Raab warns China and offers visas to passport holders in Hong Kong
THE UK will not turn a blind eye and look away from its responsibilities to the people of Hong Kong, Dominic Raab has promised.
The Foreign Secretary, pictured, confirmed that the UK will allow those who hold British national overseas (BNO) passports to come to the UK and apply to study and work for an extendable 12-month period which in turn will “provide a path to citizenship”.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman and Tory MP Tom Tugendhat warned that the UK’s relationship with China needs to change in light of the Chinese government’s decision to introduce a new security measure in Hong Kong.
Mr Tugendhat said the UK Government must realise that China has a “very, very authoritarian system of government” and rethink the partnership between the two.
He added that the planned security law for Hong Kong, which would make it a crime to undermine Beijing’s authority in the territory, shows China as “an authoritarian state which has decided to tear up the rules”. China’s ceremonial legislature, the National People’s Congress, endorsed a security law for Hong Kong earlier this week that has strained relations with the UK and the US. The law will alter the territory’s mini-constitution, or Basic Law, to require its government to enforce measures to be decided later by Chinese leaders. “This isn’t just about Hong Kong, it is about China living up to the commitments it has made,” Mr Tugendhat told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme.
“And given that China is now a major, quite understandably and quite rightly, a major global player – second largest economy in the world, the most populous country in the world – it is really important we know whether China is going to live up to the promises it made or not. That is why this is more than about Hong Kong, it is about all of us dealing with an authoritarian state which has decided to tear up the rules.”
Asked whether the UK’s relationship with China needs to change, he added: “It has got a very, very authoritarian system of government and I think the UK needs to realise that and rethink the partnership that we have made.”