see (138
Mr Hayward, NTCD
RESTRICTED
Mr Yu
MLE
Reference.
Shown to Mr Mounis
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blu 3 weeks host 13/4
MUD 340/6
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27 AUG 1993
138178
HONG KONG: BOC's AND BN(0)s
1.
I attach a letter from Dr Vickers. He is concerned about how eligibility is to be established for BOC passports (by implication he means under the terms of the Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order 1986 Section 6). He sketches out some of the complications which HKG expect to surface. How will the "automatic" switch from BDTC to BOC be effected on 1 July 1997; how to establish who will be stateless etc. The questions raised are ones which you and your legal advisers will wish to study (I have copied the letter to our Departmental Legal Counsellor for information only at this stage).
2. After a first reading of this letter, I emerged considerably confused. I do not understand why Dr Vickers considers that people now deciding on whether to register under the BN (0) phased registration programme are faced with a dilemma. He maintains that "people who are part Chinese and part Indian/Pakistani" by which I presume he means people who might be expected to be stateless after 1997 were it not for the provisions of the Order, would, if they register, risk losing British consular protection and second generation rights post-1997. He contrasts this with a decision not to register and to "go for BOC". It is my reading of the legislation that the consular protection and the rights of future generations are protected for both BN (0)s, and for BDTCS who fail to register, under the phased programme where the individual would otherwise be stateless. He seems to suggest that the status of a given individual - BOC or BN (0) will influence decisions taken by the future administration in Hong Kong on their (Chinese) status. This strikes me as most unlikely. Dr Vickers also suggests that the Home Secretary's undertaking to the ethnic minorities might be interpreted as restricting future possible entry to the UK to BOCS and excluding BN (0)s. Again I see no objective evidence for this. (Although I suppose a BOC by virtue of Section 6 of the 1986 Order demonstrably has solely British nationality, whereas a BN (0) could have a second nationality).
min.hayward.NAT
JEB
CODE 18-77
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