Right of Abode in Hong Kong Granted for Mainland-Born Children
For all its faults, the Hong Kong Catholic Church was pretty cool on this issue. A major issue of status in Hong Kong is that of Hong Kong families with children and spouses born in Mainland China. As a result of the one country, two system policy, (and colonialism .. and British immigration policy to ensure that there would not have been a ‘flood’ of Hong Kong people going to the UK) there are separate citizenship categories for those in the Mainland and those born in Hong Kong. Despite a Hong Kong supreme court ruling that children of Hong Kongers born in the Mainland should be granted Hong Kong citizenship in 1999, the Hong Kong government appealed to Beijing. Beijing ‘reinterpreted’ the law, indicating that the children would not be granted status in Hong Kong. By early 2002, thousands of Mainlanders and over 4,700 children faced deportation to the Mainland. […]