World Affairs
Vol. 3, Number 1 (Jan.–Mar. 1999)

Hong Kong — The Patten Effect
East And West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future
By Chris Patten, Macmillan, London, 1998
Review by Neville Maxwell

 

The great final act in Britain’s half-century long retreat from empire was unique in the imperial experience because Hong Kong, the last significant colony, was not granted independence, but was passed instead into the sovereignty of China. Since that necessity had been foreseeable for 99 years because it was set in a treaty, no surprise was involved, but still it was only in the last two decades of Britain’s rental of Hong Kong that serious steps were taken to prepare for the inevitable. Prior to about 1980 the hand-over, legally inevitable or not, was probably unthinkable to the British government because the revolutionary imprint and direction was still so strong in China. But then the great reversal which saw the People’s Republic swing around onto what had so recently been anathematised as “the capitalist road” appeared to Britain to open the possibility of palliating or even postponing the shock of relinquishing its rule in Hong Kong. Deng Xiaoping’s leadership soon began to produce a society with an ethos far closer to that of Hong Kong than to that of Mao Tse-tung’s China, and Deng appeared to be more amenable to bargaining over the future of Hong Kong—and so it was to turn out.

From the early 1980s Britain was engaged in two political dimensions in preparation for the termination of its lease on the vital heart-territory of the Hong Kong colony. One was in Hong Kong itself, with gradual but steady moves towards introducing at last some elements of democracy into what had until then been the purely autocratic governance of the colony. The other was in the diplomatic dimension, with attempts to negotiate terms with Beijing that would allow Britain to hand over Hong Kong to China with an easy conscience. These two distinct, but intertwined strands of policy, pursued from 1982 to 1992 with persistence and, most of the time, with acute political understanding of the Chinese approach, were to bring the British government a marked diplomatic triumph—only for it to be gravely undermined in the final five years of British rule.

Obedient to the will of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the British first marched off into a policy dead end, with the demand that Beijing enter into an agreement that would allow Britain to continue to administer Hong Kong, while recognising China’s sovereignty. There appeared, not for the first time nor the last, a failure of empathy on the part of the British. For China the unfurling of the flag of the People’s Republic over Hong Kong in the reassertion of Chinese sovereignty would symbolise the end of an epoch of territorial deprivation and political humiliation by foreign powers—Britain prime among them. Thus the suggestion that China would allow British rule to continue in Hong Kong in any guise appeared to Beijing as absurd, if not insolent. Once that came to be appreciated in London meaningful negotiations began, with the British side seeking to obtain for Hong Kong the strongest possible assurance that reversion to China would not entail the abrupt and forceful imposition of an alien and oppressive regime.

A direction post clearly pointed the way. Beijing had formulated an offer to Taiwan guaranteeing no interference in its internal affairs if the Guomindang government there agreed to some form of reunification. Then it was made clear that that policy, “one country, two systems”, could apply also to Hong Kong after its reversion to China on June 30, 1997.

In one sense, the British had to negotiate from a position that was more than weak. It was in fact powerless: geography and China’s strength meant that, failing agreement, in the final resort Beijing could do what it liked with Hong Kong. But an agreed, peaceful and smooth assertion of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong which left the territory to continue as a thriving capitalist entity would demonstrate Beijing’s bona fides to the world community—and especially to Taiwan. Such a resolution was of immense importance to China, and that factor lent powerful leverage to the British side. So by the end of 1984 full agreement had been negotiated and a Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong was signed in Beijing, and duly registered with the UN as a treaty. It laid down that after the reversion, ‘Hong Kong’s previous capitalist system and lifestyle shall remain unchanged for 50 years’. The maintenance of civil liberties and political rights was pledged and specified in detail.

Both sides expressed great satisfaction with their achievement. The officials who had negotiated the treaty looked forward to future cooperation, growing in the final phase into a degree of collaboration in Hong Kong’s governance so that the hand-over might be achieved without a jolt. But it soon appeared that their underlying understandings were at odds. To Beijing, the Declaration meant that China had pledged that for 50 years after 1997 it would leave Hong Kong’s system of governance and pattern of society as it was when the treaty was signed. The British had contrary intentions, however. For them the Declaration was deficient in that it included only glancing references to the introduction of democratic procedures into the Hong Kong system, which in 1984 was still essentially autocratic. So from then on Britain’s diplomatic efforts were directed at building on the Joint Declaration so that when in 1997 Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR), of China, democracy would already have struck root there, and Beijing would have made a specific commitment to allow its continued development. Again, they were successful.

