Britain’s tentative offer to give some three million Hongkongers British citizenship in response to the dangers posed by the new national security legislation has drawn predictable criticism from members of Hong Kong’s elite – the very people who themselves have access to foreign citizenship.
Clearly, these hypocrites are convinced that “ordinary” people should not be allowed to share what might be described as an “insurance” against risks posed by the increasing erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy.

When it comes to hypocrisy, let’s start counting from the very top. The Chief Executive Carrie Lam was once a British citizen before she relinquished her passport in order to gain high office in the HKSAR. However, her husband and two sons retain British nationality, giving her a fast route to acquiring a British passport should she need it. Tung Chee-hwa, the super patriot who served as Hong Kong’s first Chief Executive, made sure that all his children acquired US citizenship. The second Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, clung on to his British citizenship right up to the Handover because he was desperate to be awarded a knighthood that could only be bestowed on British citizens. Meanwhile, the hapless Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng has an easy route to Canadian citizenship through her husband who became a citizen in 1992. There is a very long list of political bigwigs and tycoons who lecture Hong Kong people on the need for more patriotism while having an escape route to foreign countries.

It is hard to imagine in any other places in the world where the ruling class, with very few exceptions, is equipped with elaborate escape routes in case things go wrong. It is true however that many of the world’s most ghastly dictators have scrambled to obtain overseas residency when it became clear that their regimes were about to collapse but most of them were sufficiently self-confident not to have bothered with contingency plans of this kind while they were at the height of their powers.

In Hong Kong however the hypocrites who wave the five-starred flag of the People’s Republic of China with determined enthusiasm, are not waiting for the regime collapse but are sufficiently insecure about its survival prospects, insecure enough to busy themselves in devising escape routes that can be activated at short notice. And it is not just a matter of acquiring overseas passports, they are also avid in acquiring overseas properties, overseas bank accounts and all manner of off-shore investments that will ensure that they can continue to live in style if they need to get out of Hong Kong.

Ordinary Hongkongers however do not have the privileges of funds overseas or foreign passports tucked in their back pockets. And, as we have seen, literally millions of them are determined to stay here and fight to retain the HKSAR’s tattered autonomy and preserve its freedoms. They are passionate about Hong Kong.

This is more that can be said of Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong’s third Chief Executive, who infamously could not even bring himself to offer full support for Hong Kong’s football team when it faced the Chinese national team in the FIFA World Cup qualifier back in 2015. He lamely said he would be supporting both teams.

One of the things that annoys Hong Kong’s masters in Beijing the most is that people here actually support their own football team and do so proudly. Indeed, a major reason for the new (and slightly bizarre) national anthem law arose from the perhaps excessive enthusiasm of the Hong Kong football team supporters who made a point of disrespecting the March of the Volunteers.

It remains far from clear whether Britain will actually end up honouring its pledge on citizenship, but if it does so, it should give a great many people the confidence to stay in Hong Kong, safe in the knowledge that they have an exit route if needed. Emigration is not going to be most people’s first choice but a great many will value this kind of insurance policy while remaining and fighting to create a Hong Kong that they will never want to leave.

Britain’s offer of citizenship has the potential to level the playing field between the elite and the rest. No wonder members of the elite are so alarmed.

(Stephen Vines is a Hong Kong-based journalist, writer and broadcaster and runs companies in the food sector. He was the founding editor of 'Eastern Express' and founding publisher of 'Spike'. In London he was an editor at The Observer and in Asia has worked for international publications including, the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, BBC, Asia Times and The Independent and, during Hong Kong’s 2019/20 protests, for the Sunday Times. Vines is the author of several books, including: Hong Kong: China’s New Colony, The Years of Living Dangerously - Asia from Crisis to the New Millennium and Market Panic and most recently, Food Gurus. He hosts a weekly television current affairs programme: The Pulse")

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