Britain to Grant Citizenship to Colony’s Elite : Hong Kong: London’s plan applies to fewer than 4% of the residents. The ‘strictly limited’ program comes under immediate attack in Commons.

In an admitted compromise between the lingering responsibilities of a lost empire and the danger of ethnic unrest at home, the British government announced Wednesday that it will grant full citizenship to fewer than 4% of Hong Kong’s 5.7 million residents before the colony reverts to Chinese rule in 1997.

The “strictly limited” program will extend to a maximum of 50,000 civil servants, professional and business people whose service is determined under a points system to be particularly valuable to Hong Kong, Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said in a long-awaited statement to an angrily divided House of Commons.

Including dependents, Hurd added, it means that an estimated 225,000 Hong Kong residents would gain the right of British residence as a “safety net” against the uncertainty of 1997’s scheduled transfer of power.

The plan came under immediate attack from both the opposition Labor Party and Hurd’s fellow Conservative Party members.

Gerald Kaufman, Labor’s foreign affairs spokesman, charged that the government’s approach “is not simply elitist and discriminatory, but . . . in our view wrong in principle.”

But Kaufman did not spell out what Labor would do instead, and the party has never been specific on the issue either.

Even more bitter criticism, however, came in an attack by former Conservative Party chairman and ex-Cabinet minister Norman Tebbit, who told Hurd that “I disagreed with almost everything you said.”

Tebbit represents a group of rebel Conservatives who see the government’s plan as a violation of party pledges that there would be no more large-scale immigration into Britain.

While they have sharply different reasons for opposing the government plan, there is a real prospect that Labor and the rebel Tories might successfully block government legislation to implement the Hong Kong scheme, thus handing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher an embarrassing legislative defeat.

Hurd stressed that the government’s purpose is “not to encourage immigration into this country, but to persuade to remain in Hong Kong those whom we need to retain there if our last substantial colony is to pass successfully through the final eight years of British rule.”

The foreign secretary described the mood in the colony as “at a low ebb” after the massacre of a pro-democracy demonstrator in Beijing last June and resulting fears over the scheduled transfer of control of Hong Kong under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.

“The problem of confidence is shown by increasing emigration from the territory, and increasing numbers of people who contemplate leaving,” Hurd said. He said 42,000 people have left Hong Kong this year and 55,000 more are expected to follow in 1990.

“A growing proportion of these people are those whom Hong Kong can least afford to lose,” Hurd said. “This hemorrhage of talent puts at risk the competitiveness of Hong Kong’s economy, the efficiency of its public service, the effectiveness of its education system--in short, its future.”

The Thatcher government is gambling that many of those who might otherwise leave Hong Kong would not do so if assured that after the Chinese take over, they would have the protection of British citizenship.

About 3.2 million of Hong Kong’s 5.7 million residents already hold either British Dependent Territories Citizen or British National Overseas passports. But neither document carries with it the right to live or work in Britain.

Some argue that Britain owes full citizenship to all Hong Kong’s residents. But Hurd said such a step would “create unacceptable strains here.”

Fewer than 5% of Britain’s 56 million citizens belong to ethnic minorities, most of them Afro-Caribbeans and Asians. Still, an influential committee of Parliament members said in a separate report issued Wednesday that “racism and its most ugly manifestations--racial attacks and harassment--are still frightening realities for many British citizens.”

In an apparent concession to the Tory rebels, Hurd stressed that not all 50,000 “assurances” would be distributed immediately. He also promised that “the scheme would cease by 1997.”

Said the foreign secretary: “We have eventually worked out what we believe to be the most sensible balance between our desire for good race relations and harmony in our cities and our very strong feeling that we have a continuing sense of responsibility to people in Hong Kong.”

Addressing Tebbit, he added: “This is the last main chapter in the story of this country’s empire. I am rather keen, and I’m sure you are rather keen, that the last chapter should not end in a shabby way.”

In addition to their importance to Hong Kong and the extent to which people in the same category of employment are emigrating, Hurd said, the 50,000 heads of household covered under the plan will be selected according to length of service and knowledge of the English language.

The government will introduce enabling legislation “at the earliest opportunity,” he promised.

Hurd also stressed that all Hong Kong’s major trading partners have a strong interest in the colony’s continued stability. Now that Britain has taken the lead in providing assurances to Hong Kong residents, he noted, “we shall now be asking our partners and allies to follow.”

In Hong Kong, the British news service Reuters reported, the proposal was described as inadequate and potentially divisive. Legislators and lobbying groups pledged to fight on for the rights of all 3.25 million British subjects in the colony.

“The number falls far short of our request. We remain committed to pressing the case for all Hong Kong British subjects,” Legislative Councilor Rosanna Tam said.

British Citizens for Hong Kong, a group of about 800 expatriate Britons living in the colony, denounced the package, calling it “a divisive and dishonorable gesture of dismissal” by Britain.