(H.K.) LTD.
Y.K.
PASSPORTS
JO
1162
27th March 1990
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2.
As I understand it China's current position is:-
Chinese nationals who go abroad to Canada/Australia to obtain passports are acknowledged to have abandoned their Chinese nationality if they return to Hong Kong, and are treated as foreign nationals.
If Britain gives 50,000 heads of households/225,000 total passports in situ, China will regard these people and their families as Chinese nationals and will not agree to their having consular protection, and will also not allow them to use their passports as travel documenta to/from Hong Kong.
This raises some practical issues: -
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d)
How are the passports now being purchased by Hong Kong citizens to countries such as Tonga, Belize, and Panama to be treated? They are purchased in situ.
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What about the 1,000 passports the French are issuing to people working in French companies also the 25,000 heads of household that are being awarded right of residence in Singapore on a deferred basis?
What about Portuguese passports? The Swire Group is considering a scheme to loan staff money to purchase property in Portugal, following which one trip by the man and his family to Portugal and a six year wait gains them a Portuguese passport.
How does the HKSAR Immigration know which British passports have been issued in situ and which have not? There is nothing on
the passport to indicate this, and by 1995-97 many of these people will be on their second passport if they have done much travelling. Also by 1992 there will be an EEC passport.
All of the business community favours the issuing of passports by any nation to people while they reside in Hong Kong, and hopes the British initiative will be followed up by e.g. the U.S.A. This is for one, very simple, reason that if people leave we will only get 10-20% of them to return, whereas if they get a passport whilst they are in Hong Kong, they see far less need to leave. To put this in perspective, if there is a 15% return rate then 1.5 million people would leave Hong Kong to produce 225,000 who would return. A consequence of China's current, illogical, position is that many people who have acquired foreign passports are now getting afraid of restrictions on their movements being instituted after 1997, (which would be quite contrary to the Joint Declaration/Basic Law), 1.e. 'if China proposes to treat British passports like this, what is to stop them treating Canadian/Australian passports
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