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Immigration and Nationality Department
Nationality Division 3rd Floor India Buildings Water Street Liverpool L2 0QN
Telephone 051-236 4723 Captain N Ford
General Superintendent Fleet Operations c/o Kuwait Oil Tanker Co. S.A.K. PO Box 810
13009 Safat, Kuwait
HOME OFFICE
ind
Your reference
Our reference
HKD 34,6/1
IMG/92 9/387/1 Date
13 August 1992
13
Dear Captain Ford
I have been asked to reply to your letter of 25 June to the Home Secretary.
I am
sorry that you felt the Home Secretary's letter of 24 February to Sir David Steel did not properly address your concern about your wife's position in Hong Kong up to and beyond 1997. It was not clear from your earlier letter, and is still not clear, whether or not your wife is а British Dependent Territories citizen (BDTC).
If your wife is a BDTC by connection with Hong Kong, she is now entitled to be registered and obtain a passport as a British National (Overseas) which will enable her to retain a form of British nationality after 1 July 1997 when Hong Kong reverts to China and BDTC status ceases to exist so far as Hong Kong is concerned. Should she fail to register and otherwise be stateless due to the transfer of sovereignty, she would automatically become a British Overseas citizen from 1 July 1997. Either way, Annex 1 (XIV) of the British/Chinese Joint Declaration on Hong Kong guarantees not only the right of abode in Hong Kong to those who held it before 1 July 1997, but also their right to enter and leave Hong Kong on non-Chinese travel documents.
•
With reference to your point about Chinese exit visas the Sino- British Joint Declaration of 1984 specifically states that 'The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government shall maintain the rights and freedoms as provided for by the laws previously in force in Hong Kong, including freedom,
of movement Furthermore 'Unless restrained by law, holders of valid travel documents shall be free to leave the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region without special authorisation'. The words restrained by law refers to those persons subject to restraint orders by a court, eg bail. The right of freedom of
/movement