From British Nationality to Political Resistance: BN(O) Status and the Vision for a Hong Kong Crown Dependency

Wong, Ka Hang

From British Nationality to Political Resistance: BN(O) Status and the Vision for a Hong Kong Crown Dependency

Wong, Ka Hang

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Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2026

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Wong, Ka Hang
dc.date.accessioned	2026-06-23T05:02:04Z
dc.date.available	2026-06-23T05:02:04Z
dc.date.issued	2026
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/195450
dc.description	University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.description.abstract	On June 30, 2020, the Chinese government imposed the National Security Law in Hong Kong following prolonged protests. The Chinese imposition violated the agreements on freedoms and autonomy stated in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. To redress this violation, the British government has offered British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) passport holders of Hong Kong a bespoke visa route to British citizenship. The purpose of this study was to provide a historical analysis of BN(O) status and how it evolved from being a token of British nationality into a tool of political resistance against a totalitarian party-state’s assault on Hong Kong. Through examination of the documents, the study discovered that under the British Nationality Act 1981 (UK), the British government took a racial demarcation policy and divided British nationality into classes to prevent mass emigration to the United Kingdom. The study found BN(O) status was regarded as a political compromise. On the one hand, it offered its holders some kind of connection with the United Kingdom beyond the handover; on the other, it reflected the British domestic pressures of an imagined “White Britain” community. Britain sees China’s violation of the Joint Declaration as just cause for retracting its 1984 agreement to hand over its people to the totalitarian party-state in 1997. This retraction is achieved by extending the rights of BN(O)s and opening the door to them to live in Britain from January 31, 2021. The study finds that the BN(O) offer serves two distinct purposes. First, the offer attracts capital and talent in the post-Brexit era while minimising public expenditure due to the “no recourse to public funds” clause of the visa. Second, the BN(O) scheme is a delayed fulfilment of British responsibility towards Hongkongers. Drawing parallels with Tibetan history, this thesis suggests that the British government could address its unfulfilled promise of universal suffrage for Hongkongers by supporting a government-in-exile and granting land as a self-governing Crown Dependency. It draws synergy between contemporary discussions on a new Hong Kong and the concept of a global representative platform for Hongkongers to make the argument.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US.UTF-8
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/195450/1/thesis.pdf
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	© 2026 Ka Hang Wong
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/cph
dc.title	From British Nationality to Political Resistance: BN(O) Status and the Vision for a Hong Kong Crown Dependency	en_US.UTF-8
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*

Abstract:

On June 30, 2020, the Chinese government imposed the National Security Law in Hong Kong following prolonged protests. The Chinese imposition violated the agreements on freedoms and autonomy stated in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. To redress this violation, the British government has offered British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) passport holders of Hong Kong a bespoke visa route to British citizenship. The purpose of this study was to provide a historical analysis of BN(O) status and how it evolved from being a token of British nationality into a tool of political resistance against a totalitarian party-state’s assault on Hong Kong. Through examination of the documents, the study discovered that under the British Nationality Act 1981 (UK), the British government took a racial demarcation policy and divided British nationality into classes to prevent mass emigration to the United Kingdom. The study found BN(O) status was regarded as a political compromise. On the one hand, it offered its holders some kind of connection with the United Kingdom beyond the handover; on the other, it reflected the British domestic pressures of an imagined “White Britain” community. Britain sees China’s violation of the Joint Declaration as just cause for retracting its 1984 agreement to hand over its people to the totalitarian party-state in 1997. This retraction is achieved by extending the rights of BN(O)s and opening the door to them to live in Britain from January 31, 2021. The study finds that the BN(O) offer serves two distinct purposes. First, the offer attracts capital and talent in the post-Brexit era while minimising public expenditure due to the “no recourse to public funds” clause of the visa. Second, the BN(O) scheme is a delayed fulfilment of British responsibility towards Hongkongers. Drawing parallels with Tibetan history, this thesis suggests that the British government could address its unfulfilled promise of universal suffrage for Hongkongers by supporting a government-in-exile and granting land as a self-governing Crown Dependency. It draws synergy between contemporary discussions on a new Hong Kong and the concept of a global representative platform for Hongkongers to make the argument.

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