Chris Patten did not expect to become Hong Kong’s last governor. He rather hoped to become foreign secretary, but the voters of Bath intervened. In Hong Kong Patten became, if not an angry old man, an impassioned middle aged one. This book, with its rousing defence of the universal relevance of liberal democracy, is one of the results.
Patten brought Britain’s imperial history to a close. To his credit, he made a belated effort to do so as honourably as was possible in unhappy circumstances. Hong Kong was to be handed over to the corrupt despotism from which its inhabitants-or their parents-had fled. But Patten was determined to go as far towards democracy as “Hong Kongers themselves were prepared to go, but no less far either.” He was right. Let the Chinese regime do as it will-it almost certainly will anyway. As Patten says, it was contemptible for Britain to do China’s dirty work for it.
The experience of negotiating with China strengthened his understanding of what he stood for and what he believes the west stands for, too. “Values are universal,” declares Patten. “So, too, is the case for market economics, which work everywhere better than any other economic system, and free and open economies perform most effectively in plural societies. Liberal economics and liberal democracy go hand in hand.”
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