Britain rejected the authority of the Hong Kong government
to determine the validity of special passports offered to Hong Kong residents,
a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office said on Friday.
China and the pro-Beijing Hong Kong government on Thursday told
14 countries to stop accepting the British National (Overseas) passports (BNO)
that have been made available to residents of Hong Kong in line with the 1997
handover agreement.
"The Hong Kong government has no authority to dictate
which passports foreign governments recognize as valid," the British
Foreign Office said. "The UK will continue to issue British Nationals
(Overseas) passports which remain valid travel documents."
UK and China in tit-for-tat
The spat over passports is the most recent in a back-and-forth
row between China and the UK.
Britain upgraded the rights associated with BNO passports
from simple traveling privileges to a gateway to British citizenship after
Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the island last year.
In response, both Beijing and Hong Kong said they would no
longer accept the BNO as a valid travel document.
Thursday's request to other countries to stop accepting BNO
passports follows a series of sanctions imposed by the UK, EU, US and Canada
against China over its treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority.
A diplomat in Hong Kong told AFP that the request to
invalidate BNO passports abroad was unlikely to be successful as the government
had no way to enforce it.
While Hong Kong residents may no longer enter China with
their BNO passports, most also have Hong Kong passports which they can use to
leave Hong Kong.
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