The Prime Minister has said the introduction of the new security law in Hong Kong is a “clear and serious breach of the Sino-British joint declaration” and confirmed he will introduce a new route for locals with British National (Overseas) status to enter the UK.
Boris Johnson told MPs the law which came into force overnight “violates Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and is in direct conflict with Hong Kong’s basic law”.
It also “threatens freedoms and rights” of those who live there, he adds.
As a result the Government will introduce the new route for those with BNO status, giving those who qualify the “ability to live and work in UK and thereafter apply for citizenship”.
Get the latest headlines: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/01/air-bridges-announcement-boris-johnson-speech-pmqs/?WT.mc_id=tmg_youtube_offsite_televideo-youtubevideo&utm_source=tmgoff&utm_medium=tmg_youtube&utm_content=offsite_televideo&utm_campaign=tmg_youtube_offsite_televideo-youtubevideo
Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Telegraph, the UK’s best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.
In This Story: Hong Kong
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR), is a metropolitan area and special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta of the South China Sea. With over 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War in 1842. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. The whole territory was transferred to China in 1997. As a special administrative region, Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of “one country, two systems”.