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HONG KONG — British High Minister Boris Johnson stated Wednesday that the UK stands prepared to begin the door to nearly 3 million Hong Kong citizens as the city’s chief arrived in Beijing for meetings on a deliberate nationwide security law that has many shy about their futures.
Johnson, in a column revealed on-line by a Hong Kong newspaper, stated the safety law would curtail freedoms in Hong Kong and warfare with China’s obligations below its settlement with the UK to receive serve the passe British colony in 1997.
“Many folks in Hong Kong trouble their formulation of life – which China pledged to uphold – is below likelihood,” he wrote within the South China Morning Post. “If China proceeds to define their fears, then Britain may perhaps now now not in apt judgment of appropriate and wrong shrug our shoulders and trot away.”
China vexed many of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million folks when it announced earlier this month that it will enact nationwide security laws for the city, which is assured a excessive stage of autonomy outdoor of foreign and defense affairs.
Hong Kong chief Carrie Lam, a supporter of the cross, arrived in Beijing on Wednesday morning for meetings with central executive officials on the deliberate laws. China may perhaps enact the laws later this month or on the dwell of August, analysts have stated.
About 350,000 Hong Kong citizens take care of British Nationwide Overseas passports, a legacy of the colonial generation, and a pair of.5 million others are eligible to exercise for them, Johnson stated in his column. Lengthy lines have formed at DHL courier offices within the city for the explanation that announcement as some folks bustle to exercise for or renew their BNO passports.
Johnson, echoing earlier statements by Cabinet minsters, stated that if China imposes a nationwide security law, Britain would allow holders of those passports to dwell for 12 months on a renewable basis and given the factual to work, placing them on a that you may perhaps deem path to UK citizenship.
“This may amount to one amongst the perfect adjustments in our visa machine in British ancient past,” he wrote, along with, “I hope this may well perhaps now now not attain to this.”
BNO passport holders on the 2nd can take care of for below as a lot as six months.
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