TNAG-1856-FCO40-2631-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-memoranda-and-minutes-of-me-1989 — Page 59

5 July 1989

一九八九年七月五日

43

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

香港立法局

3.28 million British subjects are demanding to have their full British citizenship restored to them. What they are demanding was theirs by birth. But it was whittled down by successive Acts of Parliament. Yet there are another 2.5 million people in Hong Kong who are not British. Many have fled from the communist regime in China over the years for British protection in Hong Kong. They too should be given a life-line.

Now the British Government has refused to restore full British citizenship to all the 3.28 million British subjects, on the ground that if all of them were to settle in the United Kingdom, it would double the number of ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom.

But the British Government also said that if there were an Armageddon scenario or a catastrophe in Hong Kong, then it would have a firm obligation to take us as refugees.

But surely that is a defeatism line, and may even be self-fulfilling. Surely what the British Government must do is to take all reasonable steps to stop us from becoming refugees so that it does not have to take us. But though the British Government is primarily responsible for the people of Hong Kong, it does not have to take on the burden alone. It can quite legitimately ask the other nations of the free world to share in that burden, or asset, according to the recent Corry Report published in the South China Morning Post. But the British Government should take the lead, and must underwrite the balance. The FAC has got it right in recommending "that the British Government should take the lead at the earliest opportunity, particularly with our European Community partners and immigrant-receiving countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, in establishing the definite guarantee which could be put into place in the years ahead. We believe that the accommodation of even several million people from Hong Kong would be quite possible if shared among the international community." (paragraph 4.15) But the British Government must act

now.

The underlying objective here is not to encourage our people to leave, but to stay, and yet armed with passports which would enable them to leave if absolutely necessary.

Armed with a life-line, and with all the safeguards together as a package, our people will stay, or at least adopt a wait-and-see attitude, knowing always that they have an option to leave, like the thousands of expatriates in Hong Kong holding foreign passports. They have no fear. And we likewise would have no fear.

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