TNAG-0902-FCO40-1112-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1979 — Page 145

Seel 83

179

CONFIDENTIAL

Awr. Munday

O..

P J Woodfield Esq CB CBE Home Office

31 August 1979

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ALCOVED WE SAWY NO. 51 - 7 SEP 1979

INDEX

REGISTRY

In

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1. Following our meeting on 31 July we informed the officers administering the Governments of Colonies that there would now be three categories of citizenship and asked for their views.

I do not think there will be much difficulty about finding a title for the second category, ie for British citizens who have right of abode in dependent territories, except in the case of Hong Kong, which is discussed below. The reactions of the other Colonial territories have been varied, but after we analysed them we came to the conclusion that they could all probably settle for some such title as "British citizen of name of dependent territory". I am

aware that you see difficulty with this title, but unless there is some overriding reason for excluding it

I think we ought to re-examine this possibility in due course.

I might add, incidentally, that none of the dependent territories ob ected to provision for transmission of citizenship through the female line except for Gibraltar, and its objection is not a strong

one.

3. However, our major concern is now for Hong Kong. This is the territory with overwhelmingly the greatest number of "Colonial" citizens, and in this context gives us our biggest problem. I think we should try and resolve it first and then consider whether the solution can be applied to the other dependent territories. I doubt if we would have too much difficulty with these. What is clear, however, is that we cannot have one nomenclature for Hong Kong and one for the other territories.

•

As you will recall from George Walden's letter of 23 July to Butler the Governor of Hong Kong explained his concerns to Mr Raison, and Lord Carrington was made aware of the strength of feeling on this issue when he visited Hong Kong. Essentially the Governor still holds to the view that any change in the present title of CUKC would create political problems and cause severe damage to confidence in the Crown Colony. His basic argument is that the Hong Kong Chinese will simply not accept that nothing is intended beyond a change of nomenclature, and will assume that our

CONFIDENTIAL

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