ir children. This will no longer be the case after 1997.
Secondly, they are told they do have a right of abode, in Hong Kong, guaranteed by China under a legally binding international agreement. The Agreement does indeed give the right of abode in Hong Kong to foreign nationals who have lived there more than seven years and to others with 'right of abode only in Hong Kong' (although this is a somewhat dubious category, as there is no such status in Hong Kong's immigration ordinance). But British politicians have been quite candid about their inability to enforce those promises. The Foreign Secretary told Parliament that "The success of such an agreement can never ... be absolutely guaranteed'39, the Shadow Foreign Secretary amplified this: if undertakings are given there is little effective sanction that a United Kingdom government could invoke against such a breach'40. This disarming honesty is hardly encouraging to people whose only home depends upon that Agreement being honoured to the letter.
Nor is the assurance give by Ministers that if BN(O)s and BOCS 'came under pressure to leave Hong Kong and had nowhere else to go, we would expect that the Government of the day would consider sympathetically whether to admit them, on a case by case basis, in the light of their circumstances". It is neither just nor responsible to tell British nationals that if they become destitute or are evicted from their homes, Britain may agree to take them in. It condemns many people who cannot or do not want to emigrate elsewhere to years of unnecessary anxiety, while people who are able to leave now will not wait for that contingency: 'How can they expect our community to live with the uncertainty hanging over us for the next twelve years?' 42. It will not benefit Hong Kong if many Indian businessmen feel compelled to leave; nor will it benefit Britain if they are forced to come as penniless refugees rather than successful entrepreneurs.
42
It is the hypocrisy and complacency of the British response to their predicament which most infuriates those in Hong Kong. They are constantly told that Ministers are "confident" of their future in Hong Kong: as the Parsees said in reply to such a letter from the Prime Minister's office 'It is easy for you to write that you do not envisage any problems in life for us here after 1/7/97. But no one can give such a guarantee. Members of Parliament who take up their case are reassured that their right to a home is guaranteed by the Agreement and that 'any breach of it would be a very serious matter indeed". People in Hong Kong, who would be the victims of such a breach, hardly need reminding of this, or of the fact that those who now give
23
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.