By 1992 Hong Kong’s polity had changed radically. Nearly a third of the 60 seats in the Legislative Council, previously all appointed, had been filled by election. Lively political parties had sprung up, one of them vociferously hostile to Beijing. The electoral process had been applied, too, at lower levels of government, voting had begun to become a habit at least among a significant minority. In spite of its distrust of western-style democracy and suspicion that it might be used to establish in Hong Kong a forward base to destabilise China, Beijing had been persuaded to agree to its “gradual and orderly” introduction. The Chinese had agreed that the proportion of directly elected seats in the Council should increase in elections due in 1995 and that they should go on increasing at each election after the reversion: by 2007 half the membership would be directly elected, and at some undefined future date, this would apply to all of them. From the beginning, there was to be indirect election of the chief executive (governor re-named), and she/he was to be from Hong Kong—undoubtedly a great stride forward from the practice of appointment of a Briton from on high in London. The ultimate aim was for chief executive and Legco as a whole to be directly elected by universal franchise.

That British diplomatic triumph had been achieved largely by the Foreign Office’s cadre of sinologists, with its members active in the embassy in Beijing and the governor’s office in Hong Kong. In negotiation they had been as firm and demanding as Britain’s position and aims allowed; but their style was informed by respect of Chinese diplomacy and, most important, by recognition that the Chinese meant what they said and confidence that they would do what they promised. The British diplomats were, however, despite their success, the natural target for political misgivings at home about the process that would end in Britain’s surrender of Hong Kong to China, and the suspicion grew in Parliament and in the cabinet, megaphoned in most of the press, that they had been too pliant. More could have been achieved if there had been less “kow-towing” on the British side, the critics alleged: a more pugnacious approach might well have induced the Chinese to allow full democracy to be established before Britain left. That suspicion of the diplomats was complemented by the politicians’ conceit, or ambition: the belief that when it came to the crunch in hard international politics, the best man for the job would be a politician.

As it turned out, that was the worm in the bud of Britain’s success up to 1992. Already in 1989, when the then governor of Hong Kong, Sir David Wilson might, from previous practice, have been expected to continue in office until the reversion, politicians had begun calling for him to be replaced by one of their own ilk. In 1990 Mrs Thatcher decided that the last governor, who would oversee the final five years of British rule, would be a politician. Civil servants were alive to the dangers inherent in such an appointment and advised against the change. A politician/governor, they warned, would be likely to have a second agenda: he would have his own ambition to serve as well as the government’s purpose, and the two might well conflict. Of course, that advice was seen as self-serving, even, in its implicit derogation of politicians, impertinent, and it was dismissed.

It was left to Prime Minister John Major in 1992 to select the politician to replace Wilson, and the roulette wheel of politics led him to an unfortunate choice. The need was for someone who would confound the warnings of the civil servants: someone in the fullness of his years and already at the peak of his career, having no regard for a political future beyond the tenure as governor, looking for nothing but an honoured retirement. Rather, he would see his duty at the culmination of his career as carrying out British policy on Hong Kong as that had been fixed in the Joint Declaration and later agreements, and working to bring about a smooth transfer of power in 1997, cooperating with Beijing to that end. Instead of seeking out such a paragon, Major picked a contrary figure: an ambitious, relatively young politician whose promising career had just run aground in unexpected electoral defeat and who was therefore hungry for a way to re-launch himself—his friend and erstwhile cabinet colleague Chris Patten.

