TNAG-2385-FCO40-3467-Future-of-Hong-Kong-visa-abolition-agreements-1991 — Page 3

CONFIDENTIAL

XCX(91)62

visa-free travel, our aim should be to secure VAA's which extend beyond 1997. Where that proves too difficult, we could seek less formal arrangements as a practical fall-back.

Form and content of agreements

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It is reasonable to assume that, in negotiating VAA's, other countries will wish to secure reciprocal arrangements for their nationals before and after 1997. They will also wish to be assured that our travellers can be returned to Hong Kong. We will require similar assurances.

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The agreements must also take account of the change of sovereignty. VAA's valid only to 1997 would enable our BDTC's and BN(O)'s to travel freely for a few more years. But they would do little for public confidence in the future. When they lapsed, we would have to renegotiate them and, in some cases, there could be a hiatus between expiry and renewal. Therefore, we propose to seek open-dated agreements whenever possible. These would bear no expiry date and would therefore straddle 1997.

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It is proposed that these agreements should cover all holders of the travel documents listed in Schedule 1 of the model at Annex A. These are people whom we recognize as permanently resident here and whom we will readily readmit to Hong Kong. That includes people holding BDTC and BN(O) passports, and those with Certificates of Identity (CI). In future they will also include HKSAR passport holders. Ideally, we should seek to include all these people in each agreement. But it may be difficult to persuade other countries to include CI holders, given the long history of their exclusion from existing arrangements. And it may also be difficult to persuade them to include HKSAR passports until it is clear what these will Yes. look like and who will be entitled to them.(4)*

* Note (4) Immigration authorities need a clear description of travel documents in order to detect forgeries. They also need to know who qualifies for each kind of document. We shall discuss these questions in relation to the HKSAR passport within the JLG. Until there is full agreement, it is unlikely that other v.True Governments will agree to including them in the proposed VAA's.