KKethnic.dbj
BY FAX.
2815/12.
15 December 1992
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Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
о
31
Simon Vickers
Security Branch
Government Secretariat
Hong Kong
HILD 340/4
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
Mr Vichens,
Dear Mr
ETHNIC MINORITIES
1.
Thank you for sending us the speech made by the Secretary for Security at the Legco debate on 18 November on the motion tabled by Jimmy McGregor. We look forward to seeing the official record of proceedings. time of writing.)
2.
(It has not reached us at the
I was interested to note the statistics quoted in the speech about the the non Chinese ethnic minorities resident in Hong Kong; 20,000 long term Hong Kong residents, most of whom are nationals of India and Pakistan and hold passports from those countries. A "rough estimate" puts the numbers of BDTCS and BOCS as 7,000 (total). A further 100 are described as "technically stateless". I have been trying to square these figures with those that we have been using in briefing at this end. We have been saying (a) that there are about 11,000 Indians in Hong Kong (b) that about 4,500 of these are BDTCs and (c) that some 3,000 of these have no nationality other than HKBDTC.
3. I would be grateful if you could let me know whether our figures need updating as I suspect must be the case. It would be useful to have your best guess for the size of the Indian community (within the 20,000 ethnic community total); for the numbers of BDTCS, BOCs and BNOS in the Indian community; and for the number that have no nationality other than British. Am I right to assume that those falling into this last category are not coming forward for BNO registration? (As trading in their BDTC status would presumably deprive their children and grandchildren of the guarantee in the Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order of 1986 assuring BOC for the issue of pre 1997 BDTCs who would otherwise find themselves stateless post 1997).
4. I have a particular reason for needing this update. As you may be aware, a group of LegCo members will be visiting London in January (25-27). They are Emily Lau, Christine Loh, Jimmy McGregor and Dr Leong Che-hung. They will be calling on
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