Placing the blame: the charge against Patten is that by political posturing he rendered freedoms less likely to survive

National Review, Sept 1, 1997 by Anthony Lejeune

There was, Patten's opponents admit, a secret exchange of correspondence between London and Peking which Patten never saw. Could it have been deliberately kept from him? With John Major's connivance? Absurd, says the Foreign Office; there was no conspiracy against the governor. The Foreign Office faction is now simultaneously accusing Dimbleby of getting it all wrong and alleging that he based his charges on confidential Foreign Office documents which Patten illegally showed him -- in other words, It isn't true; or, if it is, he shouldn't have known, and, anyway, he is misinterpreting it.

"I dare say," Patten once observed drily, "there are some who, if China were saying, 'Our price is the slaughter of the first-born,' would say, 'Well, maybe that's not unreasonable in the circumstances. You have to allow for cultural differences, you know."' The protestations of Howe and Cradock would be more absolutely convincing if the record of the Foreign Office in recent years had not been so notoriously one of "pre-emptive cringe"; which is not to say that they acted other than honorably, or that better terms could actually have been obtained.

Patten and Dimbleby, for their part, would be more persuasive if they talked less about "democracy," a meaningless term in Hong Kong's situation and quite unacceptable to Peking, which regarded Patten's electoral innovations as a dangerous move toward independence. What matters in Hong Kong is not democracy but freedom; personal freedom, which neither requires nor is guaranteed by democratic forms. The charge against Patten, leveled by Hong Kong's business community, is that by political posturing he rendered these essential freedoms less, not more, likely to survive the handover of power.

Patten has retreated to France, where he is now writing his own version of events. Some Tories regard him as "the king over the water," who will soon be re-elected to Parliament, reinvigorate the Conservative Party, and, in due course, become prime minister. His credentials, in their eyes, were enhanced by his time in Hong Kong. This is probably true. He covered his left flank by the choice of Dimbleby to speak for him, and he has improved his position with right-wing, Thatcherite Conservatives by claiming to have learned from his Hong Kong experience what capitalism, low taxation, and free markets can do. Meanwhile, Cradock and Howe, in their retirement from government service, are wooing China for business.

And the people of Hong Kong? Who knows? This year brought not only the end of the 99-year lease but also two thought-provoking anniversaries. It is just half a century since Britain's postwar Labour Government began the retreat from empire by precipitately leaving India, at the cost of over a million Indian lives and a catastrophic partition of the country. And Queen Victoria's magnificently staged Diamond Jubilee marked the zenith of the British Empire, which covered a quarter of the globe. If the object is, or should be, the security, freedom, and happiness of the governed, can we honestly say that the world today is better run?