TNAG-0660-FCO40-809-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1977 — Page 44

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GREEN PAPER ON NATIONALITY

China?

Since you may be seeing Sir Y.K. Kan and Dr. S.Y. Chung in early June I should warn you that they both feel strongly about the proposal to create a new overseas citizenship without right of entry to the UK. They have three main reasons.

2.

The first is an emotional sense of outrage that people like themselves who have served the Crown faithfully and in the case of Sir Y.K. and many others at risk to their lives, and who continue under direct

Rabo) allegiance to the Crown and subject to Parliamentary

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EN

9 JUN 1977

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control, should be discriminated against and lumped in with the very large numbers of British subjects left in limbo by the dismantling of the old empire. They say it is no answer that the proposals change little with regard to practices that affect them. profoundly resent the formulation of a rationale that embodies these practices.

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Secondly, at present only a small minority of people in Hong Kong realise that in spite of being British subjects they have no right of entry into the UK. They believe that the passage of a new Nationality Act along the lines proposed will produce in the population, and particularly in those who we rely on to resist personal pressures from the CPG and to stand up and be counted in time of trouble a sense of abandonment and isolation. They will know they have nowhere they can go,. This will provide fertile ground on which communist sympathisers could work.

4.

Finally, and in some ways worst of all, the impact of this legislation would coincide with the beginning of the period in which we must settle the future of Hong Kong with China, and in which calm and

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The Rt. Hon The Lord Goronwy-Roberts

of Caernarvon and of Ogwen