According to the BBC, the Uk announced that the new rules for british national (overseas) passports (BNO passports) will come into force on January 31, allowing holders to apply for a visa to enter the UK and apply for settled status after five years.
In a tit-for-tat confrontation, China announced that it would no longer recognize the validity from January 31, and that holders would not be able to use this passport to pass through China's border crossings.
What exactly is this troublesome BNO passport? How did Britain get into trouble through it?
This has to start before Hong Kong's return to the motherland. Prior to the return of Hong Kong, Hong Kong residents held a British Overseas Territories citizen passport, which was protected by british consular protection elsewhere but still required a visa to enter the UK.
In a familiar term, the holder is equivalent to a british second-class "citizen".
In the movie "Floating City Tycoon" starring Aaron Kwok, borrowing the mouth of British customs officials, there is a wave of pungent irony about this second-class citizen passport.
"Nominally British, but not actually national."
In 1984, China and the United Kingdom signed a joint declaration confirming that Hong Kong would return to the motherland on 1 January 1997. According to the principle of the joint declaration, after the handover, Hong Kong residents will acquire the nationality of the People's Republic of China, and the passport of the second-class "citizen" will automatically expire.
Of course, at this time, Hong Kong had been stolen by the British for 142 years, and there were people from India, Vietnam and other places, and some people wanted to keep their ties with britain, so the British government tailored a new passport for Hong Kong, which was about to return.
This kind of passport is the BNO passport that is causing trouble today, the full name is British National Overseas, British National (Overseas). According to the official website of the British government, the passport holder can obtain British consular protection overseas, and go to some British overseas territories can also be visa-free, but entry into the United Kingdom can only be visa-free for half a year, more than still need to apply.
In addition, the official website of the British government particularly emphasizes that the passport holder does not automatically have the right to live or work in the United Kingdom, nor is it recognized by the European Union.
Objectively, this can indeed prevent Hong Kong residents from having statelessness problems, and can also make it more convenient for Hong Kong residents to travel. Therefore, perhaps for the convenience of Hong Kong residents, the Chinese government did not block the road during the negotiations on the return of Hong Kong, and the two sides exchanged memorandums in this regard, and the British side clearly promised not to grant Hong Kong Chinese citizens holding BNO passports the right of abode in the UK, and the Chinese government did not recognize them as travel documents. It is useless to take this passport to the mainland of the motherland, and do not think about applying for British consular protection on the mainland of the motherland.
In other words, Hong Kong people with BNO passports are still Chinese citizens rather than British citizens, which cannot be left out in black and white. In fact, there is a line on the BNO passport indicating that the passport holder has the Identity Card of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, and the number is how much and how much.
From 1 July 1987, BNO passports were open to Hong Kong residents and were no longer accepted from 1 July 1997. This was the end of the matter, and this passport was originally a transitional arrangement of a generation, and it would slowly disappear into history. But in 2019, when the chaotic Hong Kong storm supported by Western forces came, some people in the Uk began to take advantage of this trouble.
On 22 July, the UK government announced new visa rules, announcing that from 2021 onwards, Hong Kong people with BNO passports can apply for special visas to stay in the UK and can also bring immediate family members, including children born after 1 July 1997. In October, the British side also stated that from January 30, 2021, the channel will be opened, and BNO passport holders will be allowed to apply for a British visa through special channels, and they can also apply for permanent residence after five years of residence. This is actually a violation of the Memorandum of Understanding between China and the United Kingdom, so China said at the time that it might consider not recognizing the validity of the passport, and now it is doing so.
So in Today's Hong Kong, this BNO passport is a piece of waste paper.
It should be pointed out in particular that the leaders of the Hong Kong rioters, Joshua Wong, Law Guancong, Chow Ting, and others, all born before 1997, also hold the passport; among their supporters, many of them also have parents who hold the passport, and according to this new regulation, they may be able to follow them to the UK. The British government did this, in a sense, to provide them with a sense of a way back, and it is a support for the Hong Kong rioters.
I can ask for this god map again
But Hong Kong rioters should not dream that this road will not work even before China declares the passport invalid. On August 7, 2020, according to the British "Daily Mail", after the New Regulations on BNO passports were introduced in the United Kingdom, two Hong Kong people holding BNO passports tried to enter the United Kingdom, but were rejected by border inspection. The British did not say why they rejected the two men, only mentioning that the first person said that when he returned to Hong Kong, he would be considered "disloyal" and even arrested; the second said that his grandfather was a Kuomintang agent in Hong Kong, and he sent the documents left by his grandfather to foreign intelligence services.
Those who oppose the motherland are not welcome anywhere.
Written by: Zhang Zhouxiang
Source: China Daily's "Worldview" WeChat public account