Los Angeles Times INTERVIEW : Chris Patten : Caught in the Center of Hong Kong’s Emerging Democracy

More than any other individual, Hong Kong Gov. Chris Patten has emerged at the center of the maelstrom of political conflict between China and the West. Patten is the principal figure in the controversy between Britain and China over democracy in Hong Kong.

Under a 1984 agreement known as the Joint Declaration, Britain agreed to return Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997. Under the formula that Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping called “one country, two systems,” China agreed to let Hong Kong retain its capitalist system, many of its civil liberties and “a high degree of autonomy” for another 50 years after the Chinese takeover.

While the agreement guaranteed that Hong Kong would have an elected legislature, it didn’t spell out how these elections would take place or how much democracy Hong Kong would have. For most of the past decade, Britain has repeatedly given in to China by weakening or delaying proposals for direct elections in Hong Kong.

However, Patten, who was appointed governor last July, infuriated the Chinese leadership by introducing a series of proposals to open the way for greater democracy and more directly elected representatives in Hong Kong’s final few years under British rule. China not only denounced the proposals, but also unleashed a torrent of abuse on Patten, calling him a “serpent” and a “prostitute.”

Actually, until last year, Patten, 49, had the career of a fairly conventional British Tory politician. Educated at Oxford, he rose through the ranks of the Conservative Party and was elected a member of Parliament in 1979. He became chairman of the Conservative Party in 1990; last year, he helped organize the electoral victory of his close friend, Prime Minister John Major.

Ironically, however, Patten himself lost his seat in Bath during the same election. Patten was thus available when Major, unhappy with Britain’s policy of trying to conciliate China’s wishes in Hong Kong, decided to appoint a new Hong Kong governor with a mandate to take a tougher stance toward Beijing.

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Q: Why should Americans care whether your proposals for democracy in Hong Kong succeed or fail?

A: Americans are inevitably interested, because Hong Kong is an international community. It’s the gateway to China and the Asian economy. And the United States has a huge investment in Hong Kong and a tremendous interest in the swing door that Hong Kong represents between East and West. . . . America has a $7-billion investment in Hong Kong, in a business community of maybe 25,000. I suppose 23,000 or 24,000 Hong Kongers are employed by U.S. companies. . . . And I think that since Hong Kong’s prosperity depends to a considerable extent on its way of life continuing as it is, America should be interested in securing that objective.

Q: Did you have any idea before you put forward your proposals that China would react in the way that it did?

A: Some people said that in the range of decibel counts, it was possible that the noise level could reach that which has been achieved in the last few months. But I think the general view was that even if China didn’t much care for the proposals, they’d be prepared to try to talk about them rationally. And I think that was the general feeling in Hong Kong and outside that China has grossly overreacted.

Q: Why was your proposal such a threat? Is it a matter that the idea that’s symbolized by your reforms might creep up into South China and on up toward Shanghai and Beijing?

A: It’s difficult to understand why a government of 1.1 billion people that embarked on a hugely successful opening-up of its economy should be worried about proposals that hardly represent a huge leap toward democracy in Hong Kong, where there are 6 million people. I think my proposals are extremely modest--if I hadn’t been attacked so strongly by China, I’m sure that some people would have said excessively modest.

It’s difficult to comprehend how such proposals can be regarded as a worry by the Chinese leadership. . . . How can China be so concerned about our determination to have clean elections rather than rigged elections? Can China really be surprised to discover that we take what the Joint Declaration says about Hong Kong’s way of life--Hong Kong’s freedoms--seriously? Does China really find it so objectionable to discover that the United Kingdom and the Hong Kong government have a bottom line? Maybe it’s the discovery of that bottom line that has upset them.

Q: What is that bottom line?

A: That bottom line is that the arrangements for the last elections under British sovereignty have to be fair. We’re not proposing a much more rapid pace toward democracy, but I don’t think it would be conducive to political stability if I was to agree to arrangements that plainly try to skew the elections in (Beijing’s) favor. Equally, we believe that if we’re going to negotiate with China arrangements that go through 1997 smoothly, it doesn’t make much sense for the Chinese to resist the proposition that the people elected under those arrangements should themselves go through 1997.

Q: Critics say the British government has waited for well over a century to press ahead with democracy in Hong Kong, and it’s only in the last few years that it belatedly does so. What’s the response?

A: Hong Kong is in almost a unique position. Virtually everywhere else, we’ve been preparing communities for independence. We did so particularly in the postwar years, beginning with India, by introducing democracy, introducing laws, making sure that there was the rule of law and independent courts, introducing an independent civil service. Those were the ingredients of the independent states that we created from our colonial inheritance.

Hong Kong was different. Hong Kong wasn’t being prepared for independence. In Hong Kong, we were preparing--for reasons of history and geography and international agreements--for the resumption of sovereignty by China. Whenever the United Kingdom suggested doing in Hong Kong what had happened elsewhere--that is, introducing more democratic structures--there was a huge fuss from China. For example, from Chou En-lai in the 1950s. So always precisely because of the destination toward that Hong Kong was inevitably headed, we behaved differently in Hong Kong than the way we behaved elsewhere.

Q: Between the ’84 agreement and your arrival, the British government sometimes delayed or weakened proposals of democracy in response to Chinese objections. Did that make your job more difficult, and your proposals all the more surprising to Beijing?

