TNAG-2941-FCO40-4217-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-ethnic-minorities-1993 — Page 39

CONFIDENTIAL

Points-to-make to the Home Secretary (5.30 p.m., Wednesday)

Very grateful for your help on BNOs.

Grateful also for your offer to

ethnic minorities.

restate HMG's pledge on

Understand that a difficulty has arisen here stemming from

a difference of

of interpretation of Baroness Young's and David Waddington's 1985 and 1986 pledges and differences

between that and more recent pledges by British Ministers which refer specifically to "solely British nationals", and

not to all BNOS/BOCS.

Emily Lau has

This is quite a live issue in Hong Kong.

latched on to it and promises a big row if we seek to

narrow the pledge. She wrote to you on 23 June about this, quoting a pledge by David Waddington in the House of

Commons on 16 January 1986 that "in the unlikely event of any British nationals being forced to leave Hong Kong and having nowhere to go, we have made it clear that we would

consider the Government of the day to consider sympathetically whether to admit such people on a case by case basis in the light of the particular circumstances."

Emily Lau and her colleagues claim that you gave an assurance during their meeting with you on 9 June that the

renewed pledge would cover not just the ethnic minorities, but also "other British nationals in Hong Kong who felt pressured to leave after 1997 and 'on the face of it would

have nowhere to go'".

We have a problem here. If HMG tries to retreat from Janet

Young's pledge, there will be a big row in Hong Kong.

CONFIDENTIAL