British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to provide a path to British citizenship for potentially millions of Hong Kongers, as China prepares to impose a draconian new national security law on the city.
That law, Johnson said in an op-ed published in the South China Morning Post Wednesday, “would curtail (Hong Kong’s) freedoms and dramatically erode its autonomy,” contravening the Sino-British Joint Declaration which laid the groundwork for the city’s handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Should it come to pass, the United Kingdom will “uphold our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong,” by changing immigration laws to allow more Hong Kongers to settle and work in the country.