New China law: UK plans citizenship to 3.1 lakh Hong Kong residents
Terming China’s new security law a violation of an agreement reached when Britain handed over Hong Kong in 1997, the Boris Johnson government plans to offer citizenship to over 3.1 lakh residents of its former colony, in a move that has ruffled feathers in Beijing.
Nearly 315,000 Hong Kong residents who registered before the 1997 handover are entitled to ‘British National (Overseas)’ status, which allows limited entry to the UK. There has been a longstanding campaign to extend them full citizenship rights.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has announced their intention to consider extending full citizenship to holders of BNO status, as a joint statement by the UK, US, Australia and Canada expressed ‘deep concern’ over the new law that has prompted clashed in Hong Kong. Reports say Beijing would consider the UK plan as an interference.
Raab said: “Currently they (BNO passport holders) only have the right to come to the UK for six months. If China continues down this path and implements this national security legislation we will change that status, and we will remove that sixmonth limit and allow those BNO passport holders to come to the UK and to apply to work and study for extendable periods of 12 months and that would itself provide a pathway to future citizenship”.
“If they implement and apply this national security legislation in the terms that have been described, we will change the BNO passport holder status and the arrangements for them in the way that I’ve just described”, he added.
Campaigners say Raab’s current offer does not go far enough to protect the rights of BNO holders if and when they are allowed into the UK for more than the current period of six months, but await more details.
The four-country joint statement by Raab, Australian foreign minister Marise Payne, Canadian foreign minister François-philippe Champagne, and US secretary of state Michael Pompeo said: “Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of freedom. The international community has a significant and longstanding stake in Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability”.
“Direct imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong by the Beijing authorities, rather than through Hong Kong’s own institutions as provided for under Article 23 of the Basic Law, would curtail the Hong Kong people’s liberties, and in doing so, dramatically erode Hong Kong’s autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous”.