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objective criteria.
The Government does not then see any case for taking
further action on the matter of citizenship.
What we
have been prepared to do is to give an assurance
relating to the admissibility of the ethnic minorities
to the United Kingdom in the event of their coming
under pressure to leave Hong Kong.
We do not expect that any members of the non-Chinese
ethnic minority will be forced to leave Hong Kong
after 1997. Their right of abode in the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong
Hong Kong is explicitly protected in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and
the Basic Law and we have no reason to think that the
Chinese will not honour their commitments in this
respect.
We have repeatedly stressed over the years, in the
context of the non-Chinese ethnic minority in Hong Kong that if, contrary to all expectations, any solely
British national with no claim to Chinese nationality
came under pressure to leave Hong Kong the Government
of the day would be
be expected to consider with particular sympathy his case for admission to the United Kingdom. I am glad to repeat that assurance
today.
5.
D AC
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