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expect consular protection from foreign Embassies. There is a complete consistency in Chinese attitudes on this question, but the Official's statement, without any nuancing, was not the most helpful contribution in the present state of public opinion.
Whilst domestic law in the UK makes a clear distinction between nationality and citizenship, it is far from clear whether International Law recognises the distinction, and therefore it is unclear what the significance might be in International Law of the fact that in all the memoranda exchanged between London and Beijing, British Passport Holders of Chinese origin in Hong Kong are invariably referred to as British Overseas Nationals, not British Citizens, and their Passport is regarded merely as a travel facility.
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It seems to me understandable, however, if Hong Kong people decide that it is not in their own best interest to wait to find out how these two powers will settle this question.
People speak of a mood of deepening pessimism, compounded of several factors.
a) A feeling of the people's powerlessness, a feeling intensified by the absence of democratic processes and the denial of the rights of citizenship, including the right of abode.
b) A feeling that they have no direct access to either the British or the Chinese Governments, that they are mere spectators to decisions about their own future.
If the feeling persists that Government will not change its mind in response to peaceful pressure, the options are either to emigrate or to riot. It is said that the preferred option of the middle classes is for emigration, but that working class people are quickly learning from the example of the Vietnamese in the closed camps, which would indeed be an interesting turn round.
Officials and Civil Servants say they feel betrayed. There is deepening disgust at the impression which is being generated that Hong Kong and its people are expendable, that they are not important enough to risk upsetting the British domestic political equilibrium.
At the present time Her Majesty's Government is considering conferring a selective right of entry and abode in the UK. The Government presumably hopes that a large enough package will enable enough people to stay to keep Hong Kong's economy going. But this action will only serve to reinforce the opinion that if some people need a safety net to encourage them to stay, so do all the people.
In any case, the manoevre could be self defeating. It seeks, in a classic colonial way, to divide people against one another, and it creates the impression that Britain is trying to do a deal which will pacify powerful interest groups in Hong Kong, such as big Business, Law and Order, and the Unofficial Members of the Legislative and Executive Councils. They have been very vocal in their support for the demand that citizenship rights be restored
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