An immigration officer in a major European airport stared at a Hong Kong traveller's British National (Overseas) passport in a perplexed manner last week. Evidently knowing nothing of the 'one country, two systems' concept, or the special agreements concerning travel arrangements for local residents, he found it difficult to believe that a British-issued travel document could still be valid now that Hong Kong had reverted to Chinese rule.
It did not matter that the passport already contained a visa for the European country to which the traveller was seeking entry. The immigration officer's concern was how a BNO passport could be of any use in repatriating a Hong Konger who overstayed his visa.
'Does it allow us to send you back to Britain?,' he asked the traveller. The answer was, of course, no. Since London has chosen to deprive Hong Kong's 3.2 million BNO holders of the right of abode, such passports clearly cannot confer any automatic right of entry into Britain.
The baffled immigration officer summoned his superior, who continued the questioning. 'Does this passport give us the right to send you back to Hong Kong?,' he asked.
Again, the answer was no. Clearly no British passport can confer any residency rights in what is now part of China. Instead, all that the BNO document does is give the number of the holder's Hong Kong permanent identity card.
It is this card, and not the passport, that is proof of right of abode in the SAR.
But it is too much to expect frontier control officials in Europe, or elsewhere, to understand such a convoluted arrangement: they are accustomed to dealing with passports which do confer a right of abode in their country of issue.