5.
UMELCO, while welcoming the granting of these other two requests,
have made it plain that they still support this request on behalf of the
non-ethnic Chinese BDTCs.
6.
There is nothing in law to prevent conferring British citizenship
rather than British Overseas citizenship on those who would otherwise be
stateless, and their children and grandchildren. But any such concession
to the non-ethnic Chinese communities would be contrary to the intention of
the BNA 1981; would give rise to a large and uncertain immigration commitment;
and would raise wider questions among the some 2 million BOCs throughout the
world as to the inadequacy of this status.
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