LONDON (Reuters) – Nearly 5,000 Hong Kong citizens have applied to live, work and study in the UK under a new visa scheme that opens the way for British citizenship for people fleeing China’s repression in the former colony, it said. the Times newspaper.
London made changes to its visa rules to give millions of Hong Kong residents a chance to settle in Britain after China imposed a new security law that, according to democracy activists, will end the freedoms promised to the territory in 1997.
According to the rules, Hong Kong residents who hold a British National Overseas (BNO) passport will be allowed to live in the UK for five years and then apply for “regular status” and citizenship.
About half of the 5,000 requests received were from Hong Kong citizens who were already in Britain, the Times reported, citing unidentified sources.
About 5.4 million Hong Kong residents could qualify for British citizenship under the scheme.
These people had already received an offer of temporary settlement in the UK after fleeing China’s security crackdown while waiting for a visa change.
Britain’s Interior Ministry declined to comment on the leaked information. A spokeswoman said the data will be published in the coming months.
Britain and China have been arguing for months about what London and Washington say is an attempt to silence dissent in Hong Kong after the pro-democracy protests in 2019 and 2020.
The British flag was lowered over Hong Kong when the colony was returned to China in 1997, after more than 150 years of British rule – imposed after Britain defeated China in the First Opium War.
Hong Kong’s autonomy was guaranteed by the “one country, two systems” agreement enshrined in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed by then Chinese Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
China says Britain’s views on Hong Kong are overshadowed by an imperial hangover and that the territory needs national security law to contain harmful unrest.
China and Hong Kong said they will no longer recognize the BNO passport as a valid travel document as of January 31. BNO status was created by Great Britain in 1987 specifically for Hong Kong residents.
The British government predicted that the new visa could attract more than 300,000 people and their dependents to Britain. Beijing said it would make them second-class citizens.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Angus MacSwan)