When many mainlanders face many problems in Hong Kong, their first reaction may be, aren’t Hong Kong people Chinese? This is a natural reaction. Many people take it for granted that Hong Kong people are Chinese.
In fact, in general, Hong Kong people now have permanent resident status in the HKSAR. Moreover, there are too many people with multiple nationalities in Hong Kong, and the mainland of China does not recognize dual nationality. Jurisprudentially speaking, these people are not Chinese and the number of multi-nationalities is huge.
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