Threat to British Rule Seen in Rebuffing Hong Kong Emigres : British Urged to Allow Hong Kong Immigration

A senior adviser to the Hong Kong government warned today of grave consequences if more than 3 million Hong Kong people were denied the right to settle in Britain after the colony reverts to Chinese rule in 1997.

“It would be very difficult for the British administration to run this place (if the) population is resentful of being deprived of the one thing that would give them confidence,” Dame Lydia Dunn, senior member of the Executive Council, which advises Hong Kong’s governor, told a news conference.

Dunn, calling on Britain to fulfill a “moral obligation and a constitutional responsibility” to the people of Hong Kong, said confidence in the territory was severely hurt by the bloody suppression of China’s pro-democracy movement.

“Undoubtedly people’s confidence has taken a huge knock. Without confidence of the people . . . Hong Kong will become vulnerable sooner or later. Sooner I would think.”