Fear of retaliation from Beijing spurred Britain to give Hongkongers visa-free access, newly declassified documents show
- British government weighed up possible impact on Brits travelling to Hong Kong after handover had taken place in 1997
Britain decided to grant visa-free access to Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) passport holders after the 1997 handover, partly because it feared not doing sowould spark retaliation from Beijing.
Newly declassified files show the British government was concerned its citizens would end up needing a visa to enter Hong Kong.
The warning was sounded by Home Secretary Michael Howard, and Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, during a cabinet meeting on February 27, 1996.
Howard said if visas were required it would harm confidence in the future of Hong Kong, while Rifkind pointed out that 1.2 billion people around the world already had visa-free access to Britain at the time.
“If a visa requirement had been imposed, it was very likely that the Chinese government would have retaliated by requiring visas of British visitors to Hong Kong, including the half million business visitors each year,” Rifkind is quoted as saying by the minutes of the cabinet meeting.
The two ministers concluded that on balance the better course would be not to require HKSAR passports to obtain visas for entry to Britain, but instead to keep the position under review and be ready to impose a requirement if circumstances demanded.
