TNAG-1085-FCO40-1335-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1981 — Page 193

Mr Paterson NTD

(CL501)

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CONFIDENTIAL

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NATIONALITY BILL: NOMENCLATURE

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See (339

1. The suggestion in your minute of 5 August that CBDTs should be described as 'British (name of dependency) Citizen' is certainly worth pursuing. It might well go a long way towards satisfying Hong Kong.

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2. I understand that you would in fact prefer the name of the territory not to be in brackets. I fully understand the arguments for this in nationality terms but there are important political considerations on the other side. We have been concerned all along about a possible Chinese reaction to any change which implied a separate state of Hong Kong. 'British Hong Kong Citizen' would carry more of such an implication than 'British (Hong Kong) Citizen'. It would therefore be necessary to seek the views of the Embassy in Peking before such a proposal were made to Parliament. I would expect that they would repeat their earlier reservations on any formula which carried a hint of separate citizenship but would hope that they would also suggest that the problem could be circumvented by judicious explanation to the Chinese. But I cannot prejudge this,

3.

I suggest that in any case we wait until the end of August. Mr Ridley is seeing the Governor on 25 August. It would be helpful to have Sir Murray's views.

7 August 1981

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Mr Adams

Mr Payne MCD

Mr Daunt SED

Mr Deare WIAD

Miss Brooks Legal Advisers

Mr McLaren FED

R D Clift

Hong Kong and General Department

CONFIDENTIAL

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