A: I hope it hasn’t been the case in the past that China hasn’t taken seriously our commitment to given policy objectives in Hong Kong. Certainly, they should regard me as an open book, because I’ve set out objectives in a moderate and sensible way. And the Chinese shouldn’t be surprised that I like to keep my word. I am immensely easy to read. But it does involve Chinese officials recognizing that, like them, I have principled positions that I feel strongly about.

Q: What’s it feel like day in and day out in Hong Kong to know that when things go sour or when China reacts to some action or another of yours, the Hong Kong stock market can go down 5% or more?

A: I think it is probably, yet again, an indication the stock markets aren’t the best reflections of reality. The Hang Seng index is a great deal higher than it was when I arrived as the governor of Hong Kong. But that, I think, represents, above all, what’s happened to our underlying economy rather than the ups and downs of political storms. We have a hugely successful economy, which has quadrupled in the last couple of decades, growing at 5% to 6%. . . . We’ve just had a budget in which we could cut taxes, increase spending and announce an increase in our reserves for the future.

Q: Can the Chinese influence , directly or indirectly , the market from day to day?

A: Yes, so it’s said. Greater experts than I point to the way mainland companies come in and out of the market. There are sometimes--and I’m choosing my words carefully--extraordinary signs of buying just before political announcements are made. Or selling just before political announcements are made. Who knows whether those are coincidental.

Q: Why have you come (to the United States) now? Am I correct that the timing is related to U.S. consideration of most-favored-nation (MFN) status for China?

A: Yes. . . . I don’t want to pronounce my views on what the impact on China would be, nor my views on what the impact on the United States would be. But I do think that it’s reasonable to be able to say what the consequences could be for Hong Kong. China and the United States are our two biggest trading partners, so we’ve obviously got a huge interest in (maintaining China’s) MFN (status).

Q: Is it ironic that the objectives of those who want to impose conditions on MFN -- and at least on the record, that would include the President at this point -- are precisely greater democracy and human rights, very much the same objectives as your proposals for Hong Kong?

A: What I shall be seeking to argue is that as far as Hong Kong is concerned, it wouldn’t help us in any way to hurt our economy. And I also argue that, in my judgment, it’s sensible to keep politics and trade separate--insofar as you can. . . I do think that trade, as a process, helps to open up people’s economies, and opening up people’s economies has social and political consequences. Trade, as a weapon, is two-edged. I don’t think that you can use it as a weapon without hurting yourself, as well as the other side.

Q: Many of the arguments that the business community makes for preserving MFN -- don’t push the Chinese too hard because it could be counterproductive -- are the same arguments I’ve heard made by the business community in opposing your proposals concerning democracy in Hong Kong.

A: I think the business community in Hong Kong doesn’t always recognize the huge importance of the rule of law to Hong Kong’s prosperity. And the rule of law isn’t just about judges sitting in independent courts. It’s also about free press and a credible legislature. If you take away those things, you will lose the real difference between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, or between Hong Kong and Shanghai.

So, instead of it being “one country, two systems,” it becomes one country, one-and-a-bit systems. Once you do that, why should Hong Kong have a better credit rating? Why should American banks be locking up billions of assets in Hong Kong rather than in Taipei or Singapore or Seoul? So, I think that the business community in Hong Kong, or those members of the business community who don’t recognize the importance of the rule of law to our way of life, and to our prosperity, are actually failing to understand where the long-term economic interests of Hong Kong lie.

Q: Can you give me an idea what Hong Kong will look like after ’97 if you succeed or if you fail? What will its role be?

A: If my proposals succeed, what does that mean? . . . Success for me is an arrangement for the elections in ’95 that aren’t skewed to produce a rubber-stamp legislative council, and legislators who are elected in ’95 and go through to ’99.

If Hong Kong manages to secure all those things set out in such painstaking detail in the Joint Declaration, if that is what Hong Kong is like after 1997, I’ve got no doubt at all that Hong Kong will play in the opening up of China the same sort of role that New York played in relation to the U.S. at the turn of the century. I think Hong Kong has that huge potential. It’s the gateway to China, at the crossroads of Asia. It has an enormously exciting future, provided it retains its unique nature, its essence. That’s the test.

Q: And if your proposals fail?

A: If before 1997 we’re not able to stand up for Hong Kong’s uniqueness, what chance after that? Hong Kong will doubtless go on prospering. But I don’t think it will be as successful as it would be if it retains that astonishing combination, that astonishing chemistry, of Cantonese, Shanghainese entrepreneurialism under the rule of law.

Q: Then it will be just another Chinese city?

A: Well, it was presumably because he didn’t envision that future that Deng Xiaoping coined the expression, “One country, two systems.” And Hong Kong’s system is about a lot more than the capitalist allocation of resources. That’s the point I have to get across.

Q: Will you be there in Hong Kong on June 30, 1997, when the Union Jack comes down for the last time?

A: The last time I answered a question like that, I said yes, I would be, God willing. That was taken as being a sign that I was about to pack. It was only an attempt to show an appropriate lack of hubris. So while recognizing the presence that the Almighty plays in all our affairs, and genuflecting in that direction, the simple answer is: Yes.