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ink about a curious conjection of events. In London, the Tory Government is bringing into law a new British Nationalities Act. It will go before Parliament in November and will be rammed through by the Tories using a 3-line Whip and their massive majority. The legislation will create a two-tier category of British Citizen. The first-class citizen will be largely composed of the white British subjects as presently constituted. The second-class (British Overseas Citizens) will be composed of those 'born, adopted or naturalised in existing British dependencies' and there is only one large one left, Hong Kong.
The aim of the law is to keep non-white immigration to U.K. as close to zero as possible and will permanently remove what few rights Hong Kong British passport holders still have left. In the view of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the new proposals anmount to a deprivation of nationality. It will affect somewhere between 2 and 3 million people in HK. You may well say that a Hongkong British Passport is not worth very much right now, but by Christmas it will be worth nothing atall. But, why now? There are no floods of Hong Kong Chinese clamouring to get into Britain at the moment and there won't be unless some major change in the status quo takes place. So why bring in such contentious & racist laws right now?
In China, there ha been set up on the borders of HK and Macau two special zones designated as Municipalities a rare and exhalted status in China. Why now and why just there? If the aim is to stimulate foreign participation in the Four Modernisations, wouldn't it make better sense to locate these zones closer to the heartland of Chinese industry the Northeast, for instance, where iron, coal, oil, power and other natural resources are easier to hand? Are the new zones not, in fact, the actual structural organs for the re-integration of HK and Macau?
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If the theory is right and re-integration is on the within a couple of years, it is likely that the final move will be very swift with little or no notice given. Britain would want to see the minimum number escape to become unwanted and embarrassing charges on their responsibility. China would presumably be unhappy to lose the chance of swelling its ranks of technical, magaerial and professional personnel from Hong Kong personnel deficiencies being the major obstacle to the achievement of the targets of the Four Modernisations to which it is completely committed now. In any case, as long as China maintains its position on the status of the Treaties, the vast majority of Chinese persons in Hongkong are Chinese Citizens and ,in theory, subject to Chinese law. It is precisely this group (computer operators, currency dealers, engineers, architects,
hotel managers,
name what you like) that China is most in need of and precisely the same group who would be off like a shot at the slightest hint of reversion.
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