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RESTRICTED
HONG KONG BRITISH PASSPORT HOLDERS: PRESSURE FOR CHANGE
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British nationality policy as it affects Hong Kong has been the
subject of intense and increasingly critical press comment in the
past few months. With the future in mind, Hong Kong people have
been concerned to ensure that they retain an identifiable British
nationality status and that Britain should continue clearly to
express her full commitment to Hong Kong people. Their criticism
has focussed on the fact that they do not believe Britain is meeting
that commitment and in particular on the fact that Hong Kong people
do not enjoy automatic right of abode in the United Kingdom. is currently a misconception in Hong Kong that the British
Nationality Act 1981 was designed specifically in advance of the
1984 Joint Declaration to exclude Hong Kong people from Britain in
the future. This widespread misunderstanding is extremely difficult
to counter, given the complex nature of nationality legislation and
the difficulties in explaining the inherent difference between the
concepts of nationality and citizenship. Our case has not been
helped by the fact that European common format passports recently
began to be issued to Macanese Portuguese passport holders. This
has been seen as a decision by Portugal to grant right of abode in
Portugal to Macanese with the transfer of sovereignty in 1999 in
mind. It has also served to highlight the fact that many Macanese
will be able, under EC law, to live and work in Britain while most
Hong Kong British passport holders will not. Many of those
concerned have repeatedly argued that the Chinese have apparently
not objected to the issue of Portuguese passports with right of
abode in Portugal to people in Macao. Why then should they object
to the granting of full British citizenship to Hong Kong Chinese.
There has been pressure for change from various sectors in Hong Kong
and the UK. The main sources of these calls for change are:-
( i )
from Hong Kong: substantial numbers of people have claimed
that HMG has a moral obligation to find a
home for all British nationals in Hong Kong
(ie 3 1/4 million would be granted right of
abode in the UK). It is argued that, in
practice, only a small proportion of those
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