Furor grows over stateless citizens

HONG KONG (JP): The stateless problem arose immediately on the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 under which Britain agreed to return the whole of Hong Kong to China in 1997.

On the one hand, the British had changed their nationality law in 1979 so that over three million Hong Kong Chinese were effectively deprived of full British citizenship to which they were entitled by birth.

On the other hand, China indicated that its nationality law, under which only ethnic Chinese are entitled to Chinese citizenship, would also apply to Hong Kong.

The Indians, Pakistanis, Eurasians and other minorities, many of whom have been in Hong Kong for generations, were effectively squeezed between these two policies.

The former Hong Kong Chinese British citizens were deprived of their British status but, at least, will now become citizens of China in Hong Kong. The "ethnic minorities" here, as they have been called, lost their British citizenship, but did not gain any other citizenship in its place.

China has shown no clear inclination to alter the essentially racial basis of its nationality law to suit Hong Kong's special circumstances.

-- Harvey Stockwin