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19
UK ASSURANCES SCHEME AND THE JOINT DECLARATION
Redacted under FOI exemption 27(1)
1.
that our assurances scheme represented a violation of the Joint Declaration. He added that this view had been taken by Lord
Glenarthur when he told the House of Lords on 28 June that conferring full citizenship on Hong Kong residents would contradict the Joint Declaration.
claim.
2. There is no Hansard record corresponding to However, we believe the Chinese may have meant to refer to Lord Glenarthur's comment in the Lords in response to Lord Wyatt on 23 March 1989 that:
3.
"The Chinese memorandum on passport and nationality matters associated with the Joint Declaration states that under Chinese nationality law "all Hong Kong Chinese compatriots, whether or not they are British Dependent Territory Citizens, are Chinese nationals". It would not be easy to reconcile that with the proposal that 3.25 million Hong Kong Chinese should also acquire full British citizenship." (Hansard Ref 881]
twisted Lord Glenarthur's remarks. Lord Glenarthur would have been referring to a situation where all BDTCs in Hong Kong were granted full British citizenship. This is not what we are
loing under our assurances scheme. We are offering the possibility of qualifying for full British citizenship to a small proportion of people in Hong Kong, some of whom would have acquired it (or another foreign nationality) through other means (eg residence abroad)
between now and 1997.
4.
Neither do we consider our scheme to be contrary to the UK memorandum which states that Hong Kong BDTCs will "cease to be BDTCs with effect from 1 July 1997, but will be eligible to retain an appropriate status which, without conferring the right of abode in the United Kingdom, will entitle them to continue to use passports issued by the Government of the United Kingdom". The menorandum is silent on BDTCs who obtain some other form of nationality before
1997.
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