Britain's dishonorable exit<\/p>\n
Hong Kong's transition from British to Chinese sovereignty,
\ndue to be completed at midnight on June 30, 1997, is not going
\nsmoothly. One reason lies in the British refusal to solve one
\nsmall post-colonial anomaly, The Jakarta Post's Asia
\nCorrespondent Harvey Stockwin reports. The problem should have
\nbeen solved as soon as the Sino-British Joint Declaration was
\nsigned in 1984. Instead British procrastination has been the
\nthief of the colony's confidence.<\/p>\n
HONG KONG (JP): Eleven years after the problem first arose,
\nnothing has been done to rectify the plight of several thousand
\nIndian and other residents of Hong Kong who will effectively
\nbecome stateless in 588 days.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 10, Hong Kong passed the latest milestone -- it was
\nexactly 600 days until the fateful moment when sovereignty over
\nthe territory passes from the United Kingdom back to China.<\/p>\n
It tells you something about the problem of the handover that
\nthe parties are counting the days.<\/p>\n
In Tiananmen Square, Beijing, there is an electronic clock
\nrecording the months, days, hours, minutes and seconds until Hong
\nKong is reunited with the Motherland.<\/p>\n
As China behaves more and more like a harsh colonial power --
\nits latest political maneuver is to try and water-down Hong
\nKong's Bill of Rights -- the counting of the days is born more of
\ndeep and growing anxiety. The transfer of power on July 1, 1997
\nis, for millions of Hong Kong Chinese, the day when they again
\ncome under the control of the country from which they once fled.<\/p>\n
For several thousand South Asians, that date marks a different
\nbut no less acute apprehension -- their already slight hold on
\nnationality status will weaken further, almost to the vanishing
\npoint.<\/p>\n
Estimates of precisely how many persons will be affected in
\nthis way vary between three and seven thousand. Most are Indians,
\nsome of them having come to Hong Kong well before the partition
\nof the Indian subcontinent, but there are other South Asians as
\nwell as some Eurasians in the same predicament.<\/p>\n
All were once British subjects. Some even renounced their
\nIndian citizenship in order to become British. Steadily over the
\nyears their Britishness has been devalued. First they became
\nBritish Dependent Territory citizens with right of abode in Hong
\nKong only. Now they must become holders of a British National
\nOverseas (BNO) passport, which bestows no citizenship.<\/p>\n
Whether possession of this document even guarantees their
\nfuture residence in Hong Kong is uncertain (given the wholly
\nunsatisfactory state of Sino-British negotiations prior to the
\nhandover).<\/p>\n
The BNO passport will not entitle them to British consular
\nprotection in Hong Kong after June 30, 1997. They will not be
\nable to hand down their BNO status to their children born after
\nthat date.<\/p>\n
Thus in 588 days time their citizenship status will be
\nprecarious, to say the least. Sooner or later, they or their
\nfamilies will become stateless.<\/p>\n
The \"plight of the ethnic minorities\", as the problem tends be
\nlabeled in the Hong Kong press, should not be confused with the
\nHong Kong Indian community as a whole. Many Hong Kong Indians
\nhave Indian passports. Others have old or recently acquired first
\nclass British passports, promising right of abode in Britain.
\nSome Hong Kong Indian residents have already obtained passports
\nin third countries such as Canada and Australia.<\/p>\n
There were two possible solutions to the problem posed by
\nthose Indians and others facing statelessness. Racial
\nconsiderations bar the way to their adoption.<\/p>\n
China could avoid the looming statelessness by promising to
\ngive Indians and others a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
\npassport after 1997. But these documents will be issued to ethnic
\nChinese only. Given the essentially racial nature of Chinese
\nnationality laws, this is unlikely to change.<\/p>\n
Britain could have avoided the looming statelessness at any
\ntime in the past eleven years with a stroke of the Prime
\nMinisterial pen, granting those affected full British
\ncitizenship.<\/p>\n
Those affected lobbied for such a gesture. Numerous press
\narticles urged the necessity of such British action. Hong Kong's
\nnewly-emerging class of politicians frequently spoke up on the
\nissue. But London did nothing.<\/p>\n
Britain feared that if the \"ethnic minorities\" were granted
\npassports, the 3.3 million Hong Kong Chinese British subjects --
\nwho are effectively being handed over to become Chinese subjects
\n-- would likewise demand remedial action.<\/p>\n
The truth was more that British action in favor of the
\nminorities would have reassured the Hong Kong Chinese that
\nBritain was at least trying to make an honorable exit. Britain's
\nfailure to act has prompted the opposite conclusion.<\/p>\n
To be fair, the British, in the wake of the horror of the 1989
\nBeijing Massacre, did agree to grant 50,000 full British
\npassports to Hong Kong families before 1997. Amazingly, that
\ndecision was not coupled with a decision that all potentially
\nstateless persons would receive such passports as of right.<\/p>\n
So while the number threatened with statelessness has declined
\nas a result of this British gesture, it has not been eliminated.
\nThe criteria upon which the passports are granted is mysterious.
\nI know one well-respected Indian journalist whose application has
\nbeen refused, with no grounds for the refusal provided.<\/p>\n
It was the need to quickly solve niggling Hong Kong problems
\narising from the reversion to Chinese sovereignty, which prompted
\nthis reporter, among others, to urge the earlier appointment of a
\npolitician as Hong Kong Governor as a good way to secure their
\nspeedier resolution.<\/p>\n
When former Conservative party chairman Christopher Patten was
\nbelatedly appointed Governor in 1992, there was hope that
\nrectification of the stateless problem would be expedited. Patten
\nconveys the image of trying to do something. But perhaps because
\nhe obviously hopes to resume a political career in Britain one
\nday, he has been unable to overcome Conservative reluctance to
\nfurther increase the number of Asian immigrants.<\/p>\n
The absurd lengths to which the British go to restrict
\nimmigration is shown by another unsolved Hong Kong problem.
\nThere are 23 war widows living here, all of either Chinese or
\nEurasian ancestry. All lost their husbands when they were
\nfighting on the British side in World War II. They, too, have
\nbeen denied full first-class British passports, as of right, as
\nthe handover approaches. They have been given the right to reside
\nin Britain, so the denial of a passport to go with it indicates a
\nlack of generosity which is that much more inexplicable.<\/p>\n
Prompt British action long ago to correct this small but
\nimportant issue of statelessness, a tiny post-colonial anomaly,
\nwould have helped diminish Hong Kong's enduring and still-
\ndeepening crisis of confidence. Instead, the British failure to
\nact indicates prevarication which is shameful, and a moral
\ncowardice which is deplorable.<\/p>",
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