Redacted ander FOI exemption 27(1)
CONFIDENTIAL
aid down corresponding restrictions in the Basic Law and that China "now could not but reserve the right to take further corresponding
measures".
18. In a speech in London on 18 April, Simon Murray of Hutchison Whampoa said that Chinese officials had told him that they believed that people given British passports were likely to leave Hong Kong in 1997 or just before then.
19.
A Xinhua spokesman in Hong Kong on 20 April and a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on 21 April both reiterated Chinese opposition to the package in standard terms, following the Bill's second reading in Parliament on 20 April.
20. A Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao article of 23 April said that to counter the British nationality package China would promote unity among Hong Kong people, would take measures to counter its effect of accelerating the brain drain and would abort the package's long-term aim of "British people ruling Hong Kong". The article added that there was no urgency about announcing counter-measures.
22.
Guo Fengmin commented after JLG XV on 27 April that the British
CONFIDENTIAL