More Hong Kong expats seeking Chinese citizenship, minorities left out in the cold

Whether it's because of a sense of belonging, just expediency or both, a swelling group of expatriates here find the prospect of becoming a Chinese national increasingly attractive - not least because citizenship is a prerequisite for obtaining a Hong Kong SAR passport and a home return permit for easy entry to the mainland.

Immigration Department figures show that following the city's handover to Chinese sovereignty, 15,518 people have applied to become Chinese nationals, 12,658 of whom succeeded.

There have been some high-profile naturalisations, among them Michael Rowse, the former director general of InvestHK. Rowse took up Chinese nationality in 2001 in order to remain in the civil service after 1997 - the first non-Chinese civil servant to do so. Allan Zeman, chairman of the Lan Kwai Fong Group, also gave up Canadian citizenship, and district councillor Paul Zimmerman, originally from the Netherlands, gave up his.

"In the immediate years after 1997, nobody wanted [Chinese nationality] … Now everyone who doesn't have it wants it," says immigration consultant Richard Aziz Butt.

The wealth of mainland business interests is a major reason for the appeal of Chinese nationality, Butt says, along with general confidence in the political outlook of the region. "If you want to do business, easy access is essential, and people are gradually realising the 'one country, two systems' is very stable."

The convenience of a HKSAR passport, which offers visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 150 countries, is also a factor, Butt says.

Annual applications for naturalisation more than doubled from 702 in 2003 to 1,342 in 2004 and have not dipped below 1,200 since then, peaking at 1,840 in 2006.