Many Hong Kong citizens have a British passport, but now some are demanding full British citizenship in the wake of months of protests against actions taken by the Chinese government.
“We’re too British to be Chinese,” Eric Cheung, a British National Overseas, told the Wall Street Journal on Friday. “We share the same ideology with the U.K. We support democracy, we support freedom, we support the rule of law and of course we support the U.K. government.”
“Boris Johnson, fight for us,” Cheung pleaded.
Over 90,000 people have petitioned the British government to give those in Hong Kong full British citizenship. The number is enough to require a government response and just 10,000 signatures short to be put forward for debate before parliament.
In 1997 when the British handed Hong Kong over to the control of China, they allowed three million of the city’s residents to retain a British passport and are considered British Nationals Overseas. The right allows these Hong Kong British Nationals to travel without a visa to the U.K. but they do not have the full rights of citizenship.
Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons, has backed citizenship for British Nationals. Johnson, the prime minister of the U.K., said he supports the people of Hong Kong and will “back them every inch of the way.”
Hundreds of British Nationals convened Sunday outside of the British consulate in Hong Kong demanding citizenship, waving British flags, and shouting “God Save the Queen!”
#HongKongers are outside the #British Consulate shouting ‘God Save the Queen’ and holding up their British National Overseas passports.
Such a stark contrast to the pro status quo & anti democratic scenes we saw in #London yesterday. #antielab #HongKong #StopTheCoup #Brexit pic.twitter.com/MZltzXN6dN
— Robert John T (@rj_tasker) September 1, 2019
Hong Kong experienced a whole summer of pro-democracy protests which featured ruthless retaliation by police seeking to quell dissent. China, which is responsible for oversight of semi-independent city, has said the protests should be treated like terrorism and in recent weeks Hong Kong police have begun to tow the party line.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam withdrew an extradition bill this week which had been the original spark for the protests. Lam admitted in audio published Monday that she would have resigned already if given a choice and that her actions which failed to stop protests from escalating were “unforgivable.”