Patten, not quite 50 but marked, before he lost his seat in Parliament, as a future prime minister, had wide domestic experience, but none in foreign policy. His view of the possibilities the Hong Kong governorship offered was signalled early in the decision that his tenure should be documented on television as it unfolded. To that end he contracted with the broadcasting journalist Jonathan Dimbleby, the bargain being that Dimbleby and his camera crew would have untrammelled fly-on-the-wall access to all the governor’s doings over the next five years and freedom to use his own judgement as to the contents and tenor of the resulting five-part BBC series. Dimbleby would also produce a written account of the saga of “The Last Governor”. There could not have been any need to express the quid pro quo (that the results should be laudatory), Dimbleby being Patten’s close friend of long-standing and a political soulmate; indeed each no doubt stoutly assured the other that the only expectation, on both sides, was for total objectivity.

That deal is revealing. A governor committed to implementation of the Sino-British agreements could be expected to have a fairly easy-going tenure in Hong Kong, since the Joint Declaration had strong majority support there and Beijing’s interest lay in cooperation to achieve a smooth and cordial transition. The rails had been well and firmly laid, the task of the last governor would be that of engine-driver, responsible for smooth, safe passage at a regulated pace—not for choice of route or destination. His problem would lie behind his back, so to speak, because Conservative politicians and press in Britain would no doubt attack him for “kow-towing” if he continued to cooperate with Beijing as had his three predecessors. From a journalist’s point of view there would not be much of a story in such an exercise of gubernatorial responsibilities. The drama in “The Last Governor”, as programmes and book were both to be entitled, could come only if its subject chose to confront and defy China. That would be of high international importance, and make excellent copy. There can be little doubt that, at some level, Dimbleby knew in advance what his story would be.

As observers in Hong Kong took note of the kind of people from whom Patten was taking briefings before he left London, some there too began to foresee ructions when he took over. For example, the leader of the anti-Beijing party, Martin Lee, was an early visitor to the governor-designate, and that contact transpired to have resulted in a meeting of minds, leading to a tacit, even covert, alliance. On the other hand, Patten adopted a distinctly stand-offish approach to Beijing, declining the invitation to go there for an early exchange of ideas. That alarmed those who knew the emphasis the Chinese place on personal understanding as an element in a harmonious political relationship.

The policy choice before Patten was quite clear from the very beginning, and it was equally clear that the choice would be for him to make. Later events showed that those who were formally his superiors in London, Major and the foreign secretary Douglas Hurd, must have promised that if he took the job he could act as plenipotentiary in Hong Kong and that they would back him whatever he did. Thus they formed what the Chinese might have called a Gang of Three, whose unity made Patten impregnable to the reservations and criticisms which were to be voiced at official level in the Foreign Office as his policy became evident. Furthermore, after the Tiananmen oppression in 1989, there had naturally been a marked hardening of the British attitude towards China, a souring of the trust and goodwill which had been engendered by the Joint Declaration; and so Patten’s political masters in London must have sent him off with the expectation, and wish, that he would express that change in the tone of his dealings with Beijing.

To adopt another Chinese metaphor, there were Two Roads for Patten to choose between: the Realists’ and the Posturers’. Until Patten’s appointment British policy had been based on recognition that concessions could be won in Beijing only by persuading the Chinese that to make them was in China’s long-term interest. Unilateral action taken in defiance of Beijing was seen as futile and injurious to Hong Kong’s need for a smooth transition because whatever the British did that was unacceptable to China could be undone the minute the British right to rule there ended, at midnight on 30 June 1997. And the Chinese warned that any such actions would certainly be undone.

There was a strain in British political thinking, however, in which it was considered that, since gunboat diplomacy was no longer available to serve British interest and pride, a diplomacy of gesture might be the best substitute. That view is ringingly expressed in one of the books Patten is most likely to have read while he was briefing himself, Jan Morris’s Hong Kong: Epilogue to Empire. She trumpets a call for Britain to make its departure from Hong Kong in proud defiance, rather than meekly in compliance with its treaty obligations. Tear up the Joint Declaration, flout the constitution which Beijing had promulgated for the SAR’s first half-century, introduce full democracy, she cries—and China be damned. Thus, she intoned, Britain could “at least add a sad majesty to the aesthetic of empire”. It might have been expected that Patten was too thoughtful and practised a politician to be taken in by such maudlin fustian, but certainly he empathised with the emotion behind that call to arms. In the event he was to act as Morris had counselled, although with slyness rather than brazenly—and the consequences were exactly as foreseen by his predecessors, and forewarned by Beijing.

By the time Patten took office in July 1992 there were forebodings in Beijing and Hong Kong. Window, a journal created to serve the cause of a smooth transition (and therefore labelled, by those who opposed that happy ending, “pro-Beijing”), ran an “Open Letter to the New Governor” on his arrival:

‘Do not be seduced into thinking that Hong Kong wishes, or will benefit from, a more confrontational style of government in these fading days of British rule. There are people who still consider that Hong Kong could have indefinitely remained under British administration, that the Joint Declaration had never been signed and that the Basic Law (China’s constitution for the SAR) had never been enacted; they are urging you to fight now for the ground they feel was lost to Britain a decade ago. But time cannot be reversed, and Hong Kong should not be a battleground. Do not be lured into fighting the imaginary and belated battles of those who cannot or will not accept present realities.’

Events were to attribute prescience to that ignored warning.

Over the decade of always difficult and often vexatious negotiation prior to Patten’s arrival Beijing had been brought to agree to the progressive, phased introduction of democracy into the previously autocratic Hong Kong polity, and by 1992 that process, as has been noted above, was well begun. While the range of the agreed reforms was broad, their essence lay in the number of seats in the Legislative Council to be filled by direct election, under universal adult suffrage. Many in Britain, in Parliament and press, had demanded and hoped that the hour of reversion would find Hong Kong with a “Legco” entirely thus constituted; and in such opinion the concession actually won from Beijing, for about one-third to be elected by 1997, looked paltry, and the agreed rate of increase thereafter derisory. Patten shared that view, and he determined greatly to accelerate the agreed pace, unilaterally—indeed without even consulting the Chinese.

But treaties being treaties and binding, however much their terms might be felt to chafe, Patten could not simply flout the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law by ruling that in the elections due in 1995 the proportion of seats to be directly elected should be formally increased. He would have to circumvent the agreements, breaching them while retaining the ability to deny that he was doing any such thing. In a word, he would have to use trickery—the tactic that would be most likely to offend and enrage the Chinese.

He found his opening in a device which originated in Hong Kong’s first small steps towards electoral democracy, in the early 1980s—the “functional constituencies”. Following the historical pattern of democracy’s development in Britain (though compressing centuries into decades), those were designed to bring members of the colony’s elite into Legco, by the vote of their peers. The agreements provided for half of the Legco membership to be thus elected in 1995, and for their number to be slowly but steadily reduced in subsequent elections, in favour of members directly elected by universal suffrage. Patten hit upon the ruse of changing the functional constituencies, in effect, into mass popular electorates, while retaining their nomenclature and outward form. Because both sides in the previous negotiations had known exactly what the functional constituencies were there had never been any need to define them. Consequently Patten could, and persistently did, claim that although utterly transforming the nature of the functional constituencies and therefore the composition of Legco, he was in no way transgressing the letter of any Sino-British agreements. That apparently was seen by him and his advisers as a subtle master-stroke, the exploitation of a “grey area” left by loose drafting of agreements to save Hong Kong from Beijing’s oppression, so that on departure Britain could leave a fully democratic Legislative Council.

The Chinese were informed of Patten’s intentions just before he proclaimed them, but their urgent request for consultations was rebuffed. The transformation of the functional constituencies was the heart of a package of radical reforms to accelerate the introduction of democracy which the new governor revealed in his opening address to Legco in October 1992.

In the view from Beijing Patten, and therefore Britain, had abandoned the cooperation which had taken the parties so far towards a smooth and cordial transfer of power on the basis of negotiated agreements. By taking unilateral action in breach of the spirit—and arguably of the letter—of formal agreements Patten had opted for confrontation with China. The Chinese dismissed his justifications as casuistry. Their historic distrust of Britain was awakened, and they moved swiftly to protect themselves from what they saw as the beginning of an attempt to make their reassertion of sovereignty over Hong Kong as invidious and troublesome as possible.

Beijing pointed out that if Patten applied his radical constitutional reforms to the 1995 elections, the Legislative Council thus produced, would not be in keeping with the political structure which had been agreed for post-reversion Hong Kong. Accordingly its legitimacy would lapse with British rule, and at that moment it would be dissolved.

