11. It was reported in the South China Morning Post on 20 June that
Miss Lau had accused Mr Goodlad of making a fresh attempt to further
deprive Hong Kong people of British nationality rights by limiting
London's commitment to those who have solely British nationality.
She referred to the 1986 pledge and said that it covered all Hong Kong British passport holders. Mr Howard, she said, had contradicted
Mr Goodlad and reaffirmed the fuller version of the pledge. finished by warning
"Let the British Government realise they made a commitment
in 1986 and they are not going to wriggle out of it in
1993. If they try to do so I can assure them there will
be a big, big, row."
She
Consideration
12.
It seems fairly clear that the Legco members are trying to use
the assurance given to the ethnic minorities to secure a similar
assurance for all BN (0)s. I assume that Ministers would wish to
resist such a massive hostage to fortune in respect of those who will have Chinese citizenship. On the other hand, given Miss Lau's
subsequent remarks it is clearly going to be very difficult to
achieve a restatement of the assurance to the ethnic minorities that
will satisfy Legco. The publicly expressed concern has always been
for those members of the ethnic minorities about 6-7,000 - who are
BDTCS, at present have no other citizenship and may not acquire
Chinese citizenship after 1997 (although it will be open to them to
apply). Any formulation of the assurance would have to incorporate
the 'solely British' reference in some form, since it had always been
accepted that we do not have the same obligation to those with eg
Indian citizenship; and if the assurance were extended to those who
acquired Chinese citizenship there would be no logical reason to withhold it from the 3.5 million ethnic Chinese who will be eligible
for BN(0) status.
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