Rule of law is under threat in Hong Kong, says Patten

The final Governor of Hong Kong (1992-97) Chris Patten has said that Chinese communists hate freedom, and the West must stand up to them, as the situation deteriorates under the dictatorship of Xi Jinping.

Speaking to journalist Andrew Gimson in an interview on Conservative Home this morning, Chris Patten said that Hong Kong represents all the things that Chinese communists hate.

“They just can’t face the fact that Chinese people – look at Taiwan as well – love freedom, love a government that is accountable to some extent, love due process and the rule of law, love all those things as much as anybody else, so human rights really, really are universally valid.”

'Useful idiots'

Patten criticises the 2015 pronouncement of former chancellor George Osborne hailing a “golden age” in Sino-British relations.

Patten comments that communists in Beijing benefit from the help of “useful idiots” who “always make an excuse for China, whatever it does”.

“I’m not sure what we have to show for this golden age except a Chinese ambassador in London who blags and bullies at every opportunity,” he told Gimson.

Patten said that we are, in fact, in a golden age of Chinese bullying. 

Nervous about the future

Former MP Chris Patten said he realised the menace presented by China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which revealed the “absolute determination of part of the leadership of the Communist Party to stay in power, even if it meant getting part of the army to shoot their own people”.

“So, I was never under any illusions when I went to Hong Kong as to why people in Hong Kong were nervous about the future.

“But while it made me determined to do what we could within the terms of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law to try to secure Hong Kong’s freedoms, I also began the period after 1997 not without hope.

“By and large, for the first 12 or 13 years, it didn’t go too badly. I think what changed everything was the arrival of Xi Jinping, who was chosen, I think, partly because of what they thought was an attempted coup by Bo Xilai.

“And he reflected also a sense that things were starting to drift and the party was in danger of losing control.

Crack-down

“And, really, ever since he came in in 2012, 2013, the Communist leadership have cracked down everywhere, on dissidents, in Xinjiang, with probably well over one million people locked up in what are, in effect, concentration camps, breaking their word in the South China Sea with the militarisation of atolls and bases, and behaviour towards Hong Kong.

“And I think a document which everyone should be aware of, and it’s had, I think, too little attention from people when looking at China, is a document called, in a rather Orwellian way, Communiqué Number Nine, sent out in 2013, not long after Xi Jinping became dictator, to warn the party and the government against the devils of liberal democracy.

“Anybody who says, ‘We don’t want a cold war with China, we don’t want to regard China as an enemy’, I understand that sentiment, but the trouble is that China regards us as an enemy.

Hostile

“China regards all the things we stand for as hostile to the continuance in power of the Chinese Communist regime. It’s not the people of China that are the problem. It’s Xi Jinping and his apparatchiks.

“So, I think, ever since 2013 I’ve become more nervous, and I’ve said so.

“And I think what’s happened recently, the way in which the Xi Jinping dictatorship has taken advantage of the fact that the rest of the world is understandably obsessed with fighting the Coronavirus – which, of course, has got so much worse because of the initial cover-up by China – in order to flex their muscles, whether in relation to Taiwan, or fishing vessels in the South China Sea, and to try to turn the screws on Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong represents all the things that they hate.” 

Tougher approach

Patten said that, while the West must take a much tougher approach to China, it should not ever try to cut off all relationships with China.

“But there’s a difference between that and getting all sort of mushy and romantic and soft-headed about what China stands for,” he said.

Predatory investment

Patten pointed to German nervousness about predatory investment by China in the robotics industry, and said a British or a German firm could never take over robotics manufacturing in China.

Patten continued that the Chinese regime’s contempt for human rights, and gross maltreatment of Muslim Uighurs is a factor of Leninist Communism.

“After all, you can’t say it’s a cultural factor. Taiwan is a Chinese community, Hong Kong is a Chinese community, and in both of those, people believe passionately in freedom,” he said.

On the Huawei 5G deal, Patten said British security services were clear-headed about China.

“I don’t mean by that [that] they’re hostile to China. I’m not hostile to China. I’m just very wary about this Chinese Communist regime. 

Bending the rules

“I think China is a fantastic civilisation. I’ve read huge amounts of Chinese history. One of the greatest novelists today is a Chinese, Ma Jian, who lives in London, and his book Beijing Coma is one of the great works of the last part of the last century.

“I’m very, very positive about China, but I’m very, very negative about the Chinese Communist Party.”

He said Britain should look at its relationship with China in every sector – trade, education, investment, security, and see where they bend the rules.

Supply chains

“We need to be absolutely clear about supply chains, about the independence of strategic industries, and act accordingly.”

Patten concluded that Britain leaving the European Union was “shooting ourselves in both feet”.

He described the refusal to accept an extension in order to negotiate a better deal as a triumph of ideology over reason and political good sense.