Peaceful reunification of mainland and Taiwan 'unlikely' despite Xi's meeting with Ma, says ex-Hong Kong governor Chris Patten

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Former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten on a post-handover visit to the city

Published: 7:00am, 12 Nov 2015Updated: 7:09pm, 12 Nov 2015

A peaceful reunification of the mainland and Taiwan remains unlikely as the Taiwanese cannot be reassured by what is happening in Hong Kong, according to Hong Kong’s last governor Chris Patten.

In an article titled “A Chinese Dinner For Two” published on Project Syndicate on Tuesday, the former European Union commissioner for external affairs delivered an analysis of the historic meeting between President Xi Jinping and his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore. Patten, now the chancellor of the University of Oxford, wrote that a peaceful reunification of China was still unlikely unless it took place on the basis of “one country, two systems”.

“But the Taiwanese cannot be very reassured by what they see happening today in Hong Kong, which was promised the same thing before its return to China in 1997,” he added.

“Taiwan’s system is democratic; China’s is not,” he wrote.

“What the example of Hong Kong suggests is that China would have to force Taiwan to give up democracy and the rule of law – or embrace both itself – before it could welcome its renegade province back into the fold,” said Patten,

“Xi’s initiative [to meet Taiwan’s leader Ma] shows the extent to which he dominates Chinese politics. A weaker leader could not have taken such an ambitious step, which represents a real break with past Communist orthodoxy,” he wrote.