TNAG-1559-FCO40-2123-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-and-passports-Hong-Kong-(Br-1986 — Page 78

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Had those for whom we are now pleading (about 400, in the age group 60 to 85) had any inkling at the end of the War

that at sometime in the future their national status would be

drastically downgraded, most would, we submit, unhesitatingly have then applied to have the situation remedied. However, curiously enough such would not have been possible or necessary because, at that time, the persons involved (i.e. those who were

born in Hong Kong) were citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and had the right of entry into, and the right of abode in, the United Kingdom. In fact, some such persons did settle down in the

U.K. and have lived there ever since.

As it is, an extraordinary, and indeed invidious,

situation has arisen whereby on the one hand aliens who would,

after the war, not normally acquire British citizenship except by naturalization, had been bestowed that privilege, while on the

other hand those British citizens by birth in Hong Kong who fought in the same War, are now unceremoniously going to be given a watered- downed citizenship and, in time, deprived of it. This is so

patently unjustified that we feel sure that if suitable representa- tions are made to the proper quarters in the United Kingdom, they will at once see the injustice which has been done to a handful of combatants who happened to be fighting for the same cause but who live geographically in a British territory which in 1997 will achieve an unenviable niche in history by virtue of having been

handed over to a Communist Government. Never before has one

country, without a shot being fired, given up its territory which had been ceded to that country by Treaty and, in so doing, so drastically affected the citizenship and, indeed, the lives of its inhabitants. If those who fought to preserve the freedom of that territory are now not given assistance in their search for a future free from anxiety, then justice must be deemed to have been extinguished. As we see it, some of the individuals for whom we are pleading, although Hong Kong born, will lose their citizen- ship of a British Dependent Territory after 1997 and will not be given a new one. Their descendants will not, as we understand,

It has to be

have an automatic right of abode in Hong Kong.

acquired. Two generations later they will be stateless

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