concessions appear all the more mean and petty.
The problems of the minorities in Hong Kong have to be seen in the context of Britain's racially discriminatory nationality and immigration laws, which have also left many Chinese British nationals in Hong Kong feeling bitter and angry. However, their legitimate grounds for resentment do not free Britain from the responsibility of making adequate provision for people who have not even the security of a real citizenship. It must be an absolute priority that the British invention of "one country, six citizenships" does not leave anyone with "one citizenship, no country".
The few thousand British nationals in Hong Kong who do not have another nationality and are effectively stateless should therefore be granted full British citizenship.
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