Christopher Patten.

Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes, CH, PC (born 12 May 1944) is a British Conservative politician and administrator. He is the current chairman of the BBC Trust, and was the last Governor of Hong Kong (1992–1997).

Quotes

• [...] my anxiety is not that this community's autonomy would be usurped by Peking, but that it could be given away bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong.
  • Speech of Policy Address, Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 2 October 1996.

• As governor, I experienced the vitality of life in a booming and free Asian city, saw routinely the best and worst aspects of human nature, and was made to revisit some of the principles in which I have always believed but to which I had rarely given much thought previously. In the darker hours of occasionally fretful nights I found myself face to face with the moral dimensions of political action to a greater extent than ever before.
  • Chris Patten, East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, page 3.

• [About Hong Kong:] No other place has quite the same blend of East and West, ancient and modern, spectacular and humdrum.
  • Chris Patten, East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, page 19.

• It is not unusual for electorates to want contradictory things, and politicians often make promises accordingly.
  • Chris Patten, East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, page 45.

• Nevertheless, it is true that on 1 July 1997 Hong Kong became the only example of decolonization deliberately accompanied by less democracy and a weaker protection of civil liberties. This was a cause for profound regret, especially for the departing colonial power. But it was China's doing and China's decision. I am pleased that Britain narrowly avoided complicity in the dishonourable act of denying the citizens of free Hong Kong what they had been promised in 1984.
  • Chris Patten, East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, page 83.

• Asians [...] put more emphasis on order, stability, hierarchy, family and self-discipline than Westerners do.
  • Chris Patten, East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, page 150.

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