The Hong Kong Diaries

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Over the next five years he kept this diary, which describes in detail how Hong Kong was run as a British colony and what happened as the handover approached. Sadly, many world leaders are still trying to turn a blind eye to tyranny as they naively think shaking hands with them will favour world economy. Patten has now published his diaries of five tumultuous years in office, from 1992 to 1997, recording battles against the comrades, the tycoons, the doubters in the cabinet and mandarins everywhere. This takes the form of a passionate polemical essay, written as a postscript to the diaries, about China's increasingly brutal sabotage of the Hong Kong deals. the diaries themselves, kept from the time of his appointment in April 1992 to the handover just over five years later, have not been seen before and make for consistently good reading .

For anyone who has a special interest, ties to and direct experience of HK as I have been lucky to have, this book is a must read.Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten’s efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing. In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to try to prepare it not (as other British colonies over the decades) for independence, but for handing back in 1997 to the Chinese, from whom most of its territory had been leased 99 years previously. He was Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 until 1997, Chairman for the Independent Commission on Policing after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and European Commissioner for External Relations from 1999 until 2004. Ted Heath, political apologist supreme for China, is a “despicable old bore”, and Geoffrey Howe little better. p.371-2); “Efforts to give Hong Kong the civilized standards we require are denounced as drags on our competitiveness and as examples of my Fabian socialism.

Because the 2022 polemic is much shorter than the diaries and is also more current, some readers may turn there first. From reading them, you would never guess how heavily invested British security and intelligence were in Hong Kong. His diaries are full of extraordinarily sharp observations, witticisms, and self-deprecating humour.With hindsight, ex-governor Lord Chris Patten revisits his custodianship of Hong Kong in this genuine recollection of his encounters with the Communist regime. Chris Patten’s appointment as Hong Kong’s last governor in 1992 marked a cultural change for the colony. It is valuable that his diary entries include views and analyses that were very different from his (some of which he vilified).

Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten's efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing. Patten's diaries over the next five years describe in detail his day-to-day battles with the Chinese . But the governor’s frustration with much of the business elite, anxious only to kowtow to Beijing and go on making a lot of money, was almost as great. Even then, Patten’s reforms were carefully calculated to pass through the colony’s executive and legislative institutions.Patten’s most withering comments are reserved for Sinophile diplomats in London and for visiting former politicians, many of whom viewed Patten with disdain. However, the nature of communist wouldn’t change and the fate of Hong Kong has already been written before the handover. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Patten's best efforts, Hong Kong became the canary in the mine shaft, showing what happens when the Chinese Communist Party is allowed to get its way. There were serious ructions with China along the way, and some within Hong Kong itself, about the new airport, passport rights, civil service pensions, Vietnamese refugees and, more than anything else, Patten’s reforms.