PRESS RELEASE: Lord Patten lecture calls for Hong Kong independent inquiry and political reforms

On 3rd February, Lord Patten of Barnes, the last British governor of Hong Kong, delivered an hour-long lecture in Central Hall Westminster at Hong Kong Watch’s inaugural Paddy Ashdown Memorial Lecture.

The lecture was one of Lord Patten’s most substantial speeches on Hong Kong in recent years, covering his views on the trajectory of Hong Kong since the handover, his analysis of the Hong Kong protests and the next steps the government of the city ought to take, as well as remarks on UK-China policy. He began his speech by expressing support and sympathy for Wuhan and the health workers there.

Patten proposed that an independent inquiry, reform of public order legislation and political reforms should all form part of a road map towards the reconciliation of Hong Kong’s society.

On the topic of an inquiry, he said:

“Most important of all, if Hong Kong is to return to normal and to rehabilitate the reputation of the police there should be a proper independent public inquiry into the reasons for the demonstrations, the behaviour of the demonstrators, and the conduct of the police.   The idea that the existing police complaints machinery is adequate to the task is plainly nonsense. The international experts who were asked by the government to advise on how this body could become more credible resigned rather than associate themselves with an impossible task. Would such an inquiry destroy the morale of the police service?   More likely it would demonstrate that the police were put in an impossible position by the government. It will be difficult to restore faith in the police, and the spirit and morale of the hitherto excellent police service without a transparent accounting.  And we need to be clear about the provocations that were sometimes faced. In Northern Ireland where the Commission which I led reformed the police service and public order policing, we had a series of open, public meetings that gave transparency to the whole question of reform. An inquiry could do the same as well as providing a pause in the on-going turbulence.

He continued to address political reforms:

“There is also a case for revising at the same time, or subsequently, public order legislation and its relationship to the terms of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which is written into Hong Kong’s constitution.   Alongside all this, there may be a case for considering the use of amnesties covering both immunity from prosecution and pardons for some who have been arrested during the civil conflict.   This has been done in Hong Kong before and it would obviously need to be carefully framed focussing on alleged crimes that did not involve violence or were committed by children.

On the broader political issues – the election of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, the constitution of the election committee that chooses him or her before this is determined by universal suffrage, and the way in which the Legislative Council is elected – I would simply hope that the Hong Kong government would be encouraged by Beijing to enter into open-ended discussions with the political parties and civil society on how to begin a process leading to the outcome Hong Kong was promised by Communist leaders before and immediately after 1997. I remain wholly convinced that Hong Kong is a politically moderate community. It take extremes of immoderation to get it to behave in any other way.”

Patriotic education

Separately Lord Patten slammed the idea that the introduction of anti-subversion or patriotic education would help to reunite Hong Kong’s society:

“It would have been helpful if Hong Kong’s citizens had been given some assurance that the Communist leaders were not going to return to the idea that what Hong Kong needs is a strong dose of what the Communist Central Committee recently described in an Orwellian document as so-called “patriotic education”.  This should stand beside – so some Communists argue – a new law on subversion.  Hong Kong has been pushed down this road before and resisted both ideas very strongly.  I am both surprised and saddened that the new head of the Liaison Office has already proposed this.  In how many different ways does Hong Kong have to say “no”?”  

Hong Kong and the future of liberal democracy

In the concluding remarks of the lecture, Patten turned to the implications of the Hong Kong situation for the future of liberal democracies.

He said: “How will all this turn out?   What will be the old or the new normal in Hong Kong?   The outcome is important not just to the city and to its old and present sovereigns;   it is squarely in the cross-hairs of questions about the role of China in the century ahead and the relationship between authoritarian bullying and liberal democracy, between socialist (not that there is much in China on show) totalitarianism and western open societies living under the rule of law.

I am not remotely arguing for a boycott of China or an attempt to cut China off from the rest of the international community.    Far from it.    I just think that the Chinese Communist government should be encouraged to play by the same international rules as the rest of us.    The world would be safer for us and for other liberal democracies if we ensured a value-based cornerstone to our dealings with China.    We should do this together and not allow ourselves to be picked off by ill-judged bullying mercantilism one by one.

The truth is that behaving in a way that corresponds with our traditional values does not threaten economic catastrophe.   The idea that you can only do business with China if you say and do what Beijing wants has always been nonsense.     That is as true of Britain as of others.    Whatever became of the cornucopia that was supposed to come with the “golden era” of Britain’s dealings with China:  this is the usual self-serving guff.

So to return to Hong Kong, we should not be browbeaten into embarrassed silence if China breaks its word consistently over this wonderful city which exemplifies so many values which Xi Jinping’s Communist Party wants to bury wherever it spots them.”   

Watch the full lecture delivered by Lord Patten here.