 And as stipulated in Article 24, permanent residents include foreign persons who have taken up permanent residency in Hong Kong for more than 7 years and other persons (regardless of nationality) who have right of abode in Hong Kong only.While voting by persons holding foreign passports has gone largely unchallenged, there is some indication that increasing appeals to patriotism may make non-citizen voting an issue of debate in the future.For those who are permanent residents of the territory but not concurrently citizens of the People's Republic of China, their permanent residency will be lost if they leave the territory for more than 3 years.