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UK opens door to citizenship for 300k HK residents

ft.com

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Re: UK opens door to citizenship for 300k HK residents

#11

Post by ksec »

harry8 wrote: post #10

So just a little history. Everyone in Hong Kong had a British passport as good as any British passport. 3am Parliament session revoked then all just before they announced the handover back to China. But what about the non-Chinese in hk? This is why ancestry visas existed. Not perfect, you got done non-white with that but not too many and you got pretty much all of white Hong Kong. Now they'll take Hong Kong's 300k ri…

>Everyone in Hong Kong had a British passport as good as any British passport.

Where did you get that idea?

Re: UK opens door to citizenship for 300k HK residents

#12

Post by ksec »

xster wrote: post #4

It's a pretty eye grabbing title but does anyone have primary sources to what was specifically legislated or discussed? Seems like there's tons of editorial fillers around generalities and posturing but the only thing specific is that BNO passport holders can now take what's essentially a tourist visa to the UK for 12 months now instead of 6 months. i.e. you can come spend money but you can't earn money and it doesn'…

It is basically a way of allowing them to work indefinitely until they are good enough for Citizenship. Whatever Good enough might means, I would guess that would be some sort of professional requirement.

As long as they dont have Citizenship, they wont have any benefits such as medical, retirement and other benefits etc.

If I am going to guess they want people to fill them gap of some low cost labour that wont be available post Brexit.

Re: UK opens door to citizenship for 300k HK residents

#13

Post by harry8 »

ksec wrote: post #11
harry8 wrote: post #10

So just a little history. Everyone in Hong Kong had a British passport as good as any British passport. 3am Parliament session revoked then all just before they announced the handover back to China. But what about the non-Chinese in hk? This is why ancestry visas existed. Not perfect, you got done non-white with that but not too many and you got pretty much all of white Hong Kong. Now they'll take Hong Kong's 300k ri…

>Everyone in Hong Kong had a British passport as good as any British passport. Where did you get that idea?

I don't claim to be an expert historian in the area. These are memories from a vague interest in current events in those times. Wikipedia seems to support but I know that's not an end to the matter. If you have deeper information and links do please share.

The 1983 act is just before they announced the 1997 handover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Overseas_Territories_c...

"At the time of nationality reclassification in 1983, the largest group of BDTCs (2.5 million people) was associated with Hong Kong. The deprivation of full passports and nationality rights for colonial residents was criticized for effectively codifying ethnicity as the deciding factor in determining what rights British subjects were entitled to, an impression confirmed by exceptions granted to the majority white residents of Gibraltar and – after the Falklands War – the Falkland Islands. The British government was particularly unwilling to grant full citizenship and immigration rights to Hongkongers, fearing a mass migration to the UK after the transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997."

Re: UK opens door to citizenship for 300k HK residents

#14

Post by zarkov99 »

econcon wrote: post #6

Why just HK, why not for all former colonies which UK is responsible for, there have been colonies where millions of people died because of British policies as a result a lot of their progenies have been completely trapped in poverty, when will they offer them citizenship?

Because the British, like everyone else, want immigrants that will contribute to the country and it is very likely the people coming from HK will, given that they are educated and industrious. But you probably knew what.

Re: UK opens door to citizenship for 300k HK residents

#15

Post by xster »

ksec wrote: post #12
xster wrote: post #4

It's a pretty eye grabbing title but does anyone have primary sources to what was specifically legislated or discussed? Seems like there's tons of editorial fillers around generalities and posturing but the only thing specific is that BNO passport holders can now take what's essentially a tourist visa to the UK for 12 months now instead of 6 months. i.e. you can come spend money but you can't earn money and it doesn'…

It is basically a way of allowing them to work indefinitely until they are good enough for Citizenship. Whatever Good enough might means, I would guess that would be some sort of professional requirement. As long as they dont have Citizenship, they wont have any benefits such as medical, retirement and other benefits etc. If I am going to guess they want people to fill them gap of some low cost labour that wont be av…

Thats what the title obliquely insinuates but it's specifically not what it is. It's a travel visa with no work permit.

Re: UK opens door to citizenship for 300k HK residents

#16

Post by flingo »

econcon wrote: post #6

Why just HK, why not for all former colonies which UK is responsible for, there have been colonies where millions of people died because of British policies as a result a lot of their progenies have been completely trapped in poverty, when will they offer them citizenship?

> Why just HK, why not for all former colonies which UK is responsible for

Prior to (and because of) a bunch of HK residents fleeing to the UK when china first started trying to assimilate it, it was much easier to get out of there and into the UK. (anything involving politics in the UK is never a single thing, it's probably about 40 interacting things, spread out over about 800 non-consecutive years.)

HK is really a special case, because it was doing so very well with "european-levels of freedom", and then china strong-armed them into giving it up. (I won't make a moral judgement on that, it's just worth point out how complicated the issue is.)

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