The British who are not British and the immigration policies that are not: The case of Hong Kong

While ‘closed-door’ immigration policies are adopted by most countries, ‘exceptionalist’ legislation is often made to permit entry of special immigrant groups. An example is the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990, which was passed in the run-up to the change in sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997. Britain's increasingly restrictive immigration policies prior to 1990 had resulted in the majority of Hong Kong citizens having British nationality (as British Dependent Territories citizens) but without the right of abode in the UK. The 1990 Act conferred full British citizenship status on 50 000 heads of households in Hong Kong. Although there is scope for scepticism concerning the motives of the politicians who produced the legislation, this Act can be seen as effective political manoeuvring. It allowed the UK government to appear responsive to its political obligations to the stability of Hong Kong in the run-up to 1997 whilst avoiding a flood of immigrants from the territory. Exceptionalist legislation like the 1990 Act, however, is inevitably selective and is unlikely to be considered as ‘just’. In a world of marked global inequalities, immigration pressure will become even more extreme and is likely to produce an increasing number of cases of exceptionalist immigration legislation in countries with both ‘open’ and ‘closed’- door policies.