The Hong Kong Diaries

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A go-getter as he is, Chris Patten has wonderfully used broad strokes, painting the portraits of wide-ranging people and doubling down with his colourful depictions. For amateurs who are only interested to have an overview on colonial Hong Kong, they probably can refer to Jan Morris's book, which was highly recommended by Chris Patten in his diaries. On the disappearance of Soda, Gareth Evans, former Australia’s Foreign Minister, made a joke during a banquet dinner that Chinese ate Soda. However, as practiced in Chinese culture, Lu did not take this insult to an extreme, and apologized to Patten for not being at the airport.

But the final chapter I found to be particularly interesting as Chris Patten gave his thoughts on the current situation in Hong Kong. I had forgotten how totally limiting the day-by-day diary is as a medium: I’m yet to read one that I really enjoy, largely because all the wood is lost for the trees.Indeed, one advantage of using verbal contracts in China is that, when compared to written contracts, there is plenty of room to revise deals since verbal agreements are not recorded in real time. However, he lost his marginal seat of Bath to the Liberal Democrat candidate Don Foster at that election. In each of those roles, he has been pitted not against the left, but mostly against the Daily Mail and the ideologues and nut jobs in his own party.

He also assaults China’s Xi-era view that the 1984 joint declaration, which was supposed to apply until 2047, is now just a historical document of no further relevance. He argued "You can't just give citizens the right to decide on economic and social policies, but on the other hand, you can't allow them to decide who will clean up the garbage, how their children will be educated, and how the health care policy will be implemented" and "anyone who tries to block the development of democracy will only be spitting in the wind. In May 2016, Patten said that the BBC has "lost some of its ambition" in its coverage of science, philosophy and history, and should "stretch" audiences more. Taking property rights seriously in the contract, Patten defended British rights in Hong Kong all the way before 1997. The sins of blimps in blazers at the Hong Kong Club, now retired to Gloucestershire or Scotland with their millions, are going to rebound on us”(p.He was right about the ‘dice’ being cast in hoisting the independence flag, which is not a rare sight where Hongkongers meet everywhere outside China. Patten's diary offers a glimpse into how regional party politics in far away England, totally unrelated to Hong Kong, could have a direct effect on him, of what he was permitted to do as the governor. In a 2014 article for the Financial Times, Patten argued the British government should not stay silent on China interfering with Hong Kong's judiciary and politics, arguing that the UK had a moral and political responsibility to speak out on the issue of universal suffrage in Hong Kong and ensure that China fulfilled its promises in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, reiterating that the agreement was international. Plans and intentions are not open to the public and a wide range of facts and ideas are often brought to negotiations. Elsewhere, The Diaries reports that “Kate phoned up this morning to tell us she’s had a car crash near Darlington.

The Legislative Council became a fully elected legislature for the first time in 1995 and extensively expanded its functions and organisations throughout the last years of colonial rule. reports that Lu sent a private message to Patten, informing Patten that if he respected Lu’s ‘face’ and behaved properly, then Patten would be invited to Beijing, implying that if Patten gave way in the negotiation, Lu could arrange Patten to shake hand with higher ranking senior members of the Chinese Communist Party (CPP). In 1999, he was appointed as one of the United Kingdom's two members to the European Commission as Commissioner for External Relations where he was responsible for the Union's development and co-operation programmes, as well as liaison with Javier Solana, the High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Patten, growing up in a British legal environment, firmly believed that it was morally right to implement a full democratic system in the LegCo. He said "Hong Kong should have been an extraordinary place, but we saw it destroyed by a brutal ideology and a group of traitors" and described the situation as "very frustrating.I would like to think that he carefully addresses his disagreement with his declining yet staunch fandom.