The last governor: doing what is right

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 4, 1996 by Arthur Jones

Hong Kong's Gov. Christopher Patten and his wife, Lavendar, are the last couple who will live in the Victorian Government House in Hong Kong. It will be turned into a museum or monument.

Patten, 52, the final governor, a British parliamentarian appointed five years ago, is a Catholic, Benedictine- educated and a descendant of Irish ancestors who left Ireland for Manchester, England, in the last century.

Patten has angered Beijing many times and has upset Hong Kong's pro-China business community, already heavily invested in the mainland. Among educated Hong Kong Chinese, Patten represents a British government that many, feel betrayed them by not doing more sooner and that could have better protected their future in negotiations with Beijing prior to Patten's arrival.

Hong Kong Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee's judgment is that people have already forgotten that prior to Patten the governors and civil servants "would keep quiet when Beijing made intimidating remarks about us. Patten defended Hong Kong. People got so used to it, the stock market would even go up. He strengthened the will of the people of Hong Kong - and that is to his credit. He has not done enough, but he has done more than his predecessors would have done."

NCR's Arthur Jones interviewed Patten at Government House.

NCR: Hong Kong's religious community is relying for protection in the future on the Basic Law (Hong Kong's post-June 30, 1997 mini-Constitution) and Joint Declaration. Is it going to be enough,?

Patten: I hope these are questions that never need to be faced or answered. A vigorous religious life in Hong Kong, vibrant church activity, heavy involvement of the churches in social and educational work, all those things are a central feature of civil society in Hong Kong. It's unimaginable if the churches found their role and activities constrained in any way that civil society as we now understand it could survive.

It's vitally important that people behave in that way. They shouldn't assume that there will be a new political correctness.

Is that the greatest threat to their ability to survive - the fact that they're going to tend to be too docile, too willing to cooperate?

I think it's the equivalent of self-censorship in the (Hong Kong) media. Why should anybody think they have to go and ask the New China News Agency (Beijing's de facto embassy in Hong Kong) or some other body whether you can go on doing things you've taken entirely for granted for decades People should carry on - as is supposed to be the case - that the only change is a change of sovereignty. The Joint Declaration says Hong Kong will continue to be the same society tomorrow as it is today. It is important that people should behave like that.

Given that, is it a cool form of courage when Hong Kong Chinese who could have left have not taken the steps to do so. Is it courageous to stay on?

There are about 600,000 - maybe more - with foreign passports who can leave. But clearly a lot more could easily have put themselves in that category. If Hong Kong's middle class decamps, if the trained and the educated go, it will have a huge impact on our economy and social fabric. I don't think that's going to happen.

Are they brave? Let me put it another way. I think they are more likely to support the type of things I have been doing to shore up their civil liberties and human rights. Most of my vociferous critics (in Hong Kong) have the ability to go elsewhere if things don't turn out well, (as do) a remarkably high proportion of the Preparatory Committed. I don't believe that even though there are going to be challenges to a free society in Hong Kong that we are suddenly going to have all the defenders of the liberties locked up in Stanley prison.

Some people are quite bitter about the British role, that human rights was placed second to business interests. Are you in a no win situation?

On the whole I've been criticized for doing too much rather than too little. I'm not sure what the judgment of history will say. I don't honestly think that the balance between business and civil liberties has ever been the real trade-off in arguments about how much one could or should do to Hong Kong. ... Past (British government) architects of Hong Kong policy argued, "Of course the Chinese may behave badly. There's very little one can do with that. ... What you have to do is get as much out of them as you can, even if you don't much like what it amounts to, and hope Hong Kong survives." That is an approach that allows words to cover up issues of substance. ... It is not a fair way of treating Hong Kong or dealing with China or implementing our obligations under the Joint Declaration and (overlooks) the six million people living here who have a right to be involved and consulted.

Your personal moral dilemma - will you feel a personal commitment to the people of Hong Kong after you've gone?

Certainly. I'll sleep with Hong Kong for the rest of my life. I've never been in a job where moral issues, where the question of right and wrong so often infused political judgments and arguments. And at the end of the day I feel in a rather Victorian way that to do what is Right, with a capital R, is also what is right to do with a smaller r for Hong Kong.