I'm alive because of immigration from Hong Kong – but the UK needs to do much more than issue passports

There are some seven million people in Hong Kong today. Even if the UK followed through on its promise to give residence rights to those with British Nationals Overseas status, emigration is unlikely to be a practical escape door

If, 178 years ago, grasping British imperialists had not bullied a decrepit Chinese empire into giving up a “barren rock” in the South China Sea I probably wouldn’t be writing these words today.

My father came to the UK from Hong Kong in 1960 when he was nine years old. He met my mother in the north of England and they started a family, which is where my own story starts.

Dad was able to come here because Hong Kong was a British colony and its inhabitants had the right, at that point in history, to live and work anywhere in the commonwealth – including the imperial mother country.

So the subject of Hong Kong immigration to the UK is a central part of my family’s history – and very close to home.

Yet I confess to mixed feelings about the government’s suggestion that – in response to Beijing’s rough riding over the post-1997 Hong Kong handover agreement – it might offer “a path to citizenship” for up to three million Hong Kong Chinese. The impression that the UK is honourably and generously looking after its former colonial subjects is hard to swallow given the rather shameful historical record.

Tough UK immigration restrictions were imposed on the Hong Kong Chinese shortly after my father arrived in 1960, when the territory was still a full colony. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, introduced by the Conservatives, made it clear that not all British subjects were equal when it came to residence rights. Labour initially condemned the Act, but quite soon changed its mind and introduced further commonwealth immigration controls itself when in government.

Further shabby treatment was to come. In the decade leading up to the handover of Hong Kong to China, there were calls for full UK residence rights to be given to the Hong Kong Chinese.

But in 1989 Margaret Thatcher, under pressure from the right wing of the Conservative Party, refused to grant it. Indeed the former Conservative party chairman, Norman Tebbit, attacked government proposals to give just 50,000 Hong Kong Chinese and their families UK residence rights, charmingly asserting that Britain risked being “swamped by people of different culture, history and religion”.

The British National Overseas (BNO) status that was ultimately granted to any Hong Kong Chinese who registered for it before 1997 was a poor substitute for full citizenship since it came with no UK right of abode.

So this carrot of residency from Her Majesty’s government is being dangled rather late in the day for the Hong Kong Chinese.

Nevertheless, it would be churlish not to welcome the suggestion that the BNO status (350,000 currently have the documents but 2.9 million are estimated to be able to claim them) might now be upgraded, especially as this is one of the asks of London from pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong.

Yet it’s important to recognise the limitations of this strategy, either as a way of putting pressure on Beijing to respect Hong Kong’s constitution or of safeguarding the freedoms of its population.

There are some seven million people in Hong Kong today. For the vast majority of them, even if the UK followed through on its BNO upgrade promise, emigration is unlikely to be a practical escape door. Many of the pro-democracy protestors in the streets last year were born after 1997 and are thus too young to be eligible.

The situation in Hong Kong could scarcely be any bleaker. The authoritarian regime in Beijing is increasingly repressive internally and assertive towards Hong Kong, as shown by the new national security law. The Trump White House is erratic in relations to China and now a grossly unreliable UK ally.

Some desperate Hong Kong youngsters have turned to nihilistic violence, seeming to almost invite repression from Beijing. And, now outside the European Union, Britain’s global diplomatic clout is diminished.

Yet, bleak as the outlook is, it would be a betrayal for Britain to give up on preserving the freedoms of Hong Kong which it negotiated in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.

The best hope is probably a combination of diplomatic robustness towards Beijing and appeals to the regime’s economic self-interest.

A great deal of money and investment flows in and out of mainland China via Hong Kong. If Hong Kong were to lose its status in the eyes of investors as a territory governed by the rule of law, that would hurt the Chinese economy and the financial interests of those in the communist regime.

All may not be lost. Beijing did show more restraint than expected in the face of violent protest in Hong Kong last year. That suggests there is some recognition among the higher levels of the communist party that Hong Kong, in its current status as a separate economic and legal “system” from the mainland, has value.

It may be that this isn’t enough and the Hong Kong, as we know it, really is dying before our eyes. The mood among my family and friends on the ground is one of growing fatalism.

Yet that future is not set in stone. And the UK government has a profound historic responsibility to the people of Hong Kong – a responsibility never to give up on them.

Ben Chu is the author of ‘Chinese Whispers: Why Everything You’ve Heard About China is Wrong’