FOREIGN passport holders are being warned that just having a non-Chinese passport may not be enough for them to be recognised as a foreign national and get full consular protection after 1997.
Hong Kong people who hold Canadian passports are being told that whether they are treated as Chinese nationals after the change to Chinese sovereignty revolved around the question 'Where is your home?'.
And government officials warn that the price of a home in Canada, and consular protection, will be worldwide taxation at Canada's high tax rates.
An article to be published in the July/August edition of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce magazine, Canada Hong Kong Business, comments on the importance of establishing an overseas domicile as opposed to 'just having a foreign passport'.
'Chinese nationals who have acquired a foreign passport while living in Hong Kong will have problems simply because that other nationality will not be recognised,' the article said.
Hong Kong University constitutional law expert Dr Nihal Jayawickrama told the chamber publication that ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong would automatically become Chinese nationals at midnight on June 30, 1997.
'Basically, the position is that if a Hong Kong Chinese person has acquired foreign nationality and been physically domiciled abroad, he might have lost Chinese nationality . . . it's a question of fact for the authorities to determine,' Dr Jayawickrama said.
