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established in Hong Kong and their children will be able to continue to live there. There is no other satisfactory or reliable way to provide people in Hong Kong with what they want the right of abode there. In the unlikely event however of any British national being forced to leave
Hong Kong and having nowhere to go, the Government have made it clear, and I want to repeat again, that we would expect the Government of the day to consider sympathetically whether to admit such people on a case by case basis in the light
of the particular circumstances.
As Ministers made clear during the debate on the Hong Kong Bill,
the Government's view is that the right course for those who have permanently settled in what by then will have been part of China for many years will be for them to apply to become Chinese nationals. We have discussed this with the Chinese Government in the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group and they have confirmed that non Chinese who meet the legal requirements under the Chinese nationality law may apply for Chinese nationality, and that their cases would be dealt with by the appropriate authorities. They will not of course be compelled to apply for Chinese nationality.
As regards the former servicemen in Hong Kong, the Government
fully recognise the contribution they made during the
war and indeed the contribution made by many other people in Hong Kong during those years. But it does not necessarily follow that we should mark this contribution now by granting
/them
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