TNAG-1557-FCO40-2121-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-and-passports-Hong-Kong-(Br-1986 — Page 170

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United Kingdom could not give them a right of abode in Hong Kong

July

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which is

where they say they want to remain because after 1997 it will not be within the British Government's power to grant that right. Indeed, under the Agreement, Chinese Nationals themselves will only have the right of abode there as well as the rest of China, after 1997 if they have specified links with Hong Kong. On the other hand the Joint Declaration does guarantee to the Indian Community the right of abode in Hong Kong which is all the Indian Community say they

want.

7.

Conferring British citizenship rather than BN (0) or BOC citizenship on the Hong Kong Indian Community would not benefit future generations any more than the present proposals. If it were granted it could be transmitted

to only one generation born abroad. In certain circumstances the grandchild born aborad of a British Citizen who was himself born abroad has an entitlement

Childu to registration as a British citizen; but their and subsequent generations born abroad generally have no claim to British citizenship. Furthermore we do not

believe the Government should recognise an obligation to people in Hong Kong beyond the second generation born after-1997. By then the link with Britain will be more than tenuous and many years will have passed during which someone of Indian descent living in Hong Kong will have been able to apply for Chinese citizenship if he so wishes. There will of course be no question of compelling people to become Chinese nationals; and in the unlikely event of any British

national being forced to leave Hong Kong and having nowhere to go we have made it clear that we would expect the Government of the Day to consider sympathetically whether to admit them on a case by case basis in the light of the particular

circumstances.

8. It has also been suggested by some that as an alternative to giving the

non-ethnic Chinese the right of abode in the United Kingdom they should be

allowed to keep their BDTC status and settle in another dependent territory.

But right of abode in a dependent territory is governed by that dependent

territory's own relevant laws or regulations, which are designed to identify

those people who "belong' to that territory. It would not be appropriate to

seek to give Hong Kong belongers the right of abode in another dependent

territory with which they were not connected.

/cont...