0 14:48 Tib(Q00) MK BUYI
Extracted from Draft Speech by Dr Hon Helmut SOHMEN
Legislative Council - 27.11.1985
POLICY DEBATE 1985
A similar question of acceptability by other nations arises in connection with nationality and passports, While flag considerations touch very directly and publicly on aspects of sovereignty, and have much wider ramifications, policies relative to nationality and travel documents have evolved more flexibly in the recent past and are now quite often the subject of bilateral agreements between concerned administrations to deal with unusual situations. I am confident that with sufficient international goodwill vis-a-vis Hong Kong and its people, any arrangements made by the United Kingdom and China will have. good chances of being accepted by many other countries although strong lobbying offorts will be unavoidable.
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This Council will shortly debate the White Paper on the Draft Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order 1986, and other Members will speak in detail on this matter of such great personal interest and importance to the people of Hong Kong. Preciseness in definitions and further clarification of the proposed documentary arrangements appear necessary and desirable to remove public doubt. It is somewhat surprising that the draft legislation seems to have left open so many queries and different interpretations which should have been expected to create
anxiety, and which should perhaps have been discussed in
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inter-governmental exchanges prior to publication of the White Paper. It is difficult to envisage however that, the two countries would amend or modify the basic points already agreed and embodied in the Joint Declaration and the Memoranda exchanged.
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