Many prominent Hong Kong Chinese hold foreign passports and many non-ethnic Chinese have become mainstays of the local community.
Beijing recognised their contribution to Hong Kong during British rule and that is why the Basic Law, promulgated in 1990, has a provision sanctioning the right of Hong Kong permanent residents with right of abode elsewhere to sit in the Special Administrative Region legislature.
In the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, when Hong Kong was suffering a brain drain, the pragmatic approach of the Basic Law's drafters was greatly appreciated, but Hong Kong officials knew even then that enforcing the nationality requirement could prove a nightmare.
There is no precedent, and hardly any guidance, because this is so unusual an arrangement: where else in the world would people find a legislature opening up its parliamentary seats for foreigners to contest? Hong Kong's electoral mix is already complicated enough. Apart from the 20 seats designated for direct district elections, there are 30 to be returned by functional constituencies and 10 by an 800-member election committee.
The basis for forming the electorate at each type of poll is very different and the number of voters also differs greatly from constituency to constituency. With such a complex structure, how can foreign-passport holders fairly be allocated to one seat or another? The Basic Law provides only a very general principle. Article 67 says that permanent residents of the SAR 'who are not of Chinese nationality or who have the right of abode in foreign countries may also be elected members of the Legislative Council of the region, provided that the proportion of such members does not exceed 20 per cent of the total membership of the council'.
Inevitably, the SAR Government is left to map out the details. The crux of the problem is the problem of how the Government is to provide a mechanism ensuring that no more than 12 of the 60 Legco seats go to foreigners.