TNAG-1193-FCO40-1495-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1982 — Page 144

SECRET

legislation and practice. The drawback is that these are more definitions of citizenship than simple descriptions of nationality which would be arguably more appropriate in an international travel

document.

5. It would be convenient to be able to confine any revised description of nationality in passports to Hong Kong belongers. But there are two reasons why this cannot be done:

6.

Baroness Vickers'

i) Other dependencies would demand to be included in any

special arrangement made for Hong Kong particularly as Gibraltarians already are a favoured category and the mou Falkland Islanders will become one if Lord Bruce of Donington's proposed Bill succeeds. We could not easily explain to the remaining dependent territories in terms they would be likely to accept that the revision we were prepared to make at Hong Kong's request has no practical significance.

ii) I would not favour making an arrangement which could be

misconstrued by the Chinese government as having some special and exclusive bearing on Hong Kong unwelcome to them in the context of negotiation over its future.

This means that any provision for the description of nationality in Hong Kong passports will have to extend at least to the passports of the other dependent territories. If we do this an attempt could be made to push us further to describe BOCs, BPPs and the residual British subjects as British in their passports.

If this were to happen we could deploy the familar argument that this could raise false hopes in the immigration context, and reinforce it by pointing out the distinction between passport holders who have a right of abode in a particular dependent

/ territory

SECRET