The Ministry of Defence is supervising the removal by ship of 50,000 confidential files containing details of Hong Kong residents who hold full British passports.
Fears of a backlash against successful applicants under the British Nationality Selection Scheme prompted the decision not to leave the files in the Hong Kong Immigration Department after the handover next year.
'No file will remain in Hong Kong after 1997,' a Government official said yesterday.
The first batch, containing more than 10,000 applications, was returned to an undisclosed location in Britain last month. Two more shipments will be made in October and May.
The operation is shrouded in secrecy. The Security Branch will not disclose whether the files were carried aboard a Royal Navy ship or were placed in a container on a commercial vessel.
The official said the Ministry of Defence 'supervised the shipment of files', but refused to give details.
A deployment of Royal Navy ships will be in the Hong Kong region prior to the return to Chinese sovereignty next year, and some of them will be used to vacate the remnants of the British military presence in the territory.