The common aim of the two sides before Patten had been for the transition from British to Chinese rule to be seamless, indeed as nearly imperceptible as possible. The governor would be replaced by a chief executive appointed under Beijing’s auspices, but there was an understanding that the choice of the appointee would take into account soundings of official British opinion as well as consultations, even some form of election, in Hong Kong. The Legislative Council, however, would constitute a “through train”, with the chamber elected in 1995 continuing in office through its normal four-year term. All that would happen in 1997 is that the members would be expected to swear a new allegiance: to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) rather than the British Queen. Beijing’s response to Patten’s tactics meant that the “through train” would be derailed. The HKSAR would come into existence without any elected Legislative Council, rather than with one made far more democratic by Patten.

Patten met Beijing’s explosive and hostile reaction with apparent insouciance (Dimbleby’s programmes were to show that in fact he was much shaken). He stood fast through attempts to negotiate a way out from the confrontation: retreat was unthinkable for him, as it was for Beijing. Two considerations kept him adamant—one he made explicit, the other can be inferred from his actions. First, Patten believed that the enormous importance to Beijing of achieving a demonstrably untroubled transfer of power meant that in the last resort, and possibly even at the last moment, fear of international condemnation would make the Chinese flinch from what he read as their bluffing threat to dissolve the “Pattented” Legco. He did his best to make that outcome more certain by embarking on a sort of international lecture tour, to build up in advance the outrage he hoped for if the Chinese were to “uproot democracy in Hong Kong” the moment they took over, as he put it. That attempt to internationalise his quarrel with Beijing, as the Chinese saw it, only confirmed their suspicion that Britain, probably with American collusion, meant to make Hong Kong a poisonous inheritance.

The second consideration, which may be inferred, was somewhat contradictory to the first. It reflected a low valuation of the worth of the “through train”, which may well have sprung from that first meeting of minds with the leader of the anti-Beijing party in Hong Kong, Martin Lee. The Basic Law gave Beijing a fall-back option which the Chinese may have seen as helping to dissuade local politicians from extremes of anti-Beijing agitation in the run-up to the reversion. There would be, so to speak, a “ticket check” at the point of transition to the HKSAR: members’ continued passage on the “through train” would be subject to confirmation by a joint Hong Kong/Beijing committee. Martin Lee and his leading colleagues read that as a pending ejection-order for themselves. Their high self-importance convinced them that Beijing, regardless of the international odium such action would bring, was determined to expel them from Legco, even throw them into gaol, or worse, when it took power over Hong Kong. In fact the importance to China of proving in Hong Kong that by “one country, two systems” it meant a rigorously observed hands-off policy indicates that the dire expectations of martyrdom of Lee and his colleagues were delusions of grandeur, and that they would have been checked through with all their colleagues. But Patten took these politicians, small fry in China’s perspective, at their own estimation, as giants in the democratic cause, and agreed with them that their continuance in Legco would be intolerable to Beijing. The Chinese, he kept warning, would “cherry-pick” Legco to remove from it the members whom they feared. In that context the sacrifice of a through-train bereft of the passengers Patten most valued would have appeared to him as worthwhile if in the interim the democratic forces in Hong Kong could be augmented and strengthened.

The 1995 elections were duly held under the Patten reforms and Martin Lee’s Democratic Party significantly increased its representation in Legco, which was, of course, their purpose. Beijing confirmed that this chamber would stand dissolved at the instant of reversion, and began to improvise to avoid a situation in which the HKSAR would have no Legislative Council when it came into existence. Patten did everything he could to hamper Beijing’s counter-measures, which were aimed now at creating an administration-in-waiting, complete with an interim Legco to fill the constitutional void the dissolution would create. The political atmosphere in Hong Kong became charged and polarised. Patten juggled his duty to strengthen international confidence in Hong Kong’s future with his desire to sow alarm about Beijing’s intentions, the latter motive mostly uppermost. So far as they could, the Chinese ignored the governor, dealing only with London.

While Major and Hurd never faltered in their support for the governor, within the Foreign Office there was dismay, even outrage, at what many officials saw as Patten’s self-aggrandising provocations. Dimbleby in his hagiographical works and later, Patten in his own book reveal, by the resentment and hostility they express towards the Foreign Office’s sinological cadre, how strong that opposition was and how bitterly resented within the governor’s entourage. The officials in London loyally kept their opinion of Patten secret; and the political support he enjoyed at the top and from all parties in Parliament would have made leaks ineffective and very risky. The British press, led by a claque of correspondents resident in Hong Kong—and in Patten’s pocket—never diverged from devoted support, acclaiming the governor as saviour of democracy, a sort of St Chris braving the dragon.

So, instead of the once jointly desired smooth and cooperative run-up to the reversion there was conflict, distrust and anxiety. Forebodings were intensified at the last moment by a dispute over the Chinese army’s entry to the territory, with Patten blocking China’s wish for an unobtrusive pre-reversion seepage across the border and thus ensuring that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be seen to rumble into the HKSAR in ominous strength in the first hour. In spite of squabbles over procedure and precedence the hand-over itself was smooth. Patten’s people had organised to squeeze every possible drop of pathos and nostalgia out of the closing ceremonies, sometimes falling into bathos—as when the governor stood for many—minutes, ram-rod stiff, while half a dozen policemen drilled and juggled ancient rifles on the residence’s drive before him. But the aftermath was what counted, as the last governor, biting back the tears, boarded his Queen’s yacht and sailed away (to the Philippines and thence by air).

So far as the constitutional and political aftermath was concerned, there was anti-climax. Martin Lee was allowed to deliver a philippic from the balcony of the Legco building, contrary to regulations. The interim Legco was sworn in (the British and American official parties boycotting that ceremony) to serve until elections were held in about a year. The PLA occupied its barracks, and since then has rarely been seen outside them. The Chinese have been meticulous in observing their hands-off pledge, often to a degree astonishing to the HKSAR government. Senior officials say there is much less correspondence and contact now between Hong Kong and Beijing than there was between Hong Kong and London. But the booming economic confidence that accompanied the reversion was quickly punctured in the Asian slump and since then Hong Kong has been financially storm-tossed. Patten’s successor, chief executive CH Tung, came under criticism for lacking the populist skills which had made the last governor very popular. The Patten effect is most evident in the greatly increased strength of the Legislative Council vis-ˆ-vis the executive: Legco acts now almost as an opposition of the whole. If that tendency intensifies it presages problems for Hong Kong’s governance in the next millennium.

The British government under Tony Blair moved quickly to retrieve Sino-British relations from the sour trough in which Patten, Major and Hurd had left them. By-gones, including the last governor, were left as such, and soon London and Beijing were again on cordial and cooperative terms.

Patten’s book was scooped, of course, by Dimbleby’s double-barrelled blast on his behalf and against the last governor’s enemies in Beijing and London. (It was given a fillip by Rupert Murdoch who, in a grovelling but ill-advised attempt to please Beijing, ordered the first publishers to drop it and thus of course created a fury of publicity in Patten’s favour.) So he has been left little to reveal and only those who have not read Dimbleby will learn much from Patten. (He hints that there is still much to tell of his side of the story, but says that must wait for some other time.) He writes well, with a sharp and literate wit, but his views on Power, Freedom and the Future do not have much resonance. His deep and lasting animosity towards China, the PRC anyway, comes through loud and clear in his book and later occasional writings: perhaps that pre-dated his experience in Hong Kong and has something to do with his devout religious faith. The extent to which his East and West succeeds as self-justification must depend upon the reader: it will convert no one critical of Patten’s use of the governorship and disabuse none of his admirers.

At the time of writing Patten is engaged in a task far more difficult than he faced in Hong Kong: chairing a committee to decide on the future of the Royal Irish Constabulary, the police force which has been the sword-arm of the Protestant ascendancy in Northern Ireland and which cannot continue in its present form if the “peace process” should, against the current odds, turn into peace. Beyond that his political future is uncertain. His Conservative Party is tearing itself apart; but the Blairite “New Labour” might well find other appropriate tasks and offices for a man whose blunders in Hong Kong did not truly reflect his political skills and potential.