Chris Patten

British politician and colonial administrator (born 1944)

Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes, CH, PC (born 12 May 1944) is a British politician who was the 28th and last Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997 and Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1992. He was made a life peer in 2005 and has been Chancellor of the University of Oxford since 2003.

Christopher Patten.

Quotes

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  • As governor, I experienced the vitality of life in a booming and free Asian city, saw routinely the best and worst aspects of human nature, and was made to revisit some of the principles in which I have always believed but to which I had rarely given much thought previously. In the darker hours of occasionally fretful nights I found myself face to face with the moral dimensions of political action to a greater extent than ever before.
    • East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, p. 3
  • [About Hong Kong:] No other place has quite the same blend of East and West, ancient and modern, spectacular and humdrum.
    • East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, p. 19
  • It is not unusual for electorates to want contradictory things, and politicians often make promises accordingly.
    • East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, p. 45
  • Nevertheless, it is true that on 1 July 1997 Hong Kong became the only example of decolonization deliberately accompanied by less democracy and a weaker protection of civil liberties. This was a cause for profound regret, especially for the departing colonial power. But it was China's doing and China's decision. I am pleased that Britain narrowly avoided complicity in the dishonourable act of denying the citizens of free Hong Kong what they had been promised in 1984.
    • East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, p. 83
  • Asians [...] put more emphasis on order, stability, hierarchy, family and self-discipline than Westerners do.
    • East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, p. 150
  • [Democracy] is obviously an issue which is hugely important to a new generation [of Hong Kong people].
  • You know perfectly well there have been attacks on the rule of law, on the independence of the judiciary; abductions around Hong Kong streets; suggestions that Hong Kong’s autonomy needs to be curtailed in the future; suggestions that the autonomy of Hong Kong’s tremendous universities is something that has to be looked at again; there is a sense that free speech is under threat.

About Patten

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