Phil C. W. Chan

Opinion | Time for Hongkongers eligible for BN(O) visa scheme to choose where their loyalties lie

With the city at its most critical juncture since 1997, those eligible for a BN(O) visa must decide between China’s vision for Hong Kong or a society where freedom of expression, police accountability, the rule of law and universal suffrage flourish

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

99+

Phil C. W. Chan

Published: 6:45am, 31 Dec 2020Updated: 7:28am, 31 Dec 2020

With yet another coronavirus lockdown in Britain, one cannot stretch one’s legs easily other than in the supermarket. A brief chat I had with a butcher in a Surrey supermarket in September gave me much food for thought, as I had settled in Britain as a British National (Overseas) émigré a month earlier. The conversation started innocuously – where are you from?

As soon as she said she was from China, and I Hong Kong, she asked me a question in Mandarin that had contributed to years of discontent and one year of social unrest in Hong Kong that culminated in Beijing’s imposition of a national security law for the city on June 30 – is Hong Kong not part of China?

Not wanting a prolonged, heated discussion with her, in keeping with English politesse, I did not demur. However, as Britain is to open a new BN(O) visa scheme for eligible Hongkongers on January 31 with the right to work and a path to British citizenship in response to the national security law, the issue of Hongkongers’ nationality, citizenship, belonging and national identity can no longer be deferred.

In its judgment in the Nottebohm case in 1955, the International Court of Justice noted that, under international law, a state is generally free to determine the criteria and conditions for entry, residence and citizenship.

Under Article 1 of the 1930 Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws, the nationality law of a state “shall be recognised by other states in so far as it is consistent with international conventions, international custom and the principles of law generally recognised with regard to nationality”.

The issue of Hong Kong nationality was settled through the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. That included an exchange of memoranda, in which Britain agreed not to extend Hongkongers British citizenship, and a series of British and Chinese legislative acts in preparation for the return of Hong Kong to China’s sovereignty on July 1, 1997.