I read "we may increase the current 6 months limit for a BNO holder to 12 months possibly opening a path to citizenship [for those who fullfil all requirements

I read "we may increase the current 6 months limit for a BNO holder to 12 months possibly opening a path to citizenship [for those who fullfil all requirements to apply for citizenship]" The title and Minister's position is very PR'ish and it sounds like a very tepid reaction. Only 300.000 (of about 7.5million ) hk residents hold a BNO... What about everybody else? And how come those (few) BNO have been treated as less than British since 1997? Next door Macau had given Portuguese nationality to virtually all it's population even ahead of handover. Argually, Macau population at the time represented only 5% of Portugal's population, compared to about 10% that hk population represents compared to UK's. But those BNO holders are much less than 5% of it's population...