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years. (Conversely FCO Ministers have regularly defended the Home Office position in Hong Kong).
9.
We do not think that the Home Office intends to change
present policy on either of these issues. But from a foreign policy point of view, granting citizenship to the ethnic minorities and making it easier for the tiny group of wives and widows to acquire citizenship would be small gestures which would win disproportionate goodwill in Hong Kong and which could contribute to confidence in the Territory. As one speaker in the Lords' debate put it, there is merit in
making provisions freely now for the ethnic minorities rather than being pushed into doing it grudgingly at some stage in the future.
Thani
نہ
JC Morris
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