14 July 1993]
[Mr Canavan contd]
THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
RT HON ALAStair Goodlad, SIR ROBIN MCLAREN, KCMG, Mr Christopher Hum, Mr Graham Fry and Mr Peter Ricketts
Mr Canavan
13. I wish to raise with the Minister the question of non-Chinese British Dependent Territory citi- zens. I wrote to the Foreign Office about this last month and I received a reply from the Minister just a few weeks ago, in which he referred to a Govern- ment assurance to the effect that if members of that community came under pressure to leave Hong Kong after 1997, the UK would consider with par- ticular sympathy any claims they made for admission to this country. With respect, Minister, it is not sympathy that these people want. It is full nationality rights. Could you tell us what in your opinion would constitute sufficient pressure to leave and whether discrimination against people of non-Chinese ethnic origin would be sufficient to give sympathetic consideration to any application to come to the UK?
(Mr Goodlad) I would like to be able to define what would be grounds for the future exercise by the Government of the day of a power to admit to the UK. It is of course a Home Office responsibility and not mine, but I would be a little surprised if even they could define as accurately as Mr Canavan would no doubt wish, precisely what would consti- tute those grounds in advance, but I will certainly ask the Home Office and make their judgments on that available to the Committee.
14. Because at present the assurance frankly does not look as if it is worth the paper it is written on, and we would be grateful for the expansion of criteria that would be considered sympathetically. In the paper that we have got from the Secretary of State, including a note about this matter, he referred to various points of objection and took up the points, one of them being the matter of trans- missibility of British Dependent Territory citizen- ship or British National Overseas. I would like to ask you on this point, supposing we had a descend- ant-say a grandchild—of someone of non-Chinese origin, and that someone was a holder of British Dependent Territories Citizenship. Supposing this descendant, this grandchild, was born in Hong Kong after 1997. Do you envisage that child having a choice, as it were, of either Chinese nationality or British Overseas citizenship, because from the evi- dence available it would appear that the Chinese authorities would not allow that child to become a Chinese national because it would not be of ethnic origin Chinese. If Chinese nationality is refused, as seems likely, then would that child automatically be granted British Overseas Citizenship?
(Mr Goodlad) Let me answer it this way, if I may. No members of the ethnic community will become stateless after 1997; they will all retain a form of British nationality after 1997, either BN(O) or BOC. Neither will their children or grand- children be stateless. The Hong Kong British Nationality Order of 1986 sensibly provides that the children of British Dependent Territories Citizens will have BOC status if they would otherwise be stateless. Grandchildren of the original British Dependent Territories Citizens will, in most cases, have an entitlement to acquire BOC status by regis-
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[Continued
tration. On the point of Chinese citizenship, the Joint Declaration and Article 24(6) of the Basic Law guarantee the ethnic minorities' right of abode in Hong Kong if they do not have a right of abode elsewhere. The Chinese authorities have said peo- ple in Hong Kong of non-Chinese race are welcome to remain, and it is suggested they might wish to apply for Chinese citizenship in the future.
15. There is no guarantee they will get it. Can I remind you that our predecessor Committee in 1989 came out with a recommendation-and, more recently, the Legislative Council in Hong Kong came out with a recommendation—that more sym- pathetic treatment should be given to these people by the British Government. Yet these recommen- dations seem to have fallen on deaf ears. I would plead with you, could you not at least give our Committee an assurance that you will look again at this problem? I am not talking about a huge number of people—as I understand, it is about 2,000 famil- ies, so at most 7,000 people involved-and there is no evidence that large numbers of them want to emigrate to this country, but there is a fear that, despite what you have said, at best they will be merely second-class citizens, and at worst they or their descendants will end up stateless. So I would plead with you, please will you look at this problem again, especially if our Committee, when we come to deliberate on the matter, come out with a similar recommendation to what was made in 1989?
(Mr Goodlad) Thank you. Perhaps I could say, on the original point of application for Chinese citizenship, there is no bar to people of non-Chinese race becoming Chinese citizens, and there are indeed huge non-Chinese minorities in China. I would also reiterate that there is no question of these people becoming stateless, but in response to the plea which Mr Canavan has repeated. I will draw this to the attention of the Home Secretary.
Chairman
16. Can we ask Sir Robin whether he knows of any other examples of the Chinese Government giving citizenship to non-ethnic Chinese?
(Sir Robin McLaren) I think, Chairman, as the Minister said, there are a large number of ethnic minority races in China, mostly but not all living round the edges of China, in the border areas, and those are all Chinese citizens. So although the Chi- nese nationality appears to be ethnically based, nonetheless the Chinese themselves do make exceptions, and there are indeed cases of foreigners who have been living in Peking for many, many years who have taken Chinese nationality, for example. So there is no bar on non-ethnic Chinese taking on Chinese nationality under Chinese nationality law. It is not automatic, it is not necess- arily easy, unless you are an ethnic minority living in China and recognised as one of the 40 or 50 minor- ities who are living there, but it happens.
Mr Wareing
17. We all hope, obviously, that between now
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.