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. The trade and investment statistics he cites from the final decades of British rule do indeed suggest there is little correlation between grovelling and real rewards for business. But he had one supreme advantage – the loyal backing of John Major, the prime minister, and Douglas Hurd, the foreign secretary, back in London. In Patten's diaries we see everyone from Mother Teresa to Margaret Thatcher passing through the governor's living room .

The world knows that HK is well developed under the leadership of British government, but China people has one sentence: If not China, HK died. It struck me that in hindsight we had the benefit of some effective political figures, including John Major, during that time - if only we had known it then. But it is also to be treasured for the brilliant and fierce concluding essay on China's recent crackdown which has destroyed Hong Kong's way of life.

His predecessors had mostly been diplomats or administrators – Patten was a senior UK politician with reforming ambitions and a flair for public relations who aroused suspicion in both Beijing and Hong Kong. Patten’s goal was to ensure the 1997 handover to China went as smoothly as possible, while at the same time entrenching the rule of law and trying to extend democracy. 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. 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.

As an insider's account, The Hong Kong Diaries is filled with that daily sense of grappling with a multi-headed hydra . details his persistent but ultimately failed efforts to secure the continuance of Hong Kong's freedoms . Patten’s Hong Kong years have been chronicled before, not least by him, while Jonathan Dimbleby’s account of the road to 1997 was based on extensive on-the-spot access during his governorship.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 .

Lord Patten spent much of his time in Hong Kong struggling against British officials and members of the local elite who believed it was not worth trying to push China to accept more democracy in pre-handover Hong Kong-much less expanding it without China's approval. 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 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.

minutely observe[s] how China broke its promises - first insidiously and gradually and then openly and suddenly - and the impact on the lives of Hong Kongers . Here are some remarkable snippets: “I am going to have to go on making the distinction between what so many rich people think is all right for Hong Kong and what they want for their own families. The magnates were aghast, the diplomats shuddered and the Chinese, who loathed such notions, ostracised the governor after one round of talks in Beijing . 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. Ted Heath, political apologist supreme for China, is a “despicable old bore”, and Geoffrey Howe little better.His diaries are full of extraordinarily sharp observations, witticisms, and self-deprecating humour. The first is that 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. In The Hong Kong Diaries Chris Patten details his struggle as the last governor of Hong Kong to energise the dying days of British rule.