TNAG-2790-FCO40-4029-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1993 — Page 46

The Implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration

Patten's Last Stand

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It only remains to assess the significance of the appearance on the stage where the drama of the survival of Hugh Baker's endangered species "Hong Kong Man" is being played out, of a deus ex machina in the improbable form of Chris Patten, the last British Governor of Hong Kong. From the outset he has made no secret of what he is attempting to do within the overall British objective of upholding the Joint Declaration. He has given more publicity to his plans and generated more public debate about them than any of his predecessors.

In considering his impact on the future of Hong Kong only the political core of his agenda, the constitutional package, really matters. The other elements of his programme, though important in other respects in their various ways, are peripheral to the question of whether Hong Kong, the place Mr. Patten rightly described as one of the Wonders of the World, is to survive as we know and love it, beyond 1997 and into the twenty-first century. The constitutional implications of his political initiative are fully dealt with by Norman Miners in Chapter I and its political consequences by Frank Ching in Chapter 3. That ground will not be gone over again here, suffice it to say that Patten has injected more political adrenalin into Hong Kong in one year of colonial rule than his forebears did in the previous one and a half centuries. If only 50 per cent of his effort had been invested in the political development of Hong Kong in 1979 or 1985, who can say how different Hong Kong's future might look today?

Losing the Battle for Democracy but...

Not unexpectedly so much political initiative so late in the day has brought the Governor into a seemingly perilous confrontation with the Beijing govemment which, prior to his appointment, had skilfully edged itself to within five years of assuming sovereignty over Hong Kong very much on its own terms. Driven by a historical imperative that overrides any deal they have had to make to get the British to disgorge this last bit of the Motherland still in foreign hands, Beijing officials are still quivering with suppressed rage at Patten's challenge to their sacred patriotic mission.

It seems unlikely that China's present leaders will be persuaded to make any significant compromise with Mr. Patten over his constitutional package. To the Chinese, this package violates their basic premise that no political changes made by the British in Hong Kong in the transitional

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