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I should say here that the Hong Kong Government/SARG position must be that we in a general sense want to encourage these people to integrate more as BN (0)s. I presume HMG too would prefer this, for different reasons. But in practice it is unlikely that people will choose the BN (0) if they think they qualify for BOC.
We then have the potential problem of some people in this group (e.g. those 'most Chinese') not being eventually granted BOC having assumed they would and thus having given up the chance of BN(O). At the least we would have to treat them under "special circumstances" if they decide later for BN (0) and apply after their cut-off date, I suggest. But this may not be enough against one highly publicized case. We need anyway a line in response to the above questions and preferably early clarification of exactly how the ethnic division will be decided.
I appreciate you will wish to avoid having to make an ethnic decision, and would prefer some sort of negative proof from the Chinese/SAR authorities. But are you really going to demand negative proofs from the Chinese/SAR side in the possibly difficult circumstances in which this might most matter after 1997?
The problem is of course exacerbated, if not rooted in, the ambiguities in the Chinese nationality law (which may mean you did not face this aspect of the problem e.g. in 1947 with Anglo-Indians, who could be anyway more justifiably 'forced' to become Indian citizens). But we will have to tackle this problem without resolution of those ambiguities probably; as an excuse for not settling the more British nationality matter of BOC, it may anyway wear thin.
If you like, we can ask UKRep to approach the Chinese side again with specific reference to the more immediate problems of this small group (which, though marginal, is arguably more essentially representative of Hong Kong's dual culture than most). But we need to start thinking of your unilateral fallback if we get nowhere.
You will have appreciated that beneath and beyond the above 'small' issue is a much wider, very JD-political one. This was explicitly as well as implicity raised in Economic Journal articles recently referred to ExCo (XCCI (93) 20 para 5 and Annex C). Even if you work out an unobjectionable mechanism for deciding at the borderline who is a BOC, there will be those who are purely Chinese ethnically who will also feel aggrieved that they have no such choice to distance themselves from a Chinese citizenship which they may not want. All we can hope on this now perhaps is that a future British government may decide more liberally to confirm/extend a fallback assurance based on passports not on ethnicity, as LegCo is demanding. This would help at least a little to soften the blow at the edges and might thus also help you avoid some of any future heat on the particular problem above.
Yeus aye
&b.
(Simon Vickers)
Security Branch Hong Kong Government
c.c. Home Office
(Attn: Chris Kelly)
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