The UK is granting the most special travel documents to Hong Kong residents since the 1997 handover, bolstering predictions of a mass exodus as China tightens its grip over the former British colony.
British National (Overseas) passports have been granted to 216,398 Hong Kong residents in the first 10 months of this year, higher than any annual figure stretching back to 1997, according to data provided by the UK’s Passport Office.
In October alone, the office issued 59,798 Hong Kongers with the document, 52 percent higher than the same period last year and the highest monthly figure since the British Passport Office began readily compiling them in 2015.
That translates to more than five every minute, based on an average eight-hour working day.
The numbers, which also include renewals, provide the latest glimpse of the departures Hong Kong faces as this year’s sudden enactment of a new National Security Law — in response to anti-Beijing protests last year — raised concerns about dwindling freedoms in the territory.
The monthly numbers began spiking in July, when the UK upgraded the status of British National (Overseas) passport holders. They can now stay in Britain for five years and have an easier path toward UK citizenship.
China has criticized the UK’s move to invite more Hong Kong residents as an inappropriate interference in the country’s domestic affairs.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in July said that the country might not recognize the passports as valid travel documents, although that would likely have little practical significance for Hong Kong residents, who usually enter and exit the territory using their local identity cards.
Meanwhile, real-estate agents in London have been seeing a surge in interest from Hong Kong, with inquiries up almost 80 percent this year for some agencies.
There are an estimated 2.9 million Hong Kongers eligible for the passports and as many as 2.3 million of their dependents, according to a UK government study.
Of those eligible, the UK estimates that as many as 322,000 would move to the kingdom through 2025.
The identity document is a product of the British colonial era that ended in 1997. It was made to recognize Hong Kong residents of the time as overseas British nationals, but only gave holders the right to visit the UK for six months.
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