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UK ASSURANCES SCHEME AND THE JOINT DECLARATION
Redacted under FOI exemption section 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.
2.
There is no Hansard record corresponding to
claim.
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:
"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]
3.
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 hat we are doing under our assurances scheme. We are offering the F ssibility
of qualifying for full British citizenship to a small pre ortion 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 memorandum is
silent on BDTCs who obtain some other form of nationality before
1997.
F15AAW
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