Crackdown sees Western nations offer refuge to Hong Kong folk

HONG KONG: Western nations are moving to offer millions of Hong Kongers refuge after Beijing passed draconian security laws designed to choke the city’s democracy movement, but many obstacles prevent a mass exodus.

The United Kingdom is leading allies in offering nearly half the city’s 7.5 million people a potential pathway to British citizenship, with strong indications Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States may also offer some form of asylum.

In a direct challenge to China, members of the so-called FiveEyes alliance have framed the move as a moral imperative — a bid to help citizens of a oncefree city escape the clutches of a police state.

Speaking in Parliament, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain had a duty of care to residents of a colony it handed back to China in 1997.

He said the country would allow anyone with British National (Overseas) (BNO) status — and their dependents — to come to the United Kingdom and eventually receive citizenship. That is estimated to be more than three million Hong Kongers.

BNO status is open to anyone born before Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China. There are currently some 300,000 BNO passport holders, but around 2.7 million Hong Kongers are eligible to apply and there has been a rush of new applications.

Hong Kongers are scrubbing their social media accounts, deleting chat histories and mugging up on cyber privacy as China’s newly imposed security law blankets the traditionally outspoken city in fear and self-censorship.

Despite assurances from Beijing that political freedoms would not be hindered, many Hong Kongers moved to delete digital references of their opposition to China’s ruling Communist Party, which uses similar laws on the mainland to crush dissent.