Hong Kongers with dual nationality are not entitled to foreign consular assistance, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said yesterday, confirming warnings by Western diplomats that authorities have begun strictly enforcing Chinese nationality regulations in the territory.
Global Affairs Canada last week announced that a dual-national in prison in Hong Kong was required to make a declaration choosing a single nationality.
The revelation sent diplomats from Britain, Canada and the US scrambling given the potential implications for hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers in the territory with dual nationality — and those who travel there for business and tourism.
Photo: Bloomberg
Lam confirmed that while residents could own multiple passports, dual nationality is not recognized in Hong Kong under China’s nationality law.
“That [law] has a very specific provision that where people [who] have foreign nationality or right of abode elsewhere ... are regarded as Chinese nationals in Hong Kong,” Lam told reporters. “So likewise they will not be eligible for consular protection, including consular visits,” she said, unless they have received permission to renounce their Chinese nationality
Beijing’s top-lawmaking body set the rules for implementing nationality in Hong Kong back in 1996 — the year before Hong Kong’s handover by the UK. As a result, Hong Kong officials have described the move to reject consular assistance for dual nationals as nothing new.
Photo: AFP
However, Western diplomats say there has been a concrete policy change, because they had previously had no problem visiting dual nationals in custody.
No Hong Kong official, including Lam, has publicly addressed whether any order has been made to more strictly enforce nationality rules.
Separately, Hong Kong’s top court yesterday ordered media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英) to stay behind bars as it sided with prosecutors in the first legal test of Beijing’s sweeping National Security Law.
The Court of Final Appeal unanimously decided to keep Lai in custody, while laying out strict standards for him and other defendants to seek bail under national security legislation enacted last year.
The top court had already sent the Next Digital Ltd (壹傳媒) founder back to jail on Dec. 31 to give judges time to consider the case after the government challenged a lower court’s decision to release him into house arrest.
Lai intends to appeal to a lower court for bail, the Apple Daily reported, citing his lawyer.
Mark Simon, a long-time aide to Lai, said the legal team was currently studying the “disappointing” judgement.
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