Johnson personally offers naturalization to Hong Kong citizens

The Hong Kong people fear for their rights and freedoms. China is planning a security law that will affect its autonomy. The British Prime Minister Johnson offers a way out. Beijing is outraged.

Hong Kong (AP) - In the dispute over China's planned security law for Hong Kong, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised naturalization in Great Britain to a large part of the population of the Chinese special administrative region.

In a personal guest post in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post on Wednesday, Johnson wrote that if China passed the law, Britain would "have no choice" but to make major changes to its immigration law.

China sharply criticized the considerations and threatened "countermeasures": All Hong Kong citizens are Chinese citizens. The British prime minister, on the other hand, argued that the security law would limit the freedoms guaranteed when the British Crown Colony was returned to China in 1997 and undermine autonomy.

"If China goes ahead with this, it would be a direct violation of the Joint Declaration, a legally binding contract registered with the United Nations," Johnson said of the return agreement. It says that the "one country, two systems" principle does not affect the social and economic system in Hong Kong - as does the lifestyle and essential rights and freedoms of Hong Kong's seven million people.

The 350,000 Hong Kong holders of a passport of British citizens abroad (BNO) to whom an additional 2.5 million would be entitled can be cleared the way to naturalization, said Johnson. Instead of the previous six, they could be granted twelve months' stay in Great Britain - with the option of renewal. They were also supposed to get a work permit and extended immigration rights, which brought them to citizenship.

Chinese spokesman Zhao Lijian disagreed with Johnson. In the joint declaration, China made a unilateral political commitment, but made "no commitment" to the UK or internationally. Britain should shed its "Cold War and Colonial Mentality". It must also acknowledge that Hong Kong is now a special administrative region of China and no longer interfere.

Given the protests in Hong Kong that had been going on last summer, the Beijing People's Congress on Thursday approved the plans for the National Security Protection Law and instructed the Parliament's Standing Committee to adopt it. The law bypasses Hong Kong's parliament. It targets activities that Beijing sees as subversive or separatist. It also opposes foreign interference. The pro-democratic forces in Hong Kong fear that they will be targeted.

Johnson in SCMP