Jonathan Dimbleby - The Last Governor: Chris Patten and the Handover of Hong Kong

Distinguished broadcaster and writer Jonathan Dimbleby is the presenter of LWTs flagship political programme Jonathan Dimbleby and BBC Radio 4s Any Questions and Any Answers. He was the ITV anchorman for the 1997 general election. His books include two highly acclaimed biographies, Richard Dimbleby (1975), and The Prince of Wales (1994).

An award-winning reporter, he has made current affairs and documentary films in more than sixty countries around the world. They include Charles: The Private Man, The Public Role (1994), which provoked international headlines and a significant reappraisal of the Prince of Wales in the British media, and The Last Governor (1997), a five-part television series on Chris Patten and the handover of Hong Kong, an independent production for the BBC.

Jonathan Dimbleby is married to the novelist and broadcaster Bel Mooney. They live in Somerset.

By the same author

R ICHARD D IMBLEBY : A Biography

T HE P ALESTINIANS

T HE P RINCE OF W ALES : A Biography

Chris Patten
and the Handover
of Hong Kong

J ONATHAN D IMBLEBY

First published in Great Britain in 1997,

Reprinted in this format in 2018 by

PEN & SWORD HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley, South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Jonathan Dimbleby 1997, 2018

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

HB ISBN 978 1 52670 063 6

PB ISBN 978 1 52670 183 1

eISBN 978 1 52670 065 0

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52670 064 3

The right of Jonathan Dimbleby to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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For Bel

O ver the five years of this project, I have received kindness and hospitality in abundance from many people in Hong Kong and London. For that and more I owe them a huge debt of gratitude. All of those listed below have not only been generous with their time but have helped me to a better understanding of the issues that form the subject matter of this book. Many of them have spent long hours exploring with me their differing and frequently rivalrous viewpoints on Hong Kong. Some of them will disagree bitterly with my interpretation and judgement. None of them should be blamed for my opinions. One or two of those who have offered particularly helpful insights have asked not to be identified. I am in their debt no less than I am to the following.

David Akers-Jones, Martin Barrow, Sir Jack Cater, Anson Chan, Professor Edward Chen, George and Rowena Chen, Cheung Man Yee, David Chu, Francis Cornish, William Courtauld, Sir Percy Cradock, Hugh Davies, Dr Michael Degoylyer, Martin Dinham, Jamie Dundas, Baroness Lydia Dunn, Major-General Bryan Dutton, William Ehrman, Sir David Ford, Sir Alastair Goodlad, Leo Goodstadt, Han Dongfang, Mike Hanson, Hari Harilela and his family, Richard Hoare, Michael Howard, Lord Howe of Aberavon, Christopher Hum, Douglas Hurd, Jimmy Lai, Albert Lam, Norris Lam, Emily Lau, Allen Lee, Commander Dick Lee, Martin Lee, Dr C. H. Leong, Bowen Leung, Edward Llewellyn, Vincent Lo, Christine Loh, Ma Yuzhen, Kerry McGlynn, Sir Robin McLaren, the Lord MacLehose of Beoch, Richard Margolis, Simon Murray, Ng Koon Leung, Margaret Ng, Bob Peirce, Sir Charles Powell, Peter Ricketts, Malcolm Rifkind, William Shawcross, Michael Sze, David Tang, Baroness Thatcher, Nancy Thompson, Peter Thompson, Hank Townsend, Tsang Yok Sing, Simon Vickers, Wong Oi Ying, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, Peter Woo, Minky Worden, Grace Wu, Gordon Wu and Lord Young of Graffham.

Chris and Lavender Patten have had many burdens to bear in Hong Kong. I added to these by consuming many hours of their precious time. Like many others over the last five years, I have been a beneficiary of their goodwill, their kindness, the warmth of their hospitality, and wondrously their sense of perspective.

Caroline Courtauld has been a consummate guide and mentor. Her diaries, which have been a delight to read, were also an invaluable source of illumination. Sister Helen Kennys religious duties command many hours of commitment and yet for the love of the subject, she managed to find time, throughout the last five years, to create and maintain a beautifully ordered cuttings library without which I would frequently have been lost. Both Sister Helen and Caroline Courtauld were assisted by Fanny Wong, who also helped to organise my life on most of my whistle-stop visits. Gary Pollard provided me with his extensive research notes into the Hong Kong media and related issues. Jonathan Mirsky, a distinguished foreign correspondent, was generous with his knowledge, his opinions and his Italian home cooking. He took the trouble to make available to me the original drafts of many of his articles for The Times , and for this, and more, I am in his debt. Stella Ma was a skilful and sensitive interpreter. I am grateful, too, to Robin Allison Smith for the care and speed with which he took many of the photographs in this book.

As a longstanding colleague and friend, Francis Gerard was in at the start of this project. His judgement, his enthusiasm and his company have made a sometimes daunting task far easier to accomplish than it would otherwise have been. These qualities are shared by my PA, Georgie Grindlay, who not only transcribed hundreds of hours of taped interviews (forming her own fierce views about Hong Kong in the process), but made sense of incoherent notes and half-formed ideas written on the backs of envelopes. I have benefited greatly from her opinions and her commitment.

Philippa Harrison, the chief executive of Little, Brown, had the original faith to commission the book and has been astute and wise throughout. Caroline North, my editor, has not only been meticulous but contrived to restructure key parts of my original manuscript with skill and tact and at great speed. Cheung Man Yee, Francis Gerard, Mike Hanson and Caroline Courtauld read all or parts of my text and made many helpful criticisms and suggestions. All of them should share the credit for any virtues that may be detected in The Last Governor, they bear no responsibility for any of its vices.

Bel, my wife, has been stoical, wise and my unfailing support in times of stress. But then, she always is.

T he first edition of The Last Governor was published a few days after the handover of Hong Kong to China at midnight on 30 June 1997. Britains departure had been accomplished with dignity. After a turbulent five years, Chris Patten, the last governor, was garlanded in accolades. In the subsequent months his stature has been, if anything, enhanced. In the 1998 New Year Honours he was duly appointed a Companion of Honour, and in April he was asked by the prime minister, Tony Blair, to chair the independent commission examining the future of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The Last Governor itself has provoked bitter controversy as those who are disposed to believe that Chris Patten did well by Hong Kong have taken issue with others a minority who think otherwise. The matters which have given rise to the strongest debate cluster around the conduct of British foreign policy on Hong Kong in the years leading up to Pattens appointment in 1992; around the battles between Whitehall and Patten during his tenure; and around Pattens own outspoken observations about his adversaries, not only in Beijing and Hong Kong, but in London as well.