5 July 1993
Charles Wardle Esq MP Parliamentary Under-Secretary
of State
Home Office
Queen Anne's Gate
London
HONG KONG: ASSURANCE FOR THE ETHNIC MINORITIES
I understand that at the Home Secretary's meeting with the
LegCo House Committee on 9 June, he offered to restate the
Government's assurance to members of the ethnic minorities in
Hong Kong. There will be an opportunity to do this during the
Adjournment Debate on this subject on 9 July, but I thought I should warn you that LegCo members and their sympathisers in the House will be watching carefully for the terms in which
that assurance is restated.
I believe that the House Committee pressed Michael Howard to
confirm that if any ethnic Chinese British Nationals in Hong Kong came under pressure to leave after 1997, they too would be covered by the assurance originally given to the ethnic
minorities. The Home Secretary indicated that these people
would have nowhere else to go and would therefore fall under
the Government's undertaking. As you may be aware, Emily Lau
has made much of this in the press and has warned that there
would be "trouble" if the Home Office were to attempt to
resile from this assurance.
Ms Lau is of course wrong to suggest that Baroness Young's original assurance, on 14 March 1985 was intended to apply to
all Hong Kong BDTCS, but I think we would all agree that in
ward.let.SA
SLM