Chris Patten’s Hong Kong Diaries of 1997 handover run-up take us behind the scenes as Britain prepared to take leave of its last colony
- In this excerpt from his new book, the city’s last governor reveals how he really felt as Britain prepared for the transfer of sovereignty to China
Sunday 1 June, 1997
Not just the last lap, but the final straight. We gave a barbecue for present and past private office staff, bodyguards and families at Fanling [Lodge]. We will miss them all a lot.
Monday 2 June
Anson [Chan Fang On-sang] has given an interview to Newsweek and they put her on the cover. It’s full of spirited stuff about standing up for Hong Kong’s freedoms and the importance of acting according to your conscience. It looks like the drawing of a line in the sand.
Coincidentally, Time have done a cover story on me for their international edition. I am sure that one of the things that most worries Anson is the feel already of a drift in standards.
I know that she makes this point to [the incoming head of the post-handover Hong Kong administration] C.H. [Tung]. But does he take any notice? Today he gave Hong Kong a lecture about how everyone should forget about 4 June [1989, the day of the Tiananmen Square crackdown].
We are starting to get a series of white-flag telegrams from the Beijing embassy and from London about the negotiations on the garrison and the handover ceremony in general.
It makes life particularly difficult for Hugh Davies [leader of the British team in the last Joint Liaison Group before the handover] and his colleagues in the JLG if every time they try to take a reasonably firm line with their Chinese opposite numbers they have their legs cut from under them. It doesn’t bode well for the work they have to continue to do for some time after 1997 in the JLG.
The impact of these limp arguments from London and the Beijing embassy is also starting to have an effect on any lingering confidence which civil servants like Anson and her colleagues may have in the dependability of British understanding (and, if necessary, action) after July.
One or two of our senior Hong Kong civil servants have been saying that they sympathise more and more with [legislator] Emily Lau’s frequently expressed view that you can never trust the Brits. As head of the Hong Kong civil service, Anson is sufficiently worried about the way things are going that she has fired off a personal telegram herself to [British Foreign Secretary] Robin Cook.
Tuesday 3 June
