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"Hong Kong has always been an open city; open to ideas, open to people. That openness lies at the heart of Hong Kong's success.
Reflecting on the territory's history, Mr Patten said: "It is natural that the handover next June should be seen by China as a final wiping clean of the slate on which the record of the 19th century European imperial powers in China is written. That will be a moment of proper pride for Chinese men and women everywhere.
"Yet the history that fashioned Hong Kong did not end in the 19th century. For most people in Hong Kong, the history that created this city is of more recent vintage."
A devastated Hong Kong held fewer than 600,000 people at the end of the Second World War and had grown exponentially.
People came seeking better economic prospects and because they could enjoy here the peace and safety guaranteed by the rule of law, Mr Patten said: "Not rules. Not laws. But the rule of law, that vital protection against arbitrary government.
"Of the foolish remarks that one occasionally hears about Hong Kong, none is more misguided than the notion that this community does not really care about human rights.
"Many people, maybe the majority of people, in Hong Kong are here precisely because of their concern for human rights - their own human rights, and those of their family and friends.
"These are not alien concepts irrelevant for Asia and Asians. They are universal, valued as much by men and women in Asia as by their counterparts elsewhere on the planet."
On this Chinese shore, the people of Hong Kong - natives of this territory, or refugees from Guangdong, Fujian, Shanghai and elsewhere in China - had created one of the greatest cities the world has ever seen, he said.
One measure was the fact that Hong Kong's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was calculated at HK$7 billion in 1961. It was now HK$1,105 billion, he said, equivalent to about 20 per cent of China's GDP.
GDP per head in 1961 stood at US$410, Mr Patten said: "Today it is US$23,200, even higher than Australia, Canada and -- I whisper it quietly the United Kingdom."
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