From the Secretary of State
Foreign and Commonwraith Bilba
22 January 1990
Dear Thr. Hurilela,
Thank you for your letter of 29 December about the position of the non-Chinese ethnic minorities in Hong Kong under the nationality package and for your earlier letters of 11 November and 7 December, copies of which you sent to Sir Geoffrey Howe and Francis Maude. I was also grateful for the opportunity to discuss the Council's concerns with Mr Sital and Mr Narain during
their visit to London in November. As you may know, my Parliamentary Private Secretary, Tim Yeo, also met Mr Sital and Mr Narain in Hong Kong on 16 January.
I have taken very careful note of all the points you make in your letters. In reaching the decision which I announced to the House on 20 December, the Government took fully into account the arguments put to us by the Council on behalf of the non-ethnic Chinese minorities.
We concluded that we could not treat this group as a special category within the scheme: the non-ethnic Chinese minorities will be eligible to apply for British citizenship under the scheme and each application will
be treated on its merits.
Mr H N Harilela